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I admit, I still find that strange that it is understood and accepted, even if the Captain knows it may be his head on the block. I guess they accept it, because they feel that they will never make the mistake that puts them at the "long green table".

One of my Captains (my best one ever) explained why he thought the harsh standards were right. Basically, he saw it not just as he "accepts responsibility" the way a weak politician pretends to accept responsibility and then blames 300 other people. My Captain said it really was his responsibility, because he was directly responsible for anything that went wrong:

- If he was asleep in a tight situation and the OOD didn't call him in time, he was at fault for creating an atmosphere where the OOD was reluctant to call.
- If the OOD was not competent to recognize that he should have called the Captain, he was responsible for training an OOD poorly or for qualifying an OOD who should not have been qualified.
- If the OOD was overwhelmed by a military situation, or by the number of contacts in restricted waters or in a shipping lane, he was responsible for putting a mostly capable but still rookie OOD in a tough situation without extra supervision.

The bottom line was that with absolute responsibility on the CO, a good Captain would not just passively accept responsibility and hope lightning never struck. He would take all possible actions to make sure lightning never struck.

I was my favorite Captain's "Drill OOD", meaning I was the OOD for morning watch drills during outside inspections. We did VERY well on those inspections. I was also OOD for no more than half of all drills, even in the run up to an inspection. When something went wrong, every qualified OOD would have trained on that emergency recently and been observed responding to that situation.

You know, in reading your post, it makes me understand why I think we (still) have the most capable and talented military in the world.

We value instilling people with the training, capability, responsibility, and the ability to exercise that responsibility.

This in turn make those given the responsibility the correct mindset to accept it and more to use it to do a job as it should be done and done well, instead of trying to do the job to avoid recriminations from a superior (though that always plays some role in everyone, and in some people,a large one.

We make people want to do well because...it is their responsibility...their job! (The perfect American attitude in a military setting...:)