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(More customer reviews)Lest there be doubts, IOWA exploded due to a combination of volatile gun power, the lack of safety interlocks, and an unknown event in Turret Two which pushed the crew faster than the power and gun system could manage. The men did their best given the constraints their peers, their command, and their Navy had placed upon them. I am IOWA's last Turret One Officer, at least the last Division Officer who daily mustered men on station in preparation for gunnery, underway. I am also one of the "Gang of Four" who aided Charlie with his book. My father retired after 38 years in the submarine service, and many of the senior officers in the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy while I was an officer knew of my father, and our family. From the outset, let me say that Charlie's book underscores the degeneration of what we used to call "they Navy Family". The command does not treat spouses and children (relatives, too) as an integrated part of the command (as it did when I was a child), or, indeed, as the citizens to which they are pledge to defend. Once you grasp this point, you can understand why the chain of command treated the memory, and families, of the IOWA-47 they way it did.This is a good book for prospective khaki or bluejacket to read, it is also a good book for Americans, in general, to read as they try to figure out whether the Justice Department has an accuracy problem with WACO, whether Energy Department employees were radiated and not told so, and whether gene therapy patients are dying without NIH knowing so -- there is a pattern of professional deceit centered on Washington these days. IOWA was just the first time the Officer Corps turned on its own men in order to save a Class of ship. Charlie and Dick's books must be read together, because I agree with reviewers who think Charlie came to the assignment with preconceptions. He is a Vietnam veteran, and he served with honor as a NGFS spotter. That war has left a bad taste in many a veteran's mouth. But his preconceptions were checked against the counsel of VADM Ed Snyder, who had more influence on this book than the reviewers may understand. Admiral Snyder's knowledge of the ship and its Class was unsurpassed. He was very hard on my comments to Charlie, and more than once he ferreted out bias on my part. Do not read this book looking for the excellence of IOWA, or of the great efforts of all crew members on April 19th. It is about the investigation, and that subject tailors all other facts. The complete story of the IOWA still waits to be told, and it would have to address why a "cover-up" was required at all. My own sense is that the trail exists all the way back to the decision, in the late 1970s, to reactivated the Class. Admiral Macauley seemed to understand this; Admiral Boorda knew it. The ships were old, and needed money for overhaul, money that went into missile systems. Given the budgeting environment of the mid-1980s, it does not surprise me that an investigation into a gunnery mishap would look for "personnel error" and not a "technical" cause. Charlie, due to space constraints, does not follow this important thread. What was Congress told, who told them the ships were safe, and why was the inspection process insufficient in ratting out the lie? I had no ax to grind in cooperating with Charlie, and I asked him to contact as many crew and wardroom members as possible, including Captain Moosally. The more sources, the more informed the book. Though some of the IOWA-47 family members were annoyed I waited until September, 1991, to allow Charlie to visit me, I had a war to fight in between my time on the IOWA and my resignation from the Navy. The first time it was possible, I met with Thompson even though the Chief of Naval Information asked me not to cooperate. Many would not cooperate with Charlie. In those instances, he had to rely on sworn testimony. I do agree that footnotes would have been useful, but the book is designed to sell as "popular" literature, and footnotes are not all that popular. My motive in cooperating with Charlie was to protect Turret One, and the reputation built by the sailors, not all of them gunners mates, who helped me and Dale Mortensen make that the No. 1 gun turret on that ship. And yes, there were facts about Turret One that didn't make it into ink. I was a little conceited, as a junior officer. Phil's closeness to his sailors, however, was not the same as mine. My men could do no wrong; Dale and I set impossibly high standards and they reached them. I was very proud of them, and was perhaps too chummy in saying so. But Meyer never drank with his men for more than 20 minutes. It was a rule of my father's Navy, and it was necessary to keep the Division Officer detached, so he could say "No"  the most important word in an officer's vocabulary. We had problems; but we controlled the events that could have turned them into an explosion. At least I'd like to think we did. It may have been a big game of Russian roulette. As for Captain Moosally, I have only attributed a level of responsibility to him that the Navy does to all sea captains. Charlie may have taken the analysis beyond the Navy's standard. And focusing on Fred can be misleading; the real failure came between him and Admirals Trost and Kelso. I tossed and turned over my chance to rat on the investigation (through family connections) in May, 1989. In the end, I did not. I still feel that had Admiral Trost known what his subordinates were doing, he would have protected the investigation from corruption. Had it been 1789, and not 1989, I may have called Edney or Miceli to the Bladensburg dueling grounds to settle the matter. But I just couldn't break the chain of command. I do think that my efforts with both authors (Richard Schwoebel and I discussed his thesis for about an hour) was necessary for very personal reasons. Damnation, in fact. Had I possessed the courage to stand down the command in October, 1988, those 47 men would still be alive. All I did was write a memo, which my superior took very seriously, and who was still working on a response when the explosion occurred. True, others in the Department, or the wardroom, could have done the same, or more. Phil himself wasn't too keen on pointing out our problems to the chain of command. But that still leaves me about six percent of the responsibility. And as it turns out, I was close to exactly six percent of that Turret: Blakey, Schlein and Bopp. When I am judged for my role on that day, it will be the souls of those men who decide my fate. In the final analysis, Charlie's book asks us to examine the relationship between national service and the American citizen. As hard as I want to be on the chain of command, or the Department of the Navy, etc., I do think the federal Government represented the American people throughout this nasty mess. The American people--as represented by many of the current presidential candidates--have a checkered past when it comes to serving this nation. A people divided on the good of national service will treat those who rise above the common norm with disdain; the example set is hard to live with, isn't it? Why are people called to the McCain candidacy? Because his mind is not divided on this issue. The worst decisions in the investigation came from officers worried about the reaction from Washington, D.C., a town with fewer veterans than any other community in America. And did Charlie get my "character" right? I think he made me sound like a crazy old drag queen. If my style of leadership ever came across that way, my since apologies to the gunners of Turret One. And Forward Main Battery is still No. 1 (Turret Two included!).
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