quincyw
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# Posted: 11 Jun 2003 23:56
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How's this for art immitating life, as copied from the NavyNews bulletin of June 10
NNS030606-10. Task Force History Seeks Commanders
Opinions
By Jack A. Green, Naval Historical Center Public Affairs
WASHINGTON (NNS) -- Avid viewers of the old Star Trek
TV show will remember that Capt. James T. Kirk would often
open an episode with a voiceover, intoning something like,
"Captains Log, Star Date 5943.7, we have landed on the planet
. . ."
Under new guidance, present day Navy ship captains and unit
commanders will be making similar "Captains Logs" in the
Commander's Operational Chronology, a part of the
Commander's War Diary (CWD).
The CWD is a new requirement for commanders and
commanding officers, designed to ensure that the Navy's record
of combat and deployed operations is preserved for posterity. It
is one of the Navywide initiatives brought about by the standing
up of Task Force History (TFH).
TFH is a Vice Chief of Naval Operations (VCNO) initiative, led
by Dr. David Rosenberg. Rosenberg is a senior Navy civilian
professor, assistant to the VCNO and captain in the Naval
Reserve.
Established in February 2003 by NAVADMIN 054/03, TFH
oversees the documentation of Navy operations, and planning in
Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and the global war on terror. It
operates under the direct authority of the VCNO, with the daily
oversight of Director, Navy Staff.
In short, TFH is responsible for capturing and chronicling Navy
operational history, and coordinates and leverages the efforts of
a coalition of Navy operational commands, as well as
organizations from across the Navy, such as the Naval Historical
Center, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Naval Special
Warfare Command, Naval War College and the Office of Naval
Intelligence.
Rosenberg's team includes four mobilized senior Selected
Reserve officers, who travel the world collecting the Navy's
operational history as it occurs. The task force is augmented by
Reservists on active duty assignments of various lengths from the
Naval Historical Center's Navy Combat Documentation
Detachment 206.
These Reservists are trained in the art of taking oral histories,
something akin to a journalists' interview, but with a vastly
different result. The interviewer is fully cleared for the security
level of pertinent information being discussed, seeks the truth for
the historical record and is not in a rush to publish the results of
his or inquiries for the world to see.
The CWD, announced in NAVADMIN 100/03, requires all
Navy units engaged in deployed operations in support of OIF, to
assemble their operational history and submit that data to the
Naval Historical Center. It is comprised of a Commander's
Operational Assessment, the Operational Chronology, and a
group of enclosures in the form of electronic record traffic.
Previous command histories contained dry facts and statistics,
and lacked the commander's perspective needed by historians to
fully understand the command dynamics that drove their actions.
With the new CWD, in addition to operational facts and
statistics, the commander has the opportunity to put their "two
cents" in as to how and why their organization did what it did. By
doing so, they will in effect be providing a "first draft" of the
unit's history.
The CWD itself is not a new idea. During World War II, many
ship captains and unit commanders kept large and detailed "war
diaries," with operational chronologies, photographs and after
action reports.
These new comprehensive records of future events will play a
critical role in the historical analysis of combat operations, and in
telling the Navy's story to the American people.
Other Navy units on deployed operations beyond OIF are
strongly encouraged to compile and submit a Commander's
Operational Diary similar to the CWD.
For further information on TFH, the CWD, and its forms and
enclosures, see the web site:
www.history.navy.mil/tfhistory/index.htm.
For related news, visit the Naval Historical Center Navy
NewsStand page at www.news.navy.mil/local/navhist.
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