Posted on: Sunday, April 29, 2001

Civilian military visits should go on, carefully

On balance, the Navy made the right decision to maintain its program of embarking civilians aboard warships as part of its overall public relations effort.

But the decision to continue the trips, made in the wake of a collision between the Navy submarine USS Greenville and a Japanese fishing boat, may have come too fast. While the underlying concept of the civilian visits is strong, greater reflection on the Greenville incident might have led to more substantial changes.

Testimony from the inquiry into the collision revealed that the Greeneville was at sea that day primarily — perhaps solely — to entertain a group of well-connected civilian friends of the Navy. There was also the suggestion that the sub might never have put to sea under ordinary circumstances because a piece of sonar equipment was not working.

Lack of that piece of equipment was not, in itself, particularly hazardous. But if the sub had not been on a rigid schedule for the sake of its visitors, the trip might have been put off for another day.

Also, while the presence of the group of civilians did not cause the accident, they were at least a mild distraction from the state of hyper-alertness ordinarily maintained by a sub crew.

And finally, the fact that civilians were on board and — at least nominally at the controls at the time of the accident — may have explained why the Navy was less-than-forthcoming in the immediate hours and days following the tragedy.

What does tell us? Not that such civilian interactions should end. The last thing we need is a wall dropped between the armed forces and the taxpaying civilian community. If anything, there is a need for greater interaction, greater understanding.

But the pursuit of this valuable goal must not be allowed to slip into PR gimmickry or expensive joy rides for the privileged few. The civilian visits must be carefully monitored, secondary to ongoing regular mission requirements, democratically distributed and strictly — strictly — by the book.