2020 National Congress: a “Virtual” Success!

16 – 17 October 2020

Due to COVID-19 and local vendor logistical challenges, the Naval Order’s 2020 in-person Congress scheduled from Wednesday, October 14th through Saturday, October 17th at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Buffalo, New York, was cancelled.

However, the General Council voted unanimously to hold the 2020 Congress as a virtual event.  We conducted the Congress over a two day period on October 16-17 using an on-line collaboration tool.  Instructions on how to use the tools and schedules for practice sessions were provided in advance.

The structure of the Congress included both a business and an educational component. The business session and reporting requirements were conducted on Day 1, with Educational Presentations conducted on Day 2. On-line presentations were limited to no more than three hours on either day of the Congress.

The heavy lift for the Congress is and will always be the committee meetings held prior to the opening where reports for the General Council and Commanderies are generated. These meetings were also held on-line: scheduled and conducted as determined by the individual Committee or Board Chair for members using on-line collaboration as well. The times of these meetings and accesses to open meetings were promulgated via e-mail prior to the committee event. Chairs were to contact CAPT Whitkop to arrange for a Zoom Meeting window (nousfc@gmail.com).

Committee Chairs submitted their reports to me and the Recorder General no later than 1 October 2020 so that reports could be posted and available for review by the Commandery delegates prior to the Congress. Agenda, voting procedures and process for designation of delegates were sent to Commandery Commanders by the Recorder General.

Please remain flexible and open minded as we take this step into the 21st Century. Please encourage all of your Companions to participate in virtual events as we expand our base and move to the future.

Sincerely,

Allan Cruz, Col, USMC (Ret)
Commander General, Naval Order of the United States.


BONUS MATERIAL: Read the 2019 Congress Summary from Boston, Massachusetts!


2020 Congress Plan

2020 Congress was conducted using collaboration software easily downloaded from the Internet. Training /practice sessions was provided over the preceding months to familiarize Companions with the use of the software.

The events leading up to our 2020 CONGRESS were important for all companions to participate in. A timeline was provided for Pre-CONGRESS for all Companions to be able to track; inputs and comments are still welcome.

Welcome to the 2020 Naval Order Virtual CONGRESS

We held our conference this year in a Virtual Environment.  The CONGRESS endeavored to deliver the same level of information on the business of the Order and Educational opportunities as professional and rich as at past Congresses.  The key to success was YOU.  You participated and provided your support to the efforts of the Order by coming on line, listening to the business and history presentations and helping us to expand our base and our deliverables to you, the Companions of the Naval Order.   Your participation in our advance training in mid-September and other test opportunities to make sure your equipment works prior to the Congress was critical.  We wanted ALL of you to sign up!  Please contact your Commandery Secretary or Commandery Commander and let them know you your opinion the Congress.  We had a sign up (Registration) page and those signing up will receive a very nice 2020 Congress challenge coin (for the nominal fee), but your commitment to your Commandery as soon as possible ensured that the Virtual Environment was sized, planned and readied for the Congress. 

Reading the Business Reports which were posted prior to CONGRESS 2020 and forwarding any comments or questions to the Chairperson or to nouscongress@outlook.com so that your questions could be addressed in advance was most helpful. Those reports will remain posted for 2 months after CONGRESS in the same Dropbox. There was not time to address many questions during the CONGRESS, but when questions did arise, they were forwarded to the EmCEE via CHAT on the Zoom conference!! Questions were answered and if needed will taken up at the next General Council meeting!

The Meeting URL for the Survey for the Congress 2020 was standard and posted to the web site throughout the CONGRESS; the Zoom event code had the same password.  If you did not have internet or computer access, please contact us at nouscongress@outlook.com or contact your Commandery Commander and we will do our best to accommodate your needs! A Kindle with all reports and briefs was provided to one Companion. The Zoom event could also be accessed from a computer or a Smartphone. The Brochure is available :

Download your copy of the CONGRESS Brochure HERE!!!!

Pre-CONGRESS presentation and preps

Thursday - 8 OCT 2020 2000-2100 EDT: ( Presentation by Morison Award Winning Author)  ‘Naval Airships’ – by M. Ernest Marshall

For those who attended and those who had difficulty, Please fill out the Survey Monkey form available here!

Also if you’d like please E-Mail nouscongress@outlook.com if you have any other comments or questions!

View the Slides from Dr Marshall’s Presentation HERE

Synopsis: “Suspecting a war with Japan somewhere over the horizon, the American Navy needed a means of conducting surveillance of the vast Pacific Ocean to guard against invasion. Surface vessels were too slow, and the Navy had too few of them, and airplanes lacked the range to cover the Pacific Ocean. The Navy turned to airships (dirigibles) as a solution - vehicles that could range for thousands of miles in the air on a single tank of fuel." Rear Admiral Herbert V. Wiley and Vice Admiral Charles E. Rosendahl - close friends - were with the Navy's airship program from beginning to end. After the loss of the Navy's last airship, Rosendahl went on to develop the blimp program that guarded America's entire coastline during WW II.

Speaker Bio: M. Ernest Marshall is the 2020 recipient of the Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature for his book "Rear Admiral Herbert V. Wiley, U. S. N. - A Career in Airships and Battleships," presented by the Naval Order of the United States.  He is a graduate of the University of Virginia College of Arts & Sciences and School of Medicine. In his academic career, he rose to the rank of Full Professor of Medicine in Hematology/Oncology. In retirement, he is an historian and author focused on U. S. Navy history. He resides in Charlottesville, Virginia with his wife, Lisa.   His most recent book, "Rear Admiral Herbert V. Wiley, U. S. N. - A Career in Airships and Battleships," is simultaneously a biography of Admiral Wiley and a seamless beginning to end history of the American Navy's rigid airship program."  Marshall's next book is a biography of Vice Admiral Charles E. Rosendahl

Thursday - 15 OCT 2020

14:00-16:00 – Gathering and Equipment Checks. 

2020 CONGRESS Theme: “Naval Forces then to Now!”

Friday - 16 OCT 2020

 “Business Day”  1500 – 1900 Eastern Daylight Time

14:00-15:00 – Gathering and Equipment Checks.  Please check in on Thursday 15 Oct (14-1600) to see that your equipment is up and running.

15:00 – Strike Six Bells

-          Call to Order (CGE) as EmCee

-          National Anthem 

-          Pledge of Allegiance (CGE)

-          Invocation – (Chaplain) “Father Mike” CDR Michael P. Zuffoletto, CHC, USN (Ret.)

-          Companions Lost since Boston Congress -2019

Reading of names of those we lost to ‘Ringing of the Bell’

15:15 - Commander General’s Welcome and State of the Order

Note: for the following Committee / Officer presentations, the reports will have been previously provided.  If you intend to ask questions, please have the courtesy to have read the report prior to the Business Meeting. Link to the Dropbox was sent following registration.

These reports will be 10 minutes long (maximum 4 slides) including questions and answers.

15:30 – Credentials Committee (at the beginning of the National Congress)

15:40 – Financial Review and Audit Committee

15:50 – Investment Committee

16:00 – National Awards Committee

16:10 – Site Committee

16:20 – Foundation Status and Financial Report

16:30 – Break

16:40 – Recorder General – Confirmation of Actions by the GC since last CONGRESS (Requires Vote of the CONGRESS by delegates - process for voting will be forwarded to designated delegates prior to Congress)

16:50 – Commandery Support Committee

17:00 – Membership /Registrar & Retention

17:10 – Historian General / Archiving

17:20 – Break

17:30 - Presentation of the Capt Jan Armstrong Award - CG COL Allan Cruz, USMC (Ret)

Northwest Commandery

17:45 – History Presentation: ‘ War of 1812 ‘– CAPT Stan Carpenter, USN (Ret)

Synopsis: Focus will be on the battle for the lakes in the War of 1812 with special emphasis on the Battle of Lake Erie, September 1813 (Oliver Hazard Perry). Made our ‘Don't Give up the Ship’ motto for the Congress famous. Will tell the story of the USS Chesapeake and Captain James Lawrence. Perry used that motto for his own and the flagship at Lake Erie was named for Lawrence.

Dr Carpenter’s presentation slides are available here!!!!

18:30 – Q&A

18:45 – Suspend for the Day

18:45 – Optional Social Hour – no host Local Happy Hours(if desired).

TBD - End of Day

Download your copy of the CONGRESS Brochure HERE!!!!

Saturday - 17 OCT 2020 (Click here for access to the Day 2 Recording)

“History Day” 1400-1900 Eastern Daylight Time  

14:00 – Pre-meeting Check-in and equipment sound checks

15:00 – Call to Order /Reconvene

-          Admin Remarks

15:15 – History Presentation: ’A Measureless Peril’ on convoy ops in WWII - Mr Rich Snow-Editor American Heritage Magazine, -

Synopsis: My Father’s War: Letters written home from a destroyer escort in the North Atlantic during World War II offer an intimate picture of how a middle-aged architect was quickly remade into a naval officer.” These letters inspired his 2011 Morison Award Finalist “A Measureless Peril.”

Speaker Bio: Author is the recipient of the 2017 RADM Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature for his book “Iron Dawn.” He spent nearly four decades at American Heritage Magazine, serving as editor in chief for seventeen years, and has been a consultant on historical motion pictures, among them Glory, and has written for documentaries, including the Burns brothers ’Civil War, and Ric Burns’ award-winning PBS film Coney Island, whose screenplay he wrote. He is the author of multiple books, including, most recently, Disney’s Land. When American Heritage was sold in 2007,Snow began work on “A Measureless Peril”, (a Finalist for the Morison Award) a book about America’s part in the bitter, years-long struggle for the North Atlantic in World War II. It was published by Scribner in 2011 and was inspired by the WW 2 letters of his father, an architect turned Naval Officer

Richard Snow’s Pictures are Here!

Richard Snow’s Transcript of his Notes are here!

16:15 -  History Presentation: ‘Cook’s voyage and the US Navy’ A moderated Presentation with Mr Hampton Sides, Morrison Award Winner moderated by Mr Rich Snow

Synopsis: A “floating conversation" on the joys and challenges of writing nautical tales and military history, with Morison Award recipients Hampton Sides (2019) and Richard Snow (2017 – “Iron Dawn”).

Speaker Bio: Narrative historian Hampton Sides is the author of Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, In the Kingdom of Ice, and other bestselling works of non-fiction. His most recent book, On Desperate Ground: The Epic Story of Chosin Reservoir—the Greatest Battle of the Korean War, won the 2019 RADM Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature. A resident fellow at the Aspen Institute, Hampton is currently writing a book about the third and final voyage of Captain James Cook. 

Hampton Sides’ Pictures from his Moderated Discussion are here!

17:00 – Break

17:15 – Presentation of the LCDR Lee Douglas Award - CG COL Allan Cruz, USMC (Ret)

National Capital Commandery

17:20 - CG Awards Presentation

17:30– History Presentation: ‘ Naval Officers at the Dawn of the Age of Navalism – CDR Irvin Gillis, USN and CAPT Alfred Thayer Mahan, USN, 1890-1919’ - CAPT Vance Morrison, USN (Ret)

Synopsis: CDR Irvin Gillis entered the Naval Academy in 1890 and retired from the Navy in 1919. During that period the U.S. Navy grew from 44 to hundreds of ships; built and perfected battleships, torpedo boats and submarines; developed a worldwide mindset with colonies and coaling stations abroad; built naval shipyards on both coasts; and was critical to winning the first Battle of the Atlantic in World War I. The talk will trace briefly how all that occurred.

Speaker’s Bio: Captain Vance Morrison, USN (Retired) is a Past Commander General of the Naval Order of the U.S. He was commissioned in 1962, served thirty years as a Surface Warfare Officer, commanded a frigate and a guided missile cruiser, was an Intelligence Subspecialist and Chinese linguist, served as Acting Defense Attache for five months and U.S. Naval Attache in China for two years, and, as a civilian, he was a systems analyst for Navy and national space programs. He brought to publication a biography of CDR Irvin Gillis, USN, published by the U.S. Naval Institute Press in 2012.

Captain Morrison’s Presentation is here!!

18:30 - Official Adjournment – Close CONGRESS (adjourn until Oct 2021 in San Diego CA)

18:45 – Optional Social Hour – no host Happy Hour. at local sites

Download your copy of the CONGRESS Brochure HERE!!!!

Please Fill out a Survey Monkey for the CONGRESS - HERE!!!! (Be candid so we can improve for next year!)

All coins have shipped to Participants; some twice thanks to the USPS!!

Let us know what you think of the Coins when you receive them!!

Post-CONGRESS Events

Naval Order of the United States

Each week during the year join us for Sea Story Night on Zoom. Each Thursday Night during a month, on a not to interfere basis with other Naval Order Activities at the National and Local Level, we will be holding Sea Story Night. A completely and totally informal gathering of Comrades and Shipmates to Talk about and share whatever is on their minds. This is a ‘Test” period as a result of some suggestions from the 2020 Congress, so Join us by Linking below at 2000 EDT / 1900 CDT / 1800 MDT/ and 1700 PDT (and whatever time that translates to for Hawaii!!) each Thursday! We can send you a complete invite, including Telephone dial-in numbers by sending an e-mail to: nouscongress@outlook.com .

We will be taking a few weeks off for the Holidays but plan to start up again in 2021

Click HERE for Sea Story Night!!!

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