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Well he was at the library every evening that week, getting
the speech ready. He looked up sex, looked up Freud, all the
while worried about making a fool of himself. He cam eto the
big Rotary meeting and stood up with his voluminous notes. The
speech went off pretty well; he was relieved to have it over.

That very afternoon all the men started phoning their
wives about his talk. The phone started ringing at Charlie's
home. His wife was getting all these compliments from the
wives about the speech Charlie gave. Well, that was a new
experience for her; she was very happy to be in the limelight.
That next night they wnt out to a party where a whole group of
members of the Rotary Club gathered around this rather shy
woman and were complimetning her on her husband's talk.

She said, "Well, I just can't get over how Charlie came
through on this. He knows practically nothing about the sub-
ject." The men's jaws dropped. And then she innocently added:
"He's only tried it wice. The first time he got sick to his
stomach, and the second time his hat blew off."

So, in preparation for today I went to the card catalogue
and I looked up War College--I found that there were 195
references, one for every Admiral in the Navy. each had a
different idea of what a War College should do. Should it equip
you for the Pentagon? Should it equip you for a Fleet Staff?
Should it equip you for a command assignment? Of course, the
answer to all these, is, "More or less." Should it teach you
to think?--more or less--, I suppose. However, when I was
forty years old I was pretty sure I knew how to think, as I am
sure most of you do. Should it help assure one's selection for
promotion? I suppose it should, but as we all know, that
linakge is never going to be assured. Anyway, these are not the
kinds of questions that I would expect to have asked about a
good educational institution.

I am new here, and do not have a perfect knowledge of the
curriculum, but I have some firm ideas about what mid-career
education should accomnplish. It should give you some self-
confidence, at least enough to not be hynotized by procedures.
You should learn to scrutinize the assumptions behind formatted
procedures. It's always amusing to me to find so many people
in the Fleet who are so shackled to their routines that they
miss the whole point of the exercise.

I'm not preaching anarchy but I can recall times in prison,
after we had five or more years of organized experience,
when a couple of guys would pipe up wondering what our Govern-
ment's SOP was, what people in Washington would expect us to do
vis a vis procedures etc. It seemed so ridiculous even to give
a moment's thought to those who were in such a different world
than we. Mid-career education should at least give one the

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