ONCE MORE URGENTLY NEEDING A GLOBAL NAVY: 1/4: Vectors: Heroes, Villains, and Heartbreak on the Bridge of the U.S. Navy Hardcover – Thomas B. Modly (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 September 2023
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Vectors-Heroes-Villains-Heartbreak-Bridge/dp/1642257036
Thomas Modly had an eclectic career in the military, academia, business, and government when he answered the call to service in 2017 and returned to the Navy where his career began. His experience, as chronicled in these pages, tells the story of Secretary Modly’s quest to advance the Department of the Navy’s preparedness for the challenges of this century. As Acting Secretary of the Navy he held fast to the mantra of “acting, not pretending,” and thus advocated aggressively for the Navy and Marine Corps’ future ― a future he believed would be defined by uncertainty and unpredictability. Every Friday he wrote a personal message to the entire Department regardless of rank. Those messages were called SECNAV Vectors. Each Vector was intended to clearly communicate his priorities and to establish a rapport with all levels of the organization. The subject of each Vector was inspired by real events that occurred in real time. As these events unfolded , the Secretary’s unyielding emphasis on being prepared for unpredictable events are proven to be prescient as the Navy found itself, unintentionally, in the center of COVID-19 crisis
1938 IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY, INCLUDING AKAGI.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchler. |
| 0:11.2 | It is Thanksgiving time, 1979. The class of 1983 at Annapolis has gathered to cheer |
| 0:18.6 | on Navy over Army. I welcome a member of the Class of 1983, remembering that cold November |
| 0:26.0 | day. Thomas Modley, his new book about his time in the Navy, both as a midshipman, serving |
| 0:34.8 | aviator, and later an official at the DOD, is entitled Vectors, Heroes, Villains, and |
| 0:41.9 | Heartbreak on the bridge of the US Navy. Tom, you're a young man in 1979. Can you remember |
| 0:49.6 | that game? What was it like to be a member of all those wonderful young people? |
| 0:55.0 | Well, thank you, John, for having me on to talk about the book and to talk about my experiences. |
| 0:59.8 | 1979 was very memorable for me. I had grown up in Cleveland, Ohio and decided to go to the |
| 1:06.6 | Naval Academy. That particular point in our nation's history wasn't one of the most popular |
| 1:11.9 | things to be doing. We were still in somewhat of a Vietnam hangover, to some extent, in certain parts |
| 1:18.0 | of the country. It was very honored to be selected to go there and always look forward to attending |
| 1:25.7 | that first Army Navy game. When we get there as a plebes at first plebes summer, they teach us |
| 1:31.7 | four important phrases. The first one is yes or then no sir and then no excuse and then the |
| 1:38.0 | final one is beat army sir. Everything that you do as a plebe drives towards that important game |
| 1:46.8 | that comes in November. Now it comes in December, but at that time I used to come in November |
| 1:51.0 | around Thanksgiving weekend. It's an incredibly important event, I think, in the evolution of your |
| 1:58.6 | time as a midshipman, because it's really the first time you feel like you're part of something |
| 2:02.6 | much, much bigger than yourself. I remember marching into that stadium along with the 44,000 or so |
| 2:09.8 | other midshipman, and standing there and doing the hat trick that we do at the beginning of the |
| 2:14.8 | game and just watching that game that had been played for so many decades before and just really |
| 2:20.4 | get in an appreciation for what I had become a part of. It always stuck with me and it was just |
... |
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