Zimble’s Rubber Chicken: An Overlooked Symbol in a Navy Surgeon General’s Portrait

Prominently displayed in the executive conference room at the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia, is a portrait of Vice Adm. James Zimble, the Navy Surgeon General from 1987 to 1991. At first glance, you may not see anything unusual in the oil painting. Even if your eyes brush past it, the peculiar object floating on the left side may not register. But once you see it and accept that what you are looking at is really there, you cannot unsee the rubber chicken. So, why has this classic gag prop been immortalized next to the admiral?

While Zimble was a visionary leader who helped spearhead the reactivation of BUMED in 1989 and guided Navy Medicine through the Persian Gulf War, he also was noted for having a quirky sense of humor. And throughout his tenure as Navy Surgeon General, a rubber chicken was never far from his side.

“When he was the surgeon general, he kept the rubber chicken in the lower, right-hand drawer of his desk,” related retired Capt. George Harris, a former aide to Zimble, in an oral history in 2014. “We’d be in a meeting, and if somebody got too full of themselves, you’d see him lean over to his right; the next thing that was coming was the chicken. He would take the chicken out and throw it at whoever was expounding about something. That was just his way of deflating people. And he would laugh about it, and everybody else would too. It was a way of saying, ‘Take it down a notch. You’re full of yourself.’”

The flying rubber poultry was always deployed in good fun, typically with briefers he already knew well; serving as a sudden, hilarious reality check to bring people back to earth. So, when it came time to sit for his official portrait, Zimble specifically requested artist Ming Qin to include the prop as a permanent testament to his leadership philosophy: never take yourself too seriously.

Now the chicken is not the only easter egg in the portrait. A closer look at Zimble’s watch dial you will see the hospital ships USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) and USNS Comfort (T-AH 20). When he was the surgeon general these ships deployed to the Persian Gulf sailing together for the first time in their history, on his watch.

For Vice Adm. Zimble, leadership required keeping things real. While he carried the weight of Navy Medicine on his shoulders, his portrait stands as a lasting reminder that sometimes all it takes is a rubber chicken to keep us grounded.

Vice Adm. Zimble (1933-2011) grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was commissioned in the Navy in 1955. During his career, he served as commanding officer, Naval Regional Medical Center Orlando, Florida (1978-1981); The Medical Officer of the Marines Corps (1981-1983); Fleet Surgeon, U.S. Atlantic Fleet / Command Surgeon, U.S. Atlantic Command / medical advisor to Supreme Allied Command, Atlantic (1983-1986); the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategic Planning and Medical Program Management (1986-1987); and from 1987 to 1991, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy. In this latter role, Zimble presided over the disestablishment of the Naval Medical Command and the reactivation of BUMED and managed the deployment of the hospital ships Mercy and Comfort, the Fleet Hospitals, and Medical Department personnel for the Gulf War. He was responsible for developing and establishing overall Naval health care policies and priorities, contingency and wartime planning, and program development. This was in support of more than 2.8 million Navy and Marine Corps active duty and retired beneficiaries and their families. Upon his retirement from the Navy in 1991, Zimble served as president of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda, Maryland (1991-2004).

Navy Medicine's 44,000+ talented and ready forces optimize health readiness, deliver quality healthcare, and provide global expeditionary medical support to warfighters.

Sources: Harris, George, CAPT, MSC, USN. Oral history conducted by A.B. Sobocinski, May 14, 2014. Zimble, James. Official Navy Biography. Accessed from: https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/biographical-files/modern-biographical-files-ndl/modern-bios-z/zimble-james-a.html