John Hemry - A Just Determination

Garrity nodded. "There's no question that had Captain Wakeman paid more attention to the support some of his crew offered, he would not have found himself and his ship confronting the situation they did. I'm only guessing, but I believe the members concluded that Captain Wakeman's failure to listen to his officers and subsequent flawed decisions didn't rise to the necessary levels of culpable negligence or dereliction of duty needed to convict Wakeman on those charges. I've no doubt the members disapproved of Wakeman's decisions, but it's a fact of naval service that when Captain Wakeman was placed in command of the USS Michaelson he was granted the authority to use his own discretion for better or worse. And your testimony established that his orders left reasonable room for arguing that Wakeman's decisions fell within the wide discretionary boundaries established by those orders. Thanks for playing such a critical role in the case, although I admit neither I nor anyone else expected that of you when all this started."

Paul took the offered hand, shaking his head as he did so. "My testimony couldn't have been that important. Commander Herdez-"

"Commander Herdez is obviously an excellent officer, and equally obviously an officer who believes it is her duty to support her commanding officer. That loyalty is commendable but since it left Commander Herdez little room to testify in any other way than she did, her testimony didn't carry nearly as much weight as it otherwise would have. You, on the other hand, had no obvious motive for your testimony. You're clearly not stupid, so you couldn't have believed that hitching your wagon to Wakeman would be a good career move. You didn't like the man and you didn't like what he'd done. But you still felt obligated by a higher sense of duty to testify in his favor. I guarantee you the members of court-martial were impressed by that."

"Well… thank you, ma'am."

"Are you sure you're not interested in becoming a lawyer?"

"No, ma'am! No offense."

"That's okay, Mr. Sinclair. Good-bye and good luck."

Paul headed for the door, seeing that everyone else from the Michaelson had now left. He was almost there when Commander Herdez appeared in the opening. "Ensign Sinclair."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Would you care to accompany me to the officer's club bar?"

"Ma'am?" Paul looked around, expecting to see other officers who'd been invited to the same location. They must already be on the way there. "Certainly, ma'am."

But when they reached the bar it was empty but for one table where Admiral Fowler and Captain Nguyen were already kicking back and swapping sea stories. Herdez stopped briefly to pay them her respects, then led Paul to the far side of the bar. "What are you drinking, Mr. Sinclair?"

"Rum and Coke, ma'am."

"A good choice. I'll have the same." Herdez sat silently until their drinks came, then for a few moments longer, taking an occasional sip of her drink. "They serve good rum here. Barbados. Martinique. Saint Croix. Have you been to the Caribbean, Mr. Sinclair?"

"Just on training cruises, ma'am."

"A lot of fine sailors left their bones in those waters, Mr. Sinclair. We carry a considerable burden when we don these uniforms. We need to live up to those sailors' finest moments, and avoid their worst failures. Both as officers and as individuals." Paul, uncertain as to what if anything to say, waited until Herdez spoke again. "Captain Wakeman is not the finest officer I ever served under. I know you're well aware of his shortcomings. It's easy to follow great leaders, Mr. Sinclair. They make it easy. You accomplish great things because they make it easy. The challenge for all of us is to succeed when we do not benefit from a great leader."

"I never thought about that before, ma'am. But that's true."

"I know how the junior officers think, Mr. Sinclair. I was actually an ensign once, myself." Herdez smiled sardonically as she took another drink. "They wondered why I backed Captain Wakeman the way I did, even when the captain's actions were clearly unprofessional or mistaken. You've wondered that, haven't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Herdez seemed to be looking through the far wall of the bar, out through the intervening bulkheads and out into empty space. "Duty is a very stern mistress, Mr. Sinclair. It left me no alternative. Ultimately, the decision on how to interpret and act upon our orders rested with Captain Wakeman. As your testimony made clear, Captain Wakeman was put in a very difficult position by the wording of his orders and his mission assignment."

"Lieutenant Commander Garrity said the same thing, ma'am, but I thought the members of the court-martial didn't seem all that impressed by the fact that I thought the orders were hard to understand."

"They were impressed, Mr. Sinclair. They wanted to be sure you could reason well, but I have worked with officers such as Admiral Fowler and Captain Nguyen in the past. I know they believe it is our responsibility to draft our orders in such a fashion that they can even be understood by an ensign. I hope you don't take that statement adversely."

Paul couldn't help smiling. "No, ma'am."

"Good. You, personally, revealed during your testimony and the cross-examination that you can understand and interpret orders. But if the orders received by you or any other officer favor confusion and convoluted sentences over clarity and conciseness, it is little wonder if those officers are left uncertain as to the proper course of action either before or during a crisis. It is also little wonder if such an officer takes steps of which we disapprove after we have provided so little clear guidance as to proper courses of action, even if the officer is already a paragon of good judgment."

Paul nodded, not saying what both Herdez and he knew, that Wakeman had been far from a paragon of good judgment.

Herdez looked back at her drink. "The orders issued to Captain Wakeman in this case only exacerbated the challenge to his personal judgment. He did not rise to the necessary levels of performance, but that is not a criminal offense. The members of the court, by their recommendation that Captain Wakeman's qualifications for command be reviewed with an eye to revocation, obviously believed that failure does indicate Captain Wakeman is unsuitable for further command level assignments."

"Ma'am, even with those orders, wasn't there something else we could have done? Before something like destroying that SASAL ship happened?"

Herdez glanced at him. "What you're really asking is if I could have done something else. Correct? Because I was the officer in the best position to do so. But, as I said before, duty left me no alternative but to support Captain Wakeman's decisions."

"You could talk to the captain in private, couldn't you?"

"Mr. Sinclair, you heard my testimony. You know I did that. But that's as far as it can go. Publicly, I must back the captain's decisions. All of them. And the captain must trust me to do so. Do you understand why?"

Paul stared down at the surface of the bar. "Not entirely."

"You will. Someday. For now, let me ask you. Suppose I overruled one thing the captain ordered. Just one thing. What would happen forever after when the captain issued an order?"

"We'd all look to see if you were going to overrule it. Is that why you needed to back Captain Wakeman, ma'am? Because otherwise he wouldn't really be captain?"

She took another drink. "A good leader doesn't need unquestioning obedience. People follow that leader because they choose to, because that leader has their trust. A poor leader requires unquestioning obedience, because without that a poor leader will lose all meaningful ability to exercise command. Would I have been fulfilling my duty to the Navy if I had caused Captain Wakeman to lose his ability to command the ship?"