Fullbore Friday
just stand up when others will remain seated
This AM I checked up on the traffic of the 20th-anniversary of “CDR Salamander” podcast with Claude Berube and our brief conversation about our late mutual friend, Raymond Pritchett and how he remains a great counter to any of the intellectually insecure people who are the first to reach to credentialism to shut people up.
There was another guy similar to Raymond that I wrote about in 2013 for a FbF, and I think it is time to bring it back.
How can a nondescript insurance guy from Maryland be the subject of a Fbf?
Did he serve in the military and do incredible things? No. Actually, he never served a day in his life.
Did he do something brave? Well, in a fashion - yes.
What he really did is use the power of the pen to do something that so many so-called leaders and recruiters never do - he inspired.
It has been years since I read Tom Clancy - but that is just because my taste in reading has changed and my reading time is too short. I have read quite a bit of his work, starting with an early 1984 edition of The Hunt for Red October. I don't know about you, but for 4/C MIDN Salamander, his book sparked an interest in my future profession like few other things.
Yes, it was fiction, but it made me want to know more. It made me go to the library - it made me wait for his next book too.
When first I heard of his passing, it was interesting to see how many people I have come to know in this little corner of the maritime national security arena seemed to come from a very similar place that I did when it came to Clancy. I found that not just interesting, but in a strange way - comforting.
He also spawned a whole new area of fiction and morphed other established genres of adventure fiction.
One of the better gifts he gave the national security arena is in the non-fiction area of thought at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. A lot of very smart folks who wanted to learn and engage in the marketplace of ideas in this area who just happened to never have worn the uniform could say to themselves, "Hey - if Clancy can learn all this stuff, so can I." Those minds have been a great addition to the conversation, providing a perspective those who are wearing or used to wear the uniform cannot have.
That is what is so fullbore about Tom Clancy. By inspiring people to learn more, read more, think more, engage more in the national security arena - he unquestionably made us a stronger and more vibrant nation.
Last night I had to think a bit about where his books were in my library. Middle stack, bottom shelf behind the door - right next to William F. Buckley Jr. and Robert Harris.
No, that order doesn't make sense - but that is where they were unpacked in 2009 when the once 4/C MIDN Salamander got ready to be CDR Salamander, USN (Ret.)
Maybe I need to pull out that 1984 imprint and read it again.
Anyway - 66 is a bit short to leave us and you've been in the shadows for a long time, but thanks and well done Mr. Clancy.
I remember as a P-3 pilot flying to the datum of a Soviet submarine seeing our acoustic operators reading the Hunt for Red October, then hours closely tracking the boomer or SSN, completing a constructive kill, and picking back up their reading as we RTB’d. When art and the art of ASW merge!
a few years back a family member gave me one of the newer Jack Ryan novels, written for the estate. My OCD kicked in and I had to go back and read them all from Red October to then present. Took about six months with other activities and reading thrown in, but it was an enjoyable experience again.
I think Red October was the first fiction published by Naval Institute Press. One of the next was Flight of the Intruder, which nearly cost me an A on an exam at the trade school when I was either plebe or youngster because I stayed up all night reading it.