When failure is not an option, you take care of your people (Capitol Updates)

Steve Lewis served as Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1989-1991. He currently practices law in Tulsa and represents clients at the Capitol. You can sign up on his website to receive the Capitol Updates newsletter by email.

Very little happened in the Legislature last week as members of the House and Senate left the capitol on Wednesday for the Easter weekend. So, for the fun of it I’ll take this spot to reflect a bit.

When I graduated from law school (more years ago than I care to highlight) I joined the U.S. Navy and served for 3 ½ years. I was accepted into the JAG Corps. which made me soon eligible for officer’s pay, a substantial monthly paycheck the likes of which I had never before seen. In addition, I noticed I was nearly always getting more money for something: mileage, per diem, extra duty, moving expense, etc. I never felt that I was overpaid (who does?), but I felt well taken care of. In fact, I never looked on my military service as a sacrifice. It was probably one of the better things that happened to me.

After training I was ordered to the Philippines to be the legal officer for a small Naval Air Station. This was during the Viet Nam war so perhaps the military budget was more flush than usual. I noticed that we had plenty of help. There was at least one person for every job, maybe more. Some people could fly over to Cam Ranh Bay once a month, spend the day and collect combat pay for the month. The food and entertainment at the O-Club (and the Petty Officer and the Enlisted Club) was great, and you could drink enough subsidized liquor for under $5 to get yourself in trouble. Base housing was the best I’d ever lived in. I don’t know how it was in the military before then or how it is now, and I know I was lucky. A lot of folks spent the war in a mud pit in the middle of the jungle, and some didn’t come home.

[pullquote]”If the goal is to educate a child or cure a disease or treat someone who is mentally ill or build a road or prosecute a crime, you take care of the people doing the job for you and you give them what they need.”[/pullquote]

The point is that our government, at whatever cost is necessary, makes it our business to have the best fighting force in the world. The goal is preparedness, preparation and execution. It seemed obvious to me that someone above my paygrade had long ago concluded that efficiency was not to be the hallmark by which our military would be judged. When failure is not an option, you take care of your people, and they get what they need—and more—to get the job done. Although we didn’t get the job done in that war, I don’t think anyone would argue it was for lack of resources.

I also had the opportunity to observe and interact with the government of the Philippines at that time. It was underfunded and corrupt, thus ineffective. I don’t know if it was underfunded because it was corrupt or corrupt because it was underfunded. People had to hand a government clerk money with their paperwork to get it filed in a timely fashion. When a sailor got in trouble in town we resolved the case by arranging a “civil settlement” under the watchful eye of the local prosecutor. If you wanted to sell your car you paid the President of the Philippines $50 through an intermediary to get the right paperwork. There was little respect for the government or the rule of law.

So I’ve decided that I like the way the Navy ran better than the way the Philippines ran. I don’t get too excited when I hear about waste and inefficiency in government. Every human endeavor is inefficient. If the goal is to educate a child or cure a disease or treat someone who is mentally ill or build a road or prosecute a crime, you take care of the people doing the job for you and you give them what they need. If failure is not an option, you may give them a little more than they need and allow for some inefficiency. Otherwise the government can start looking like the Philippines did: underfunded and ineffective, maybe even corrupt.