The Brownfield Syndrome

Who was this former nuclear submarine officer, Iraq war veteran and why had he said such outlandish things as author of My Nuclear Family ?

Well, we finally have an answer to Mr. Brownfield's bold, public suggestion for using unconventional explosions to stop the oil leak in the Gulf.

My previous mention of a nuclear demolition—which I immediately ruled out for political reasons—has turned into a straw man that distracts our attention from the pragmatic solution I advocated publicly weeks ago. - Christopher Brownfield, The Case for Blowing Up the Oil Well, THE DAILY BEAST, June 5, 2010.

Can there be any doubt Mr. Brownfield's bold, public suggestion to use unconventional explosions to stop the oil leak in the Gulf had been a publicity tactic for his forthcoming book? Hardly, because Mr. Brownfield has continued to agitate print media with further attention-getting claims from his 15,000 hours (less than 2 years) of underwater experience. Yet, there are significant political overtones to other key allegations Brownfield makes in his book, as well:
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He tries to make the case (popular with liberal-leaning lawyer-politicians to speed up declassification of military documents------
"[E]very classified document I ever read in the submarine force could replace the word SECRET with another six-letter word—BORING"
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He even attempts to discredit the ongoing need for this nation's most potent platforms-----
"After the 9/11 attacks, the submarine force suddenly found itself without a mission. Unless Osama bin Laden commandeered a rubber raft with WMD, there was nothing of unique value that a submarine could provide. This didn’t stop the admirals, who fought tirelessly to justify the existence of the force that had become a white elephant in the swimming pool, a relic of the Cold War costing hundreds of billions of dollars. Washington's bureaucratic mêlée for defense dollars continued, new submarine missions were invented, new core competencies were contrived, and the submarine force stayed afloat." [color emphasis M.E.'s]
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Not only are we able to ascertain Brownfield's ostensible political stripe (very liberal), we may deduce another possible reason for the timing of his curious book.----
Mr. Brownfield explains that, for a submarine crew on rare shore leave in distant locales, the phrase “jumping on a hand grenade” means intentionally talking to less attractive women in a bar so your friends can zero in on the more comely ones. - Dwight Garner, What’s a Submarine Officer Doing in the Desert? , Books, The New York Times, September 21, 2010.
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Could Mr. Brownfield's acerbic allegations of cheating by submarine junior officers be just another way to defuse the expected travails female officers may face when they take the same exams to qualify on submarines? Hmmm!
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Brownfield, of course is another USNA grad who should probably have been weeded out in a truly diligent admissions process. That is, of course, unless things like actual commitment to a naval career, respect for the military and its history of accomplishments, and wasting taxpayer dollars really mattered much less than attaining gender quotas and points with liberal poiticians for educating their relatives for free. Any relatives in high places, Mr. Brownfield?
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Submarines are always silent and strange.