Three years before the mast.

• Author: Marks, Edward
• Position: A foreign service officer's stay in Hawaii

Editor's Note:

Drawing from Richard Henry Dana for the title of this essay, the author, a retired career U. S. ambassador, paints with unparalleled authority the similarities--and differences--between Department of State and Department of Defense authority and command structures. Containing no sensitive or classified information, Amb. Marks' study nevertheless provides the reader unique insights into the basic outlooks and precepts of two of the nation's vital responsibilities--defense and diplomacy. -- Ed.

My response to the invitation to go to Hawaii for six months on a State Department temporary assignment to the U. S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) was affirmative and immediate. It was a WAE (When Actually Employed) contract for only six months, but the months passed as more permanent arrangements failed to jell and PACOM kept asking State to extend me, until an active duty Foreign Service officer (FSO) finally arrived in September 2005. I do not know if I set a record for a temporary duty assignment, but thirty-nine months should put me in the running.

Camp H.M. Smith This offer was more appropriate than State knew. As a Senior Mentor at the 2001 annual command exercise of the Joint Forces Command, I had formulated the concept of an interagency staff directorate, tentatively labeled JX, to improve interagency coordination. Joint Forces took up the concept and in March 2002 issued a White Paper on the concept, renaming the proposed entity the "Joint Interagency Coordination Group" or JIACG.

Following September 11, the major military commands were instructed to create these new units and to ask other departments to assign civilian personnel. The initial response was unenthusiastic; State pleaded lack of available personnel and money but eventually worked out contract arrangements to employ retired officers.

So off I went to Hawaii as the State Department representative in the Joint Interagency Coordination Group on Counterrorism (JIACG-CT) at the U. S. Pacific Command. I arrived in Honolulu just before July 4 where my reception was warm, although there was an amusing combination of respect combined with reserve and caution. FSOs are not completely unknown at regional combatant commands. Political Advisors (POLADS), now called Foreign Policy Advisors (FPAs), have been around for generations. POLADs, however, reside in the upper reaches of the command, mingling with the most senior officers, while I was imbedded (to use the current phrase) among the working staff. USPACOM, formerly CINCPACUSPACOM is one of the regional combatant commands (COCOMs), organizational creatures unlike anything existing in State. They are the "War Fighters," the actual forces positioned to perform operations, including war itself. Distinct from the Departments (Army, Navy, Air Force, etc.) and the Services, they report directly to the President through the Secretary of Defense and don't do the recruiting, training, equipping, or any of the mundane but necessary "household" tasks of the military. Readers may know them by their old appellation of "CINCDOMS" headed by CINCS or Commanders-in-Chief. However, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld decided, quite logically, that there was only one Commander-in-Chief in the American government, and that was the President. So CINCs became COCOM Commanders, as in Commander, US Pacific Command; and Commander, US Central Command (CENTCOM).

The COCOMs are joint commands (or purple as compared to green for the Army, blue for the Air Force, etc.), staffed by officers from all the military services. Due to its heavy focus on naval warfare (the Asia-Pacific Area of Operation is very watery) PACOM always had a very naval character. The office of the commander, for instance, is generally referred to as the 'bridge", and the many naval personnel working in the headquarters building refer to "heads" and "decks" instead of "johns" and floors.

The Military World PACOM personnel are largely military, so the pecking order is very clear, with rank constituting the signposts of their life and behavior. It was interesting to see them automatically insert a "sir" the very day a peer moved up in rank. This was not an act currying favor but merely showing the respect that one gives because one also expects it. (There is also a lower caste of contractors numbering dozens if not hundreds. They are mostly retired military now double dipping and jocularly referred to as contractor slime.)

Distinctions are not only made between ranks but between seniority within ranks. This is especially true of colonels or navy captains where the difference being pre or post major command is significant. Officers are often referred to by number: "he or she is an 0-4 (major) or O-6 (colonel). Generals or admirals are usually referred to as GOs (general officers) or "flags" (flag officers).

The staff falls into three distinct classes: "action officers," O-6s, and GOs/Flags. Action officers are majors or lt. colonels or their naval equivalents, with full colonels or navy captains generally serving as section or unit bosses. Senior O-6s also belong to something called the "Council of Colonels" a senior vetting group with no official...