Bruce Fleming saga cont.

A6E Dad

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he's back in the paper, this time making himself out to be the victim

https://www.capitalgazette.com/opin...0190825-ac4w5umjvve7xc3nmvapi6voee-story.html

he seems to be doubling down on his criticisms and going from "SA's are no better that ROTC, etc, or not cost effective, etc" to stating that SA's "do not make a positive contribution to defense"

in my opinion, some of his criticisms are valid, and it's true the the Navy doesn't like to hear it, but it's hard to understand what his motivation is
 
Saying " . . the service academies do not make a positive contribution to defense" is rather extreme. If he wants to have any influence, he would be better off using a more reasonable tone and using logic to prove a point. It's one thing, for example, to criticize the number of parades and question how they contribute to making better field officers, but to say that these institutions do not make any positive contribution to defense sounds just crazy and makes many a reader "turn off" and ignore the message. How about suggesting ways to keep the service academies, but improve them through positive changes or reforms? Not Mr. Fleming. He takes perverse pleasure at being a "gadfly"
 
The poor guy just wants somebody to like him. I don't think that he can even bring himself to do it. I feel sorry for him. He seems so ill at ease in his own skin.
 
Are his classes really as popular as I have read??
A professor sending pic's of himself to students & touching them is a definite no-no so he shouldn't have been surprised at the blow-back. "People who live in glass houses"...used to be the case but he's more of a "Do as I say, not as I do"-type.
 
I had him much earlier in his career. He wasn’t as eccentric back then. Not sure if he had achieved tenure when I had (haven’t don’t the math).
 
@NJROTC-CC. Well said! You took the words right out of my mouth. Fleming’s words are divisive and meant to be punitive and destructive. He’s a rotten egg. And I see his words not contributing positively but meant to be damaging to the Service and to the Academy. Why he’s even back at the Yard is already a bad decision. To help the MIDNs and the faculty he can say a lot of things the Academy can retire that are indeed less useful and useless that can help the MIDNs better focus on their academics and student life etc.
 
Wonder what he is assigned to at USNA? If people avoid him? If he has friendly coworkers? I can’t imagine it’s a fulfilling worklife to be ostracized, if that’s the case.
 
Wonder what he is assigned to at USNA? If people avoid him? If he has friendly coworkers? I can’t imagine it’s a fulfilling worklife to be ostracized, if that’s the case.

In my business we would say he has been assigned to “counting paper clips.” I think the USNA has said he has been assigned to doing “research”
 
Wonder what he is assigned to at USNA? If people avoid him? If he has friendly coworkers? I can’t imagine it’s a fulfilling worklife to be ostracized, if that’s the case.

My DS saw him, but DS is an English major and spends a lot of time in that building.
 
My DS said MIDNs who were invited to his house saw a lot of queer and weird things around his house. Not the best kind we want around the Yard. I think the Academy invited him back to be PC and to keep him quiet and drop the law suit against the Navy. What ever the reasons there is price to pay.
 
My DS said MIDNs who were invited to his house saw a lot of queer and weird things around his house. Not the best kind we want around the Yard. I think the Academy invited him back to be PC and to keep him quiet and drop the law suit against the Navy. What ever the reasons there is price to pay.
They did not invite him back, they were ordered to take him back by an administrative law judge who adjudicates Civil Service issues. They have to take him back but they (wisely IMHO) decided to keep him out of the classroom.
 
So he'll spend his time writing editorials to the Capital Gazette and continue to air the laundry in public. To this outside observer it does appear to be all about Fleming. I wonder how long he'll endure his research assignment if he really is that set on being a teacher.
 
That’s what I mean....quality of life kind of thing. I can’t imagine being unfulfilled for the rest of my life. Maybe he isn’t, but he has lost his teaching stage.
 
I'll bet even money that he is a member here.

That’s what I mean....quality of life kind of thing. I can’t imagine being unfulfilled for the rest of my life. Maybe he isn’t, but he has lost his teaching stage.
I think he would wash dishes and empty trash there, just to remain as a thorn in their side and pull down his big pay check.
 
I'll bet even money that he is a member here.


I think he would wash dishes and empty trash there, just to remain as a thorn in their side and pull down his big pay check.

They should assign him to something productive, like making a study of all the best military academies in the world and publishing a study that makes specific recommendations as to how to adopt some of their best practices so as to improve the US service academies. This project would send him around the world and keep him away from the kids.
 
They should assign him to something productive, like making a study of all the best military academies in the world and publishing a study that makes specific recommendations as to how to adopt some of their best practices so as to improve the US service academies.

Therein lies the rub. He doesn't want to find solutions. He simply wants to complain -- about USNA, about SAs in general, and about the way he perceives he is wrongly treated.

The fact is that, as others have said, he makes some points that probably are valid. But those get lost among the points that aren't valid (or relevant) and the lack of critical thinking in terms of solutions. Which is pathetic for a tenured English professor.
 
It's too bad Fleming has the stature he possesses, because the usual online advice of Ignore or Block can't really apply. If he were on this forum instead of a tenured professor at an SA he may have already been banned as a troll for his disruptive, repetitive and negative remarks. Unfortunately his passion and sincerity really don't seem to leave him much room for any reasonableness that could lead to effectiveness, and his tenure has only isolated him further from any consideration of changing his approach. He's been there for 33 years, so he's effectively just collecting his pension right now. At this point the only people who don't know who he is are the smaller media outlets in search of cheap copy who don't care and the larger ones who know him and want a little click-storm. Flag and ignore, flag and ignore.
 
Fleming is a narcissist. I don't anybody would argue against that. While some of the subjects he has brought up over the years do deserve discussion, he isn't interested in the discussion. He just wants to be that controversial figure and talked about as though he matters. Just like that annoying friend my son had growing up. He talked all the time for the sake of being heard. He would never shut up and never said anything worth listening to. He was a PITA...

If Fleming didn't write these editorials, nobody would even know he still exists. The real news articles would be talked about for a day or two, and then we would just forget about him. It is so blatantly obvious to me that he spaces these op-eds in an attempt to keep himself 'significant.'

Fleming has only 40 followers on his Twitter account. Nobody really cares what he has to say. Hopefully the Gazette will catch on and stop publishing his letters.
 
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