RADM Hill is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy class of 1944.  He served on the submarine USS Ray (SS-271) in the Battle of the Pacific during World War II.  His ship suffered every battle experience that was recorded on film for the German U-boat in the documentary film, 'Das Boot,' including a sinking to the bottom of Lingayen Gulf with a recovery due only to the courage, bravery, and skill of its crew -- except that Hill's ship was not destroyed in the end.  Mark entered flight training after the war and rose to command an A-4 Skyhawk squadron as well as the aircraft carrier USS Independence.  He was a manpower expert from the grade of LCDR to RADM and served as the Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Manpower.  RADM Hill is a staunch opponent of women-in-combat and has forcefully, intelligently, and PUBLICLY defended his views on this subject.  He has been a strong supporter of naval aviation and has championed the concept of the Navy's large aircraft carriers for decades.  He argues for a return to teaching 'traditional' leadership and ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy -- a program based on the traditions of John Paul Jones, ADM Horatio Nelson, ADM Chester Nimitz, ADM Arleigh Burke, and ADM Thomas H. Moorer, not that of the flawed Enlightenment philosophers.
       Browse through RADM Hill's collection of essays, letters, and 'sea stories' below as you see fit.


A True Story of the Sea  At this link RADM C.A. 'Mark' Hill, USN (Ret.) recounts a sea story that was reported in the Wall Street journal in July 1968 as the USS Independence which he commanded was being harassed by a Soviet trawler which 'shadowed' Sixth Fleet Carrier Task Forces at the time. He also recounts a 'twice told tale' never before reported of a more serious encounter with a Soviet Sverdlov Class cruiser. It was a Captain to Captain 'facedown.' which 'Captain' Hill won as the Soviet ship, cruising under the carrier's 'blind distance overhang,' was forced to turn away or be cut in half. Mark Hill credits the late Rear Admiral Lawrence R. Geis, USN for his leadership in supporting Hill's action then as well as his courage later on as Geis' flagship, USS America, attempted to save the lives of the officers and crew of the USS Liberty when that ship was under aggressive attack by Israeli torpedo boats and fighter aircraft.


In Memory of Admiral Thomas Hinman Moorer  The nation lost a great leader and warrior on 5 February 2004. Admiral Thomas Hinman Moorer, USN (Ret.) died that day and was buried with full military honors in the Arlington National Cemetery on 24 February 2004. A man of great faith, and in the tradition of General George S. Patton, ADM Moorer rose from a one-room school house on the red soil of Alabama to become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at a time when the nation needed a military leader possessing a deep well of resolve and fortitude. Two accomplishments of which he was most proud as Chairman of the JCS was the mining of Haiphong Harbor (reducing 92% of all war material supplied to the North Vietnamese) and the Christmas bombing of Hanoi (which led to the release of our Prisoners of War, including Senator John S. McCain. He accomplished this at the time that negotiations for ending the Vietnam War were at an impasse on the certainty of the prisoners return. President Nixon called on ADM Moorer for his recommendations. Telling the President that the enemy could only be influenced by raw power and it was up to us to demonstrate it; he got the President's authority for that bombing.
    Born 9 February 1912, in Mount Willing, Alabama, Admiral Moorer graduated from high school at the age of 15 and was the valedictorian of his class. Because of his young age, he had to wait two years before admittance to the U.S. Naval Academy where he graduated in 1933. After completing naval aviation training, he flew with fighter squadrons based on the carriers Langley, Lexington, and Enterprise. Lieutenant Moorer was serving with Patrol Squadron Twenty-two at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when the Japanese launched a surprise attack on 7 December 1941. He was one of the first pilots to get his plane in the air. His squadron subsequently participated in the Dutch East Indies campaign in the Southwest pacific where he flew numerous combat missions. He received a Purple Heart and Silver Star after being shot down and wounded off the coast of Australia in February 1942 and then surviving an attack on the rescue ship, a Philippine freighter which was sunk by enemy action the same day. LT Moorer received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his valor three months later when he braved Japanese air superiority to fly supplies into and evacuate wounded out of the island of Timor.
    After conducting anti-submarine warfare against the Germans off the coasts of Florida, Cuba and North Africa, he assumed command responsibilities in peacetime and was promoted to rear admiral in 1958, reportedly becoming at age 45 the youngest officer at the time selected for that rank. He made vice admiral in 1962 and took command of the Seventh Fleet. Two years later he became Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet as a full admiral. Time magazine called him "America's fastest-rising sailor." One year later, he took command of NATO's U.S. Atlantic Command and the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, becoming the only officer in the Navy's history to command both the Pacific and Atlantic fleets.
    President Johnson appointed him Chief of Naval Operations in 1967, and after serving almost three years, President Nixon selected him to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff where he became the first naval officer to hold this position in 13 years. ADM Moorer served as the seventh Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for four years. On 1 July 1974, ADM Moorer retired from active duty.
    After his retirement from the military, ADM Moorer worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He maintained an active interest in military and security affairs, testifying on Capitol Hilll about security concerns. Admiral Moorer's leadership had a profound impact on our nation and a personal influence on many of us who were fortunate enough to serve with him. He displayed extraordinary courage both in combat and in the process of instituting positive change throughout our military. Many dignitaries of the past who served with and for him were present at the funeral: The Honorable Henry Kissinger, The Honorable James Schlesinger, The Honorable John Warner, The Honorable Paul Ignatius, The Honorable Jerry Denton, and the current active duty Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard B. Myers, and Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark.
    A tribute by one who served with ADM Moorer expresses how all who knew and worked with him felt. "Admiral Tom Moorer epitomized what a great leader should be and what he should stand for. Son of a dentist and a loving mother, his roots were deep in the soil of Alabama and his home-town, Mt. Willing. He was one of a kind. He made the impossible possible and the difficult incredibly simple. His calm demeanor wasn't a demonstration. Tom Moorer's humor was legendary as well as his ability to see the glass half full rather than half empty. We will all miss this man ... this admiral ... this American. But, as long as one of us who knew him still breathes, he will be alive in our memories. May God bless him."
    The eulogy, given by RADM Clarence A. (Mark) HIll, Jr., USN (Ret.) at the Fort Myer Memorial Chapel in Arlington, VA, 'Celebrating the Life of Thomas H. Moorer,' on 24 February 2004, was delivered orally without reference to notes and was based on the written text at the link above. RADM Hill, along with a host of others at the funeral, proudly refer to themselves as 'Moorer's Boys' - emulating in their own way the role of 'Preble's Boys' of 1812 War fame.


The Stumpf Affair & the Changing Culture of the U.S. Navy  In this seminal essay, RADM Hill reveals the truth about the 'witch hunt' that was carried out by the radical feminists and their political allies on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) in ILLEGALLY denying a promotion to then-Commander Bob Stumpf as a result of his attendance at Tailhook '91. This story, exhaustively researched and documented, has taken nearly 11 years to reach the light of day. In the aftermath of the brilliantly conceived and soundly executed 'flexible' battle plan carried out by our military forces in Iraq, we are now being bombarded with a media blitz fashioned to promote the 'heroism' of females who - although not in direct combat with the enemy -- somehow served as heroic 'combatants' in that victory. There has already been a one-hour documentary, 'Saving Private Lynch,' (A&E cable TV, 9:00 p.m., 4/18/03) which dealt with a tiny, youthful Army supply clerk whose 507^th Maintenance Group's vehicles took a wrong turn, became lost, and were ambushed by Fedayeen Saddam militia near the town of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq.  Jessica Lynch was taken prisoner. The name of the movie was chosen to 'ring our bell' in remembrance of the popular Spielberg film, 'Saving Private Ryan,' which documented the courage and bravery of our GIs during the D-Day Normandy landing in World War II. The details of Private Lynch's captivity, as well as the timing and source of her many broken bones and other 'wounds' have not yet been revealed by authorities or the mass media. It is clear, however, that The radical feminists, whose agenda is responsible for placing our nation's young military women closer and closer to high-risk areas in the combat zone, are already at work attempting to justify their 'gains' made during the Clinton years in assuring 'job opportunities' for women in the U.S. military. RADM Hill links Bob Stumpf's story with that of LCDR Scott Speicher, another former POW, who probably survived being shot down on the first night of the Gulf Storm War in 1991.  In addition, he links their stories with that of ADM Jeremy 'Mike' Boorda, the Chief of Naval Personnel at the time of Speicher's much-too-speedy and erroneous classification as killed-in-action. ADM Boorda, SecNav John Dalton, and ultimately President William Jefferson Clinton are all intimately bound to the destruction of CDR Stumpf's Navy career and LCDR Speicher's lonesome status as a 'left-behind' and 'forgotten' prisoner of war.
       Read this penetrating essay and learn that the radical feminists' goal was to strike at the heart of the major component of the Navy's combat arms, naval aviation, by destroying the icon of its standards of EXCELLENCE, CDR Bob Stumpf - a former leader of the world-famous Blue Angel flight demonstration team and Commanding Officer of an F/A-18 fighter squadron which had won the Navy E for excellence during Desert Storm.  Indeed, Bob Stumpf's career was to be destroyed in order to show the Navy and all other military units with high standards of EXCELLENCE, that anyone could be destroyed unless they bowed to the willful lowering of standards associated with the 'feminization' of our nation's combat arms. You may or may not be surprised at the cast of characters - uniformed and civilian - who were directly responsible for this tragic tale.
       RADM Hill draws on his vast combat experience in World War II as a young submarine officer and his knowledge and skill in manpower management at the highest levels of the Navy, as well as his keen insight on the proper relationship of a military officer to his civilian superiors to weave a true story of intrigue, treachery, and weak-kneed political manipulators in the SASC and the Senate.  His grasp of the broad sweep of history allows insights that most of us are unable to recognize. He relates the Bob Stumpf Affair to the Dreyfus Affair that led to a 'regime change' in France after his trial and imprisonment in late 1894. We are reminded again (Greenberg, Paul, "The dispensable truth," Wash. Times, 04/20/03) that, "The truth sets us free in more ways than one; it not only allows us to say what we think but allows the world to correct us. Because it furnishes us a standard outside ourselves by which we may be judged. Without it, we live on our own little imaginary planets, spinning out of control." RADM Hill tells us the truth in 'The Stumpf Affair & the Changing Culture of the U.S. Navy.'


RADM Hill Responds to Senator Grassley During 'The Bob Stumpf Affair'  At this link, read the absolutely false charges against then-CDR Bob Stumpf, made in a statement made by Senator Charles E. Grassley on the floor of the Senate during the process by which the radical feminists in Congress and the Executive Branch were attempting to find a scapegoat for their ire at the Tailhook '91 bacchanal -- using the officer promotion process as the vehicle for sending a signal that they could destroy anyone's career, even one of the most accomplished warriors (leader of the Blue Angels and Commanding Officer of a fighter squadron which won the E for excellence during the Gulf Storm War) of the time. These false charges were answered by RADM Hill in a letter (also at this link) to Senator  Grassley with information copies to Senators Thurmond, Nunn, Warner, McCain,  Lott & Coats along with then SecNav John Dalton and CNO ADM J. M. Boorda.


SecNav Dalton's Rebuttal to RADM Hill's 'The Bob Stumpf Affair'  Choose this link to view former-SecNav John Dalton's response to the RADM C.A. 'Mark' Hill Jr. USN (Ret.) essay on 'The Bob Stumpf Affair.' Connected to this response is supporting evidence that Dalton is equivocating and 'hiding the truth' from the American public on the details of his and his JAG lawyers' so-called 'investigation' of then-CDR Stumpf's behavior at Tailhook '91. This investigation more resembled a Star Chamber trial of an innocent man than an honest, straightforward search for the truth. If the details of the SecNav 'trumped up charges' against Bob Stumpf were ever to surface, John Dalton and his JAG cadre could be charged by the American people with malicious malfeasance in office.


Attorney Charles Gittins Reclamas SecNav Dalton's Rebuttal  At this link is a reclama to SecNav Datlton's rebuttal, written by Charles Gittins, CDR Stumpf's legal counsel at the time, which substantiates the falsity of charges leveled against Stumpf by SecNav Dalton and his JAG lawyers during the Star Chamber trial of Stumpf in Dalton's office -- during which CDR Stumpf said, "Enough!" and submitted his retirement papers. CDR Stumpf was later (post-retirement) promoted to Captain after a Board of Inquiry's formal review of this flagrantly illegal promotion procedure.


A Navy Fighter Pilot Over Afghanistan  This e-mail message was forwarded to the Naval Aviation Foundation through the Association of Naval Aviation. It was dated 28 January 2002. It was from an F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot deployed on an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea which is carrying the air war to the Taliban and al Qaeda Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan. This message clearly conveys the fighting spirit of those who are carrying out the air war against the enemy, their dedication to their mission and those Americans who were killed in the 9-11 attack on America. It also reveals not only the nature of the air war but the fact that our ships, planes, and aircrews are being and have been 'worn to ground.' That is, they are being worn out by constant use. This fact alone reveals the huge gap between the U.S. military and civilian thinking over the past decade about the nature of and material condition of our armed forces. The gap in understanding is a huge crevasse that is getting wider. Do you know what a 'piddle pack' is? If not, you are a part of that wide and deep divide.

RADM Hill Saw It Coming  This essay reveals that RADM Hill had the prescience n 1997 to warn the leadership of one of our political parties that there were 'enemies within' who were attempting to weaken and ultimately destroy the U.S. military. His message was not heeded. Now that America is at war, it is abundantly clear that his message will come back to haunt us at a time when we have a smaller and less capable military than we had during the Gulf Storm War in 1991.

The Military and New Age 'Ethics'  At this link is the seminal essay on the subject of 'The Military and New Age Ethics' by RADM C.A. Hill, Jr. USN (Ret.), USNA class of 1944.  It compares the U.S. Naval Academy of his day, when men of steel were produced who won the Battle of the Pacific of World War II with the situation today -- where standards have been reduced, curricula have been weakened, and 'ethics' have been de-Christianized. RADM Hill was the first flag-rank officer to go PUBLIC with criticism of the program which is destroying the Navy to which he and many other WWII naval officers devoted their entire lives.

Mark Hill's Response to CAPT Gamboa   At this link is a defiant response to CAPT Joseph Gamboa's  quote of a scurrilous racial slur attributed to one of the nation's most revered naval officers, ADM Arleigh Burke, by an anonymous source (a midshipman who has yet to be identified by CAPT Gamboa).

A Formal 'Private' Debate on RADM Hill's Essay     In response to RADM Hill's initiatives to PUBLICLY criticize the New Age 'ethics' program and other aspects of the USNA's core combat leadership education and training, Academy and Alumni officials have chosen to remain publicly silent while at the same time support 'private' initiatives to silence the opposition.  One such initiative was their pressure on a highly respected flag-rank officer to withdraw his mild rebuttal to CAPT Mark Clemente's spirited defense of the Academy's new 'ethics' program (see the February 2000 'Proceedings').  This pressure, exerted over seven months of  delay in editing, cutting, and stalling succeeded.  The article, submitted in March 2000, did not appear in the September issue of 'Proceedings.' It has been withdrawn by the author.
       A more overt initiative was evidenced by a loyal alumnus, RADM John M. Barrett, USN (Ret.) USNA class 1943, who attempted to convince RADM Hill and RADM Ned Hogan (both of whom have gone public in their criticism) to cease their PUBLIC criticism of the Academy and keep all such discourse 'in house.' as well as to disassociate themselves with Dr. Atkinson's efforts in this regard.
       In this section of his CORNER, RADM Hill chooses to publish his responses to RADM Barrett's criticism as well as other correspondence which he has received on the subject of "The New Age 'Ethics' at the Academy."  Only the responses are published here -- responses which have been approved directly by their authors.

First Response -- Hill to Barrett   Here RADM Hill responds to Barrett's weak defense of the 'ethics' program at the Academy and his attack on Dr. Atkinson's motives and character.  This correspondence is the most penetrating that has been published to date on the character of Navy leadership in RADM Hill's day compared to that of today's active-duty flag-rank officers.  This 'essay' essentially captures what 'has been lost' in the 'flight from tradition' in our New Age Navy.

Second Response -- Hill to Barrett   This concluding response essentially 'cuts the cord' of Barrett's attempt to stifle RADM Hill's public criticism of the Academy.  It contrasts Hill's vision of the 'warrior spirit' with that of Barrett's view while providing deep insight into the differences in today's Navy leadership and that of the naval officers who won the Battle of the Pacific in WWII.  It contains hilarious stories related to RADM Hill's views on Tailhoook '91 and the weak-kneed Navy leadership in its aftermath.

CAPT Bush letter to ADM Smith   This letter, dated 25 August 2000, from CAPT Vernon R. Bush, USN (Ret.), USNA class 1956 to ADM Leighton  W. Smith, Jr., Chairman of the Board of the USNA Alumni Association, details the ways in which the Academy has fled from tradition since his days as a midshipman.  CAPT Bush decries the attempt of the Association officials to stifle criticism of the Academy that has been building over the past several years.  He calls for ADM Smith's resignation.

CAPT Jones letter to RADM Hill   This letter, from a friend of RADM Barrett, gives us his view of a Navy  in which  he terminated his career by turning down command of a destroyer which was to have a complement of 25% women -- and retired.  This Navy leader chose principle over career.  He believes the debate on the Academy should be PUBLIC and encourages RADM Hill to remain steadfast in this regard.

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