From Vice Chief of Naval Operations to Federal Prisoner, and for What?

a cautionary tale

I think it is more than reasonable to be mad, frustrated, angry, or sad at this sad end, at least for now, to a story no one wants to hear.

Via Salvador Rizzo over at WaPo.

Retired Adm. Robert P. Burke, who was convicted of corruption offenses after a four-decade military career in which he rose to become the Navy’s second-highest-ranking officer, was sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison, days after the trial of the tech executives who were accused of bribing him ended with a hung jury.

Burke served as vice chief of naval operations from 2019 to 2020, overseeing personnel, training and education for the branch’s nearly 400,000 uniformed members. The Portage, Michigan, native retired in 2022 as the Navy’s commander for Europe and Africa after numerous postings around the world and over 17 years at sea. He is appealing his convictions.

As a reminder, here is what he was found guilty of.

…federal prosecutors said Burke capped his distinguished career as a four-star admiral with “a stunning abuse of power,” ordering his subordinates to award a no-bid contract worth $355,000 in the waning days of 2021 to a New York tech company whose executives had promised to make him a millionaire after retirement. Burke was convicted in May of bribery, conspiracy, acts affecting a personal financial interest and concealing material facts.

“This is a sad day and a sad chapter for the Navy,” U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden said as he imposed the sentence, noting that Burke lied to law enforcement officials during the initial stages of the investigation, “promptly sought to destroy evidence” and had expressed no remorse.

“This was blatantly unlawful, as you well knew from your role just months before as the Navy’s chief ethics officer,” McFadden said before repeating the warning Burke gave his subordinates when he issued the Navy’s standards of conduct: “A single poor decision could destroy a lifetime of service.”

The last I touched on this was over a year ago on the Midrats Podcast. This will probably be the last time I comment on this specific case.

Almost everyone here should be able to do the math on the investment the US Navy and the taxpayers who support her invested in Burke, and at the end of the day, this is where his story ends.

It is helpful to remind everyone of the retirement pay for O-10s, full Admirals, at retirement. I tried to use the official US gov’munt websites to find this out, but they are the best 1998 could produce, so I asked Grok. It should give us +/- 10%.

For a US military O-10 (four-star general or admiral) retiring with 40 years of service under the legacy High-3 retirement system, the retirement pay multiplier is 2.5% per year of service, resulting in 100% of the high-three average basic pay (the average of the highest 36 months of basic pay). Assuming the retiree has held O-10 pay grade for at least the final three years (common for those reaching this rank with 40 years total service), the high-three average equals the 2025 O-10 monthly basic pay rate of $18,808.20.

• Monthly retirement pay: $18,808.20

• Annualized retirement pay: $225,698.40

That doesn’t include TSP, medical, and other benefits…or any other savings and investments any normal human would acquire by their mid-60s.

Civilians would blanch at such a lifetime annuity.

Military retirement is often described as a delayed compensation benefit, as most could have earned more in the civilian sector. Yes, ideally, no one joins the service for the cash, but here we are anyway.

It has also been described to me since I was a Midshipman that it is also generous, especially for our most senior personnel, such that they won’t have to sell themselves to industry in order to live comfortably.

I stopped believing that by the time I made LT. It may have been true once, but now such statement will just provoke laughter. It works for some, but not for all. It is very human for many to believe that too much is never enough, especially when they develop a very rich peer group in DC.

While, at the end of the day, this is a personal failure, this also represents an institutional failure with regard to our General Officer and Flag Officer (GOFO) cadre.

As the cohort is not good at policing itself, and the bad apples are left to sit in the bucket, spoiling the bunch, then Congress needs to step in to put in more guard rails.

As I first proposed well over a decade and a half ago, it is well past the time for THE SALAMANDER BILL;

For a period of no less than five years from their effective date of retirement, General Officers and Flag Officers shall not be employed by, be an independent or subcontractor to, an officer of, or a member of a board of directors - compensated or not - with any publicly or privately held company that does business with the Department of Defense.

If the SALAMANDER BILL had passed, Burke would never have been drawn into this web, but it wasn’t and he was. As such, not only is he damaged, but the US Navy is damaged, and the entire GOFO cadre is as well. Layer on all the board hopping and mind-numbing politicization, the retired GOFO are almost demanding broad action.

As a second step, should start at the incentives and disincentives that get people to the highest levels. We need to be much more selective about the number of people promoted to GOFO. As I outlined back in May about our 1:6,000 v.1:1,400 problem.

No one can justify the bloated GOFO force. It isn’t just the people, it is the staffs and bureaucracy that come with each one of them.

It is well past time for a root and branch reform of our General Officer and Flag Officer cadre. Change what is rewarded, and you will select a different type of person. Except for those who have benefited the most from today’s system, I know of few who will argue we are promoting our best.

The product speaks for itself.

Yes, we will hear all sorts of excuses why we can’t afford to cut GOFO numbers, that it is actually good that they are pimping out their contact list to industry, that there is no problem for them to work for the companies they were just weeks prior deciding if they would or would not get billions of dollars of contracts, that everything in our senior uniformed leadership is just fine and dandy.

Sure, we can hear those excuses, but with each passing day, fewer people will buy them—and once respected institutions erode away.