 Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Dr. Tom Gibbons and on behalf of Dean Peg Klein from the College of Leadership and Ethics and our Stockdale Chair, Dr. Pauline Shanks-Carran. I'd like to welcome you to the Leadership and Ethics Lou with our guest today, Jim Zumwalt. Jim's going to talk to us about his father, Elmo Zumwalt, when he was a CNO. But before I turn the microphone over to Jim, I want to send a special shout out to all the Zumwalt family members and all the special friends that are here with us today from Stone Hill College. And Jim's friends from across the country that are welcome. They're here. Welcome to the Naval War College's Leadership and Ethics Lou. We're glad to have you. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to my good friend Jim Zumwalt. Thank you, Tom. And thank everybody for joining us this afternoon. I think when there are two aspects of my father's life, I'd say there's Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr., the legacy, and Elmo Zumwalt Jr., the man. And while many people may be familiar with his legacy, it's the man aspect that I'd like to focus on this afternoon. And I thought the best way to do this was maybe to take you on a journey and share vignettes about his life experiences and what really kind of molded him to be the kind of leader that he evolved into. He was born in 1920 in San Francisco, and both his parents were medical doctors, which was very unusual on that day to have a woman as a medical doctor. But I think that the fact that both his parents were medical doctors really imbued him with compassion for other people. And that was relevant throughout his military career. He was attending, they moved when he was two years old to Tulare, California, and he went to Tulare High School. He was actually all set to go to West Point. His father had served in the Army in World War I and would go on to serve in the Army as a doctor in World War II. So my father had his heart set on attending the West Point. However, they had a family friend that were for dinner one evening and he had spent a lot of time at sea and he shared these stories about life at sea with my father. And my father became mesmerized by it and immediately asked that his acceptance be transferred to the Naval Academy, which back then was not much of a problem to do. And so he went to the US Naval Academy. He was in class of 1943 that graduated in 1942. He was expedited because of the war. The lucky book is the Academy Yearbook and the first sentence of the paragraph that is seen beside his name that each graduate wrote a paragraph about their roommate. And so my father's roommate wrote a paragraph about him. And the first sentence read, the two most important things in Bud's almost life were women and women. And once my father got out into the Navy that quickly changed the two most important things being women and women to being his sailors and his sailors. And I think it's faithful that my father shares a common name with the patron saint of sailors, St. Elmo. My father was immediately sent upon graduation was sent to radar school, and then assigned to a ship that was leaving San Francisco to go to Hawaii, and he was the radar officer on board the ship. He quickly learned on that trip that inexperience can cause some problems. He, they were about halfway to Hawaii when he heard over the loudspeaker, Paul, by the captain for him to come to the bridge, my father came to the bridge. And radar was relatively new at that point in time and the CEO kind of was looking at the radar screen and was somewhat befuddled. And he was trying to understand what something on the screen was my father looked at it and you know he couldn't make his retails of it either and he said well I know we were told that there's a astronomical anomaly that you can have that will create something like that. The CEO nodded his head and my father went down below about 30 minutes later. The loudspeaker went again calling from my father come to the bridge he comes up to the bridge. As he comes up to the bridge he looks out and he sees a convoy of ships heading in the other direction. And the CEO looked at my father and said, I just wanted you to see your goddamn astronomical anomaly. I think that was one of the few mistakes my father made in his, his military career he went on to every kind of support he got in the Navy was outstanding except for the first one on that ship's tour so he learned an important lesson right away. I think that there are good perceptions you can get of a man. When you listen to those who served under him. And shortly before my father died. He was sent a story written by Jason hammer, who was a great arm and third class who had served with my father on board the USS Robinson here on World War two and keep in mind. This is something that was sent to my father, more than half a century afterwards. But it was, it was hammers account of his remembrance is about my father. And what he said was, I'll put him several times here this afternoon but he said of my father that both personally as a leader in combat, quote, he was the epitome of what an intelligent good humor and efficient naval officer should be. And at the same time, one of the kindest and most considerate men, it was my good fortune to have served with a wonderful human being deeply dedicated to equality and justice in word and deed for all. While naval protocol effectively stifled meaningful socializing between officers and enlisted men, both accepted it as a fact of life. We were shipmates in the sense that if something went radically wrong, we were all regardless of rank, literally in the same boat. In any event, socializing with them certainly was not a prerequisite for recognizing that seemingly unflappable aura, which seemed to surround him even under the most nerve jangling circumstances that calm command would have been memorable, even to someone knowing nothing else about him beyond what they could observe. It left an indelible impression. Anyone dependent on another human being for leadership and in desperate need of some degree of assurance under hazardous conditions, immediately will recognize the feeling. Here was a man from whom I repeatedly gained some measure of peace of mind. His quiet strength and obvious calm, whether during torpedo run, kamikaze attack, or a territory fire from hostile shore batteries, never failed to reassure me with his always observable control of any situation. Any miscalculations could spill disaster in combat. Strangely, I was not worried. Excited, yes, but not worried. In addition to a heavy sense of adventure which seemed to shield me from the reality of the danger, I totally was reassured by the expected calm efficiency being displayed by the lieutenant. Lieutenant Zommelt was showing his proven ability to transmit a quiet serenity to everyone around him. His voice always even, his actions always carefully considered and calm, regardless of the urgency of the situation, and the circumstances at hand, certainly cold for all the calm we could muster. I think that's quite a tribute to be remembered, as I said, more than half a century after the fact. And I'm going to quote Hammer again here because he gets into a very interesting story that occurred in the Battle of Leity Hall, which was a night action. And he said that USS Robinson was making torpedo runs on the Japanese battleships. The Japanese eventually saw the destroyers coming in and they fired a shot overhead and a shot that fired fell low. And they knew the next shot was coming for them. And by this time, the American battleships have gotten into position to take on the Japanese battleships and open fire. So the Japanese did not concentrate their fire on the destroyers. They turned it on the battleships. But during the Connie exercise, I mean, during the operation, the commanding officer of the destroyer had the con. He was driving the ship. And he was also fighting the ship at the same time directing fire. My father was in CIC and he was watching on the radar, which he knew everything about the radar at this point in time. And he could quickly see that the ship was approaching an island and was not changing course. And so, and this is hammer again telling the story. He says he heard my father say quote on collision force with little Hibbson Island dead ahead acknowledge acknowledge we were approaching the island at 30 plus knots. And I had approximately is the rate of a half mile per minute impact what would accomplish what the Japs have failed to do a collision at this speed with an accompanying boiler explosion would demonstrate very spectacular spectacularly why these ships were called 10 hands. I gave another desperate warning bridge back all engines emergency emergency full immediately you are going around. Finally, the captain acknowledged from the bridge and immediately ordered all back engines. Hamburg was wondering whether or not the order had been given in time and he looked to my father for reassurance. He says quote, his words were electrifying and anything but comfort comforting. This is it he said, based on numerous past experiences of the lieutenant was certain that I had no doubt whatsoever about the outcome. Sentence had been passed and we awaited the final moment. I had no doubt that I had no doubt whatsoever to hell onto a steel pole and awaited awaited the inevitable collision quote I prepared myself as best I could for the inevitable impact and turn once again to the lieutenant, fully expecting to see him carrying out his assigned duties, right up to the explosive he indeed was doing just that. But frankly, I was not prepared for what I saw. I was looking at a tall dignified impeccably dressed naval officer in spotless hands, looking quite military and proper in every way except could this be he had prepared for his own inevitable collision by pulling his hat down to the top of his ears, with the bill resting slightly above the bridge of his nose. At least his vision was unimpaired if not as dignified appearance. Under less ominous circumstances I would be desperately trying to suppress an uncomfortable urge to laugh, but understandably the humor escaped me from the moment. Instead it occurred to me as a fleeting thought that perhaps his last desire was to die with the dignity of his hat on unquote. It went on to say, quote, we felt the expected thought and ominous scraping beneath our feet before easing to a total stop, followed by dead silence and then the sounds of engines coming to vigorous life strained to free the bell from the clutching coral. Robinson had survived and the lieutenant properly adjusted his hat. He concludes, I'm sure he was unaware, despite that dramatic pronouncement of impending dancer disaster of my gratitude for once again supplying the quiet assurance I so often needed, especially on that unsquit schedule rendezvous with little Hudson Island. Thanks Admiral. Well done. My father was awarded the Bronze Star and Combat V for heroic service as the evaluator and combat information center in action against enemy battleships during the Battle of Lake Eagle 25 October 1944. My father would go on to have his first command the Robinson will fall later captured in 1945 captured a Japanese gunboat coming out of the Yangtze River. And my father and 10 sailors were put on board the the HIGMS Ataka as the price crew. They were ordered to sail the ship back up the Yangtze River and my father was supposed to link up with Admiral Marion Miles who was conducting drill operations behind enemy line. As they got up the river, they weren't sure where the mines were and so my father asked the Japanese commander for the mine charts to mine the Japanese commander would not turn them over so my father had the Japanese commander and his sailors all go to the bow of the ship so if they hit anything they would be the first ones to suffer the damage and the Japanese commander started sweating beads and finally broke out the mine chart and so they were able to navigate up through the Yangtze River. At one point they came abreast of a Japanese fort and they immediately hold down the US flag. My father happened to have and and his CSAC, he was quite a party goer and it was a flag with a cocktail glass on it and they hold this flag up instead. You can just see the Japanese looking through their international flag book trying to figure out what nationality the ship was. Well they were able to skirt by the Japanese fort without them taking them under fire and by the time they got a little further on the Japanese had finally surrendered and some of my father's orders were changed to take the ship into Shanghai to help in the disarming of the Japanese. The ship became the first one flying the American flag to sail into Shanghai and they began the disarmament process. Within the next couple of weeks, several other ships came in and and my father was approached by three of his Naval Academy classmates. They said that they had a invitation to a Russian home for dinner and they understood there would be four single Russian girls there. They needed a force to complete the their participation. My father who had been at sea for two years didn't waste any time and he said I'll join you. They went to the party and what I'm going to read you next is from any 75 page letter that my father wrote his father when the war was over that explained their capturing the Japanese gunboat going up the Yankee River and then going into Shanghai and going to this dinner. And, you know, I never realized my father was a romantic until I read this letter, but he said the following. He said, quote the four girls entered the room the first one was a gorgeous blonde lift and well formed with a lovely soft complexion and an air of reality almost aloofness. The second one entered in my heart stood still. Here was a girl I shall never be able to describe completely tall and well poised. She was smiling a smile of such radiance that the very room seems suddenly transformed as though a fairy waving a brilliant one. I just entered the room. I never saw the remaining two girls. I don't know if that's accurate, but that's that's what he says. He met my mother on October 1 1945. He proposed on the 7th and they were married on the 22nd. And he explained the reason it took him so long between the 7th and the 22nd to get married was back then you had to get your commanding officer's permission. And his commanding officer had been married in divorce three times and tried talking my father out of it, but to no avail. And March of 1951 my father reported on board the USS Wisconsin the battleship Wisconsin, and he became navigator. The Wisconsin ended up serving in the Korean War. An interesting story about his service on the Wisconsin. I look back and researched there have only been two officers who were chiefs of naval operations who had queer ending incidences that occurred in their junior years. The one was Chester, the person was Chester Nimitz, who was ensign and commanding officer on board of a destroyer that went aground in the Philippines. He got a letter of reprimand but obviously it didn't affect his career. In my father's case he was on board the Wisconsin, which went aground in New York, Harvard. And as I said that would normally end one's career. But what had happened was they were told to tie up in between two buoys in the river. My father became very concerned that the occurrence were stronger than usual. So he told the commanding officer who shared with his seniors that the ship was headed hesitant to tie up there and they were informed that a carrier had been there the week before and not to worry about it. They tied up at the buoys and again my father became very concerned and again told his CEO who again contacted the senior officer and the senior officer basically said, you tie up there and that's it. They shut down the engines and my father remained on the bridge and kept taking readings and notice that they were drifting, the buoys were dragging. And sure enough they went aground. There was a board of inquiry and both my father and the commanding officer were, the board determined that both of them had done everything that they could to prevent it. And so the only one that got a letter of reprimand was the senior officer who insisted that they tie up there. The commanding officer of the Wisconsin went on to make flag rank as well so they both survived that. There's a book that was written entitled Search of Excellence. It was written by two authors who look at the profiles of many leaders in corporate and governance and look at what it is that made them effective leaders. And one chapter goes into analyzing military leaders and one of whom was my father. And there was a chapter entitled Productivity Through People. And it notes that quote, somewhat revolutionized the Navy's personnel practices in just a few short years at the helm. It all stemmed from the simple belief that people will respond well to being treated as grownups. He traces his beliefs back to an early command assignment. What I tried hardest to do was ensure that every officer and man on the ship not only knew what we were about, not only why we were doing each technical evolution, however onerous, but also managed to understand enough about how it all fitted together that he could begin to experience some of the fun and challenge that those of us in the top slots were having. Our techniques were not unusual. We made frequent announcements over the loudspeaker about the specific event that was going on. At the beginning, at the end of the day, I discussed with the officers who in turn discussed with their men what was about to happen and what had just happened. What the competition was doing and what we should do to meet it. We published written notices in the plan of the day that would give the crew some of the color or human interest in what the ship was doing. I had full sessions in the Chief Petty Officer's quarters where I often stopped for a tough topic. More important than any of these details, of course, was the basic effort to communicate a sense of excitement on and zest in all that we were doing. I think my father's leadership skills were really put to test in July of 1955 when he took command of the USS Isabella destroyer. That was one of eight in a squadron. And Isabella had a horrendously bad reputation that it repeatedly would come in eight out of the ship competitions. And the CO was finally relieved of command. My father took command of Isabella and within 18 months, he was commended, my father was commended by the commander of cruiser destroyer forces US Pacific for winning the battle. Efficiency competition for the ship and next awards in engineering, gunnery, anti submarine warfare and operations for two years in a row going from eighth place to first place. Quite quite an accomplishment. My father also shared that sometimes it's the little things that make a difference. He said, quote, he said he spent, quote, inordinate amount of time on one element of seeming trivia, changing the ship's voice call sign. And he sought to do this based on the following rationale, quote, since recently assuming command of Isabella, the CO is what he put in his request. This CO has been concerned over the endemic connotation of the present voice radio call sign. When in company with such stalwarts as fireball and viper and other, it is somewhat embarrassing, completely out of keeping with the quality of the sailors aboard to be identified by the relatively relatively anonymous title staff work. It took six months, but he was able to change the name to hell cat. It provided quite a morale boost for the sailors on board. They came up with a patch that showed a black cat stepping out of the flames of hell, breaking a sub with its cars. Another story I'd like to share about Isabel that the first time the ship went out for nighttime operations. There was a junior officer who was also the deck. And they were operating with other ships. My father came up to the bridge and noticed that a situation of extremists was developing. And he waited as long as he could. The young officer was not taking action. So he said, this is happening. I have the con and he navigated the ship out of dangerous way. And this story was shared with me by a fellow who was there on the bridge at the time. And he said, we all expected at that point in time your father would turn to the officer of the deck and chew him up one side and down the other which is basically what the previous CEO would have done. But he said, your father did something at that point in time that reinstalled the conference or everything out of that bridge. And he said, your father said, this is happening. I'm turning the con back over to Senator J. G. So-and-so. And then he left the bridge. So he wanted to show that he still had complete confidence in this officer. I asked my father about that. He said, yeah, but he had a sleepless night that night, you know, worrying about what might happen. And he would have to be done to reinstall motivation in this young officer. And incidentally, that young officer eventually went on to make flag, right? So it paid off. And one other story worth noting, my father, after a sea duty, was sent to the Pentagon and he was the executive assistant to the secretary of the Navy, Paul Knitzel. And this was during the Cuban missile crisis. My father was a captain at this point in time. And he had gone to the men's room. He was just coming out of the men's room and Secretary Knitzel was racing down the hallway. He grabbed my father by the arm and he said, Secretary McNamara wants to see it. So my father didn't have anything with him to take notes on. And they rushed into McNamara's office and McNamara starts rattling off a list of things that he wants done. And he got about halfway through his list and he looked at my father and saw he wasn't taking notes. So he picked up a pad of paper and a pen and he threw it on the floor in front of my father. My father didn't pick it up. And McNamara continued to rattle off his list of action items. When they were through, my father left, went back to his office and prepared a memo and then took it into the secretary of the Navy and said, here's the memo on the issues raised by Secretary McNamara. And Knitzel looked it over and said, well, by golly, he looks like he got everything. So it's a good thing he did. When you left, McNamara told me if he misses one thing, fire him. But one thing McNamara didn't realize is that my father had a photographic memory and was able to come up with an acronym to remember all the things that had to be done. I guess that was reflected in the fact that we won the Cuban Missile Crisis. But my father was deep selected for a two star rank to come in the youngest two star admiral in the history of the Navy. He was immediately assigned commander cruiser destroyer for till a seven. I was out there for about a year and then was sent back to the Pentagon as director of systems analysis. And he was the first director of systems analysis. And it was a job that really put one in the firing line because you had to make decisions about funding and what was in the best interest of the service. And so, inevitably, there was somebody who was losing out on funding and somebody who was not gaining. And the thing that was interesting is that the C&O at the time was Admiral Tom Moore. This was 1968 and Moore knew that within two years he was going to be moved up to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which meant that there would be an opening for chief naval operations. And he became very concerned that my father would be the one to be selected for that because he was he was making getting a lot of attention on Capitol Hill. And so not wanting to displease Secretary Knitza, who was very high on my father, he decided what he would do is give my father what was considered a dead end job, but boosted by a star to make it attractive. And so he sent my father out to command the naval forces in Vietnam, made it a position for a three-star Admiral. My father became the youngest three-star Admiral in the history of the Navy at that point in time and took command of the naval forces where he fell under the command of General Abrams. My father basically restructured what the Navy was doing and the Navy, the most part, had been taking somewhat of a defensive position in the war. My father gave them a more offensive-related mission. And the results were shown by the fact that the U.S. Army casualties dropped significantly once the Navy operations were increased because they were interdicting supply lines of the Viet Cong coming down south. And you know, my father really impressed General Abrams. Well, by 1970, lo and behold, the Navy was looking for new chief naval operations, and Secretary Laird went out to Vietnam to meet with Abrams. And Abrams said, look, Mr. Secretary, you need to meet with Admiral Zommel because he's done a bang-up job here with the Navy. And so he got, my father got Laird's attention at that point in time. And it was interesting, more so, my father out there to get him out of the running for CNO. That's exactly what put him in the running for CNO since Laird and Abrams from the boats, so impressed with him. And as everyone knows, he was then selected to become the chief naval operations who at age 49 became the youngest CNO in the history of the Navy. And although the records he sent for his two and three star lag ranks have been broken by younger officers, the age for CNO at 49 still remains the record. So he still holds that. The three wars he was involved in, World War II, Korea and Vietnam, my father was asked which one was the most difficult one. And he said it was the Vietnam War. And he said it was the first war where he was in a senior leadership position. And he was not going into harm's way along with his sailors. You know, my mother reported how she was visiting my father once in Saigon. And she saw him going to a small room off their bedroom and kneeling prayer. And she asked him afterwards what he was praying for. And he said, I just sent some more young boys into harm's way. So I think he, you know, his part of the compassion he had and humanitarianism he had was driven by his religious beliefs as well. He said that the one thing he always felt guilty about during the Vietnam War, my brother was a swift boat commander serving under his train of command when he was over there. He never did anything that would be considered improper or unethical and doing any favors for my brother. But he said the one thing he felt guilty about is whenever he got the casually list, he would start at the bottom and read up, you know, because he knew if my brother had been lost, he would be at the bottom of the list. The other thing that I think is quite telling about my father, one of the problems we learned about, mostly after the fact about our advisors for the Vietnamese during the war, was their reluctance to consider their Vietnamese, South Vietnamese counterparts equals. And there was always this tendency to talk down to them. My father developed a very close relationship with the CNO of the South Vietnamese Navy Admiral Chan. And the two of them became very close. My father would always call him in whenever a decision had to be made and get his input as well. And Admiral Chan felt very comfortable sharing it and being very honest with my father. And I think that the friendship these two men had was reflected by the fact that when my father had served as CNO and then retired in 1974, and when we knew Saigon was going to fall in April of 75, my father called and arranged to have a special aircraft take by Admiral Chan and his family out of Saigon to safety. And Admiral Chan had assembled his family there, his mother and father and five of his seven kids. They were all waiting for the call. The call came in and Admiral Chan looked over at his parents who were in tears. You know, it's just very difficult for them to leave Vietnam. And so he told the officer calling, I'm sorry, send the plane with somebody else. I'm not leaving. And so he stayed behind knowing that, you know, it could well mean his imprisonment if he did. When Saigon fell, they immediately started arresting everybody who had been on the other side during the war. And Admiral Chan and two of his sons were arrested. One son spent three years in a re-education camp, another spent seven. Admiral Chan spent 12 years in a re-education camp. And the whole time he's in a re-education camp. Since we were not recognizing the North Vietnamese government, my father deal with the International Red Cross in an effort to try and get Admiral Chan released. He was finally released after 12 years, but he was not allowed to leave the country for three more. And so finally when it was, he was able to leave the country and flew to LA where most of the family had re-established there. My father was among those who met him. And again, they stayed in very close touch. And when my father was dying, I was calling Admiral Chan on a regular basis and giving him updates on my father's health. And the day my father died, I called Admiral Chan. I said, Admiral, this is Jim Zumloth. Without me seeing anything more, he said, your father died, didn't he? And I was shocked. I said, yes, how did you know? He said, last night I had a dream. And he said, your father and I were on a ship and the ship was sinking. And your father pushed me out through the hatch and I reached back for him and he weighed me off and closed the hatch. And he said, I knew something had happened. And again, I think that goes to the very close bond they had and the mutual admiration they had for each other. But it shows you what kind of a relationship my father was able to forge with Admiral Chan. When my father became CNO, he immediately embarked on what he called Project 60. Project 60 was a plan he wanted to have presented on the desk of the Secretary of the Navy within 60 days that hit three things. The modernization of the Navy, what needed to be done to get the Navy for a quality volunteer force since the draft was likely going to be done away with. And third, what could be done to ensure the Navy could still maintain its missions in the transition to a modern fleet. My father felt the Soviets had a much more modernized fleet than we did when he was CNO and worried about a combat between the two navies. And one of the things he initially, my father initially did was to retire many of the ships that we had that were old so that that money would not have to be used for maintenance. It could go into R&D for the new ships. He used to kid people that he probably got rid of more American ships than the Japanese Navy did or World War II by this program. But it did, it did pay off. The other things that challenges my father was faced with, let me just read off some of these. He knew the US Navy needed changes and he only had a short time to do so. It was four years that the CNO was two two year terms and I had to be renewed so he was banking on four years, but he was working against an institutionalized mindset that made it very difficult to impose the changes that he did. His story was featured on him on Time Magazine in December 1970 made the cover that called him by dynamic and controversial CNO who was dragging the US Navy kicking and screaming into the 20th century. My father's prior years of service had provided him with insights with a lot of the issues that were facing the Navy. As a detailer at the viewpers, he saw where minorities were being given jobs that were basically in their careers. And so he instituted a number of seagrams that would address the hurdles at which minorities were being faced. The Filipinos, for example, the, the only ratings that they were allowed to pursue were as stewards. And so he opened up all ratings to stewards and today we have a couple of flag officers who were Filipino descent. He also set up councils to study what the issues were for blacks and were able to identify a lot of things that were dragging down the reenlistment rates. My father took command of the Navy. The biggest challenge he had reenlistment was at an all time low of 9%. And he felt it was absolutely imperative that measures be taken to change things so that it would be more conducive to restoring zest to the Navy and getting people to stay in. The Navy, again, was having to spend money training new people that could go to the R&D for ships. There were three race riots during the period of time that he was a CNO and these basically were used as an opportunity for some of the senior military leadership who were opposed to the changes my father was making to try and get him fired as cheap and able operations. Nixon was very upset when he saw pictures of the rioters on board ship. And my father got a call from Henry Kissinger saying he wanted them all dishonorably discharged, which basically was illegal order. My father told him what they would go through the justice system just like anybody else and refuse to respond to Kissinger's order. By the time my father retired in 1974, reenlistment rates had tripled. So the impact that he wanted to have on the Navy was definitely accomplished. I think another thing that shows where my father's head was was what he wanted on his tombstone when he passed. And all he wanted on it was one word, reformer. If he was to be known for anything in the Navy in his naval career, it was to have reformed the service that needed reformation and to make it a better opportunity for those served. My mother's buried next to him at the US Naval Academy and she gets the last words in her two words on her tombstone that he wanted were his strength. And that was exactly what she was. It was a role she performed during his entire career. Some other vignettes that I just thought might be of interest. One of the things my father did he opened up the higher ranks for women. And there he promoted the first female admiral. And he was shown on the news, depending her two stars on and not quite politically correct today but okay then he kissed her after promoting her. And a classmate of my father's immediately wrote him and said, but I thought I'd never lived to see the day that I saw Chief of Naval Operations kissing another admiral. And my father immediately wrote him back and said, your friend you must realize nobody becomes the Chief of Naval Operations without having kissed a lot of animals. So my father always tried to turn criticism into empty humor. That humor also came out when he passed away my sister and I went through his files and there were literally thousands and thousands of documents we had to go through was donating them to the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University. And I came across a three page letter written to him just before he retired. It came from the deep south from the lawyer and this lawyer. It was a scathing letter. He said, you've been an embarrassment for the Navy you've maximized the interest of the north of norty to the to the detriment of majority just went on and on and I was, I was seething as I read through this letter until I got to my father's one sentence response. And he said, you're Mr Smith, please know that some idiot has written me and signed your name to the letter. Again it was a way of dismissing criticism of humor and he never heard back from the lawyer. One of the most touching letters came from a widower. He told my father reminded him that he was chief naval operations. He had the widower's wife had sent him a letter. They had an 18 year old son who never had an interest in the service that he was doing in the Navy and when they asked why he said that it was because they have an animal there who's looking out for the welfare of young people. So his wife Mary wrote my father's fine her son was doing this and my father really wrote it back and said thank you keep me posted on his career. The son stayed in for about 10 years and then that got out. And my father and Mary continued the communications over the years until she passed away and the widower said that, you know, I, she kept the stack of letters for you and I draw in her office and I just got through going through them. I just want to tell you how much they meant to her and he said my one regret is you never met my Mary in the enclosed picture of her. But that's that's the kind of bond that my father would establish with people. I think, as I look back on my father there are probably two guidelines that he followed. And one of them was that he approached every job in the Navy as his last, and that made him make the right decision, rather than worrying about what would be available for him after he finished that job. And whether whether he was a lieutenant or an animal, it was always the same. And the other principle that guided him was one that he was asked about when a reporter came to see him as he was retiring and commented, you know, all the changes you made in the Navy have made you the target of many critics. And my father looked at the report and said, I know the changes I made made me a long list of friends and a long list of enemies and I'm quite proud of both lists. So, you know, again, it was one of these things you're always going to get criticism but if you know that you made the right decision, you should have no qualms about it. In 2008, our family was invited to Bath Ironworks to see the commission of the USS Stockdale. While we were up there, we were taken over to see the first piece of steel that had been received by the Bath Ironworks that we're going to build in the USS Zumbul. And while I'm sure that sheet of metal didn't have any further significance to the shipbuilders who had built the Zumbul, to me it reflected the metal of a man who was a tremendous naval leader. Who was a tremendous humanitarian and who was an awesome father. I was fortunate to observe him in all three capacities. And with that, I'll take whatever questions you have. And thank you very much. And I just can't thank you enough for coming here because you can read a lot about Admiral Zumbul. In fact, if you look at the history of the Navy over the last 100 years, a lot of names jump out at you. Stockdale, Rick Over, but Zumbul is definitely one of them because he was the youngest CNO and of all the things he did for the Navy during the 70s. So I really appreciate because you brought in a life for us rather than just reading the book you told us these personal stories to make it real. But one of the things that I wanted to ask about your father co wrote a book my father my son with your brother. And it's about the relationship that they had. Can you go into a little bit of detail on why they wrote that book and what the impact was for him. I also may not be familiar. My father as commander of naval forces in Vietnam ordered the spring of Asian orange. And years later, my, my brother who had served under him as a commander, they've been exposed to Asian orange was dying of two cancers. And, you know, my father, before using Asian orange and check, check for the chemical manufacturers and we should assure that there's no harmful effects. Later on, we learned that he had been misled in that regard. But once my brother was diagnosed. It was very important because there had been a lawsuit filed by Vietnam veterans against the chemical companies. That was settled out of court and really settled for a drop in the bucket because the, what the chemical companies knew really was not revealed. So my father got involved in exposing that, but they felt it was important in support of the veterans and their families and so forth to for their story to be told. And felt it was important to write it. And it is a tremendous bond between the father and the son. You know, my, my brother said that he's been asked to be ever blamed my father for what he did. And my brother said, no, not at all. He said that the reason Asian orange was used was the Navy was experiencing a 72% casualty rate. In other words, a semi-cube chantry be killed or wounded operating in the narrow waterways of Vietnam because the enemy could set up ambushes right on the banks. And by the time a crew could respond to it, they, they had already suffered. But if you've seen pictures, once Asian orange was used, it pushed the vegetation back to 100 yards on either bank so that the casualty rate dropped from 72% to 6%. And so, you know, it was, it did not take a rocket scientist to recognize that it was important that be done. And my brother realized that he probably would not have survived the Vietnam War had Asian orange not been employed. And it gave him time to come home, get married, start a family. He finally passed away in 1988. But the last page of the book that they wrote my father, my son is a very passionate letter that my brother wrote my father. This, to this day, I can't read it without getting tears in my eyes.