The recent report commissioned by members of Congress on the state of the Navy, first reported on these pages (“If War Comes, Will the U.S. Navy Be Prepared?” July 12), has raised the temperature of a debate that has been percolating in the Navy for some time. Last year, after a capital ship burned in San Diego and a high-profile firing of a Navy captain, these pages asked: Is there a larger cultural problem in the Navy? (”The Navy’s Cultural Ship is Listing,” July 17, 2020).
The inimitable John Lehman, Navy secretary for Ronald Reagan, who wrote to these pages in …
