As Navy seeks ethos, MCPON has a suggestion

[unhappycamper]

‘Ship, shipmate, self’
Campa: Line of thinking has lasted 233 years


As Navy seeks ethos, MCPON has a suggestion
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Oct 14, 2008 7:17:49 EDT

Five months after the Navy began soliciting suggestions for a servicewide “ethos,” its top enlisted leader seemed to offer his own submission Thursday in a message commemorating the Navy’s birthday.

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SW/FMF) Joe Campa cited a young sailor aboard the destroyer Ross as someone who is “living a sailor’s ethos of ‘ship, shipmate self,’ because that is who we are. That’s what we hold ourselves to and it defines us, as it has for 233 years. Because of sailors like him, and like you, I don’t see that ethos ever changing.”

The sailor, Gas Turbine System Technician (Mechanical) Fireman Recruit Rehnquist Wright, has been in the Navy only about a year, Campa wrote, “but he has the attitude and the swagger that has come to define us as sailors. Ask his shipmates aboard Ross and they’ll tell you the pride he takes in finding a way to get the job done.”

Campa’s was the latest in a series of birthday messages over the past week from top Navy leaders, including Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead and Navy Secretary Donald Winter. On Monday, the Navy celebrates the 233rd year since the Continental Congress first authorized the use of armed ships to fight the British at sea.

But Campa’s message was the first mention of an “ethos” from a top Navy leader since the May servicewide message seeking suggestions for a formal Navy statement of principle.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/10/navy_ethos_update_101308/%2e

[Captain Hilts]

1. Happy Birthday Navy -