EXCUSES

Even the clouds shrieked no!

Sit on one of those miniature chairs in a first grade classroom, and ask the students at your table what they'd like to be when they are big people.

 
Doggie doctor! Movie star! President!

A fair number may wish to be a pilot. 

Or the Commander of a Great Big Ship.

Retired Admiral and former Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, James Loy, describes the captain of a ship at sea as “one of the last bastions of total authority in this world. The ocean is a dangerous place," he writes, "where life and death decisions often need to be made in an instant. For this reason, a sea captain is granted complete independence, power, and control aboard his vessel.”

It's a career mash-up of James T. Kirk and Captain Ahab.

Exciting. Dangerous. Cool.

But as Loy states, with that absolute authority comes absolute responsibility. Daunting responsibility. And if you visited every classroom in the world, odds are not a single student in any grade would answer: “I’d like to be the skipper of a huge ship that will sink like the Titanic!”

Francesco Schettino, the skipper of the Costa Concordia luxury cruise liner- has the dubious distinction of being that guy. 

Eerily, Schettino discussed the Titanic disaster with a Czech newspaper reporter in December of 2010, stating that he “wouldn’t like to be in the role of the captain of the Titanic, having to sail in an ocean of icebergs.”

But Schettino apparently prefers to manufacture his own dangers. Reporter Nick Squires, who dug up that interview from 2010, writes that Schettino enjoyed diverging from standard procedures as a skipper in the Mediterranean: “I enjoy moments when something unpredictable happens, when you can diverge a bit from standard procedures… It’s a challenge to face,” he said.  

The Concordia's former skipper, Commodore Palombo, noted that when Schettino was his second in command, he had to “put him in his place” because Schettino was a daredevil.

Daredevil and showboater who steers a massive cruise ship carrying 4200 people too close to land so he can show off to the locals, and 'salute' the former boss who voiced reservations about him.

 
Narcissist who navigates dangerous waters by sight, rather than relying on the ship’s computer system.  

Liar who tells the coast guard that 'all is well," that his ship has experienced a technical failure, and an  evacuation is almost finished- even though it has not yet begun.

Criminal who waits more than an hour after his vessel hits a rock to give the order to abandon, having no emergency plan to get passengers off the sinking cruise liner in a safe, organized manner.

 
Coward who leaves the ship before his passengers; saving himself instead of the people who dared to vacation, putting their lives in his hands.

11 people die. More than 20 individuals are still missing.

Unfathomable.

Extraordinary training. Tremendous resources.  Electronic wizardry.  Constant detailed information about weather and potential hazards.

Francesco Schettino had them all.

And yet, in the words of Admiral Loy, he seems to have “violated every commonly accepted notion of how a captain will behave in a crisis.”

Schettino’s words of explanation? “I don’t know why it happened. I was a victim of my instincts.”

Imagine. Schettino considers himself a victim.

 
Instead, he is a man utterly devoid of character, and the originator/ utterer of the worst excuse in humanity’s long history of lame excuses. Captain Schettino actually told a magistrate that, while his ship sank, he ended up in a lifeboat by accident: "I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats." 

If you can add injury to insult, can you also add injury to death? 

Words matter. Words tell.  Schettino’s words are like his actions, his character, and the tragic accident he created: unfathomable.

 
In that interview with the Czech reporter from December, 2010 Schettino was asked what impact the sinking of the Titanic had on people’s perceptions of ship safety. His reply? "Luckily, people quickly forget tragedies.”

Sorry, Skipper. For decades to come, in classrooms all over the world-from elementary school students to naval and coast guard cadets- your name will be synonymous with incompetence, negligence, and the absence of character.

Students will learn from your example how not to command a vessel, and how not to be a man.

They'll learn that when entrusted with absolute authority, one also is rewarded absolute responsibility.

With any luck, students will read about the Costa Concordia disaster and learn that when confronting even the most egregious errors and failures, accepting responsibility for one's actions can ultimately lead to forgiveness, while excuses will always be a Fastpass to contempt. 

Better to sail in an ocean of icebergs, Skipper, than a sea of excuses.

QUING Hereby Decrees: Henceforth, excuses shall not be excused.