WASHINGTON — Students, faculty and alumni gathered at the Washington Navy Yard’s Catering and Conference Center to celebrate the annual Naval War College (NWC) College of Distance Education (CDE) dinner and Philip A. Crowl Lecture Series, May 21.
CDE, formerly known as the Department of Correspondence Courses, was established on April 1, 1914 at the NWC in Newport, Rhode Island, through General Order No. 89 issued by Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels.
It wasn't until 1974 that NWC initiated off-campus seminars, the first being in Washington, D.C. for about 30 students. Known today as the Fleet Seminar Program, it has approximately 1,200 students enrolled at 20 satellite campuses around the country.
“This is an annual event at the end of the academic year for the Naval War College students in Washington, D.C.,” said Charles C. Chadburn III, professor of strategy and director of the NWC Fleet Seminar Program. “It is also a lecture in memory of a distinguished professor at the NWC who taught strategy — a WWII veteran and a distinguished military historian by the name of Philip Crowl.”
This annual event has been celebrated for since 1987, with 1991 as an exception due to Operation Desert Storm. Students, alumni, professors and congressmen come to the event to discuss topics related to national security and to attend a lecture honoring Crowl, one of the college’s most successful former professors.
“This dinner is hosted to have a thought-provoking final end-of-the-year event to think about matters of strategy and things of ethical importance for the college and to our students, leaders [and] future leaders of the military community,” said Chadburn.
This year’s lecture, "Leadership, Ethics and Military Service," was delivered by retired Cmdr. Porter Alexander Halyburton, NWC professor emeritus.
Halyburton spoke about his experiences as a Navy lieutenant junior grade and prisoner of war in Vietnam and how ethics and leadership helped him endure his time in “The Zoo,” a prison camp for American military members during the war.
“Two of the most important lessons that I learned [was] when I was in Vietnam," said Halyburton. “I think that most of us who went from a life of freedom to suddenly being in an entirely different environment, realized that we were in the hands of folks who could do anything they wanted to with us, including taking our lives.
“[But] we quickly understood that there was one freedom they couldn’t take from us. To me that elemental freedom is the freedom of choice, our free will. I think that’s the most essential freedom we have and every other freedom flows from that, one aspect of making a choice.”
Halyburton also spoke about how some of the higher ranking officers and their leadership and patriotism helped him and his comrades endure the tortures given by the Vietnamese, abiding by the code of conduct. He concluded his speech with a poem, titled “Reflections in Captivity.” It reflects his thoughts about the war while he was in captivity.
The dinner concluded with a questions and answers session from the more than 200 guests in attendance.
Former notable speakers have been author Tom Clancy, Honorable Ike Skelton, Congressman Evan Thomas, Honorable Daniel Inouye, Senator John Francis “Jack” Reed, former Secretary of the Navy Richard J. Danzig, and U.S. Cyber Command commander Adm. Michael S. Rogers, among others.