Really, this is what gets a commander of the USNS John McCain fired? Bad photo ops?
Letâs hope there is more to it than that.
I donât expect the CO of a warship to be an expert in small arms, he has gunners mates for that.
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I would guess someone just gave him the rifle, he put it to his sholder, pointed to the open sea & pulled the trigger a few times & someone snapped the picture. If thats all it takes to get fired from that ship with a lot more horrible past, then the US Navy is worse off than I originally thought.
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Seems â odd. Sand Pebble, that would be my guess too.
I also bet thereâs more to it than that.
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Jolly Jack humourâŚ
Gunners Mate 1 " letâs have a laff with the skipperâŚ"
Gunners Mate 2 " yeah, stick the 'scope on backwards, give it to him at the last minut so he doesnât noticeâŚ"
Today " OOPS!"
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Probably close to the truth, also it appears Marines sent the picture out. Likely in good humor but social media and US Navy embarrassment got involved. The guyâs job was guided missiles not small arms which is why they have Marines onboard to protect them from people who know how to shoot rifles⌠
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RN secret weapon-of-mass-disruption & RMâs greatest threat?
Matelots with small arms!
USS⌠itâs a DDG that he was CO of. There were contributing circumstances from what Iâve heard.
Such as?
There was a good article on USNI about âLoss of Confidenceâ and arguing that the real reasons need to be made available to PCO/PXO school attendees as a learning tool. Otherwise, how the heck do you learn what not to do? Glaring instances aside (collision, etc), the small stuff should be made available.
Same goes in our businessâŚnothing worse than getting the call to go aboard as a short term relief for someone who was let go and you donât know whyâŚcrew issues? Ops? Frustrating.
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Speaking from experience, you usually get a tiny rumor before you arrive. Everyone on board is tight lipped when you arrive. After 3 days aboard, everyone has told you their version of what happened. From those stories you know, if any, who are the dirtbags & backstabbers.
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Which is fine, but some details from the office would be nice. I get the legal side of it, but to simply refuse to talk is not helpful.
Kind of a BS headline, post hoc ergo proper hocâŚIâm guessing that while the chronology is accurate (the photo was released, months later the CO was relieved), that doesnât mean the first instance necessarily lead to the second.
(And ditto on the uss not usns, pedantic, but come onâŚ)
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Taken at face value, this incident, and the Senior Chiefâs unauthorized WIFI on another vessel, would indicate to me this ânew Navyâ isnât worth shit. The Senior Chief is the one who should be dismissed - with a Dishonorable Discharge. This is not the Navy I served in in the 70âs. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND JOINING THIS NAVY AS TO ANY YOUNG PERSON DESIRING MILITARY SERVICE.
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Yeah I couldnât believe the story about the Senior Chief (and that shipâs Chiefâs Mess in generalâŚ)
But as a classmate of mine (and Navy veteran) used to say â âyou donât make chief, youâre made a chief.â
For those not aware:
Perhaps jbtam99 can enlighten us to USN policy, but how is it that the Commander of the Carrier Strike Group can fire the CO of a DDG for such an insignificant transgression? And why is the deputy commodore of the DESRON named as interim replacement.
Because heâs on-hand and already held a command at-sea. He can simply be a placeholder until a new CO arrives without needing to learn the job.
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Exactly what I was thinking.
It seems a total beat up to me.
I suspect that the surface navy is still shamefaced about a couple of very avoidable collisions with merchant ships and have yet to devise a strategy to not do that again but ease the strain on an overworked force, insufficient maintenance time, inadequate allocation of time for basic drills etc, so comes on all rough and tough when they can say, âAh ha. Gotchaâ to some otherwise perfectly good destroyer captain pour encourager les autres.
Actions like this wonât do that. They will simply make captains more gun shy and timid for their period in command, careful to drive their crews to despair with dotting every i, comply exactly with every rule and regulation, lie more wantonly in their reports of the magnificent progress heâs made in DEI or accounting for pencil wastage whilst obsequiously being the task group commanderâs lap dog.
A sacking like this doesnât assist the creation of another Nelson at Copenhagen (âI see no signalâ when ordered to withdraw) or John Paul Jones at Flamborough Head (âI have not yet begun to fightâ when asked if he was surrendering). This captain should resign and then publicly tell his once-loved navy where they can shove its petty bureaucracy and encourage his cohort to do likewise. Who wants a boss that stupid?
We used to have a saying in my navy that warfare officers eat their own which, roughly translated means no junior officer is as good as me and never will be and if you stuff up Iâll transfer you to the most boring desk somewhere you donât want to be. That had to change when the pipeline of qualified officers dried up. It was stupid to start with and should have been stoped on earlier.
P.S. Hereâs the naval context for the French. meaning and origin of âpour encourager les autresâ â word histories
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