Interesting, but not too surprising.
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All the more reason to shut the place down or at the very least sever all military links and open the school to existing mariners for career training.
We don’t need any more grunts or zoomies at taxpayer expense under the fiction of supporting the merchant marine.
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Not too surprising…. I am not sure how much tax payers spent on that analysis but it seems to say the same thing as many other studies and accreditation reports. I took away a need to step back and take a hard look at the whole premise of Kings Point. Are they supposed to be developing future leaders or the most qualified entry level officers? I think the expansive credentialing requirements have been the straw to break the proverbial camels back. Let’s not bring up the Sash issue which has just thrown gasoline on the fire, or the lack of clear governance structure, or the crumbling facilities, But when the rubber hits the road we as taxpayers are expecting the future leaders to be developed here and at the other state maritime academies. It’s a said state of affairs to think Kingspoint has lost its way. That was the most painful thing for me to read. How can that happen without someone changing course? How did we come to a point where the team charged with navigating the future of maritime education has missed the mark so badly? It’s a very sad day for kingspoint and I am afraid there isn’t a task force that could be commissioned that would be able to fix it. Time to go back to the drawing board……
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No need to “step back” to see that KP lost its value to the merchant marine or the taxpayer long ago. The militarization of the school was the beginning of its downfall.
If anyone wants to save KP, demilitarize it first then rebuild it as a merchant marine training school offering upgrade and recurrent training for civilian mariners of all rates and certification levels.
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Actual report here
every single reason why I have called for the place to be shuttered is now proven as fact but fact or fiction, our useless pandering self serving Congress will never close the valve pumping cash into the worthless place not because the horrible loss of new maritime “leaders” into the industry but because it is a sacred ricebowl to a handful of moochers who howl and scream how the Nation’s very future will be forever lost whenever the supply of their mother’s milk is threatened.
Once when the USA had a true maritime policy to maintain a strong merchant marine in standing during peacetime just as we have a defense policy to maintain a strong military during peacetime having a KP made some sense but in 1981 Ronald Raygun and his Congress decapitated the US having a healthy US flagged merchant marine and no attempt has been made since by any Administration or Congress to try to restore it nor do I believe any future US Congress will ever fund the rebirth of such a fleet thus to maintain a USMMA has for the past four decades been a vast and gaping sinkhole of federal spending waste. The report pretty much tells the tale of what such a moribund institution as a KP becomes when its very reason to exist no longer exists itself and thus the place remains open because no one in any position of power to close it has the courage to do so. Yeah Chuck Schumer, I am talking to you…SIR!
if only we had a Congress who understood these words remain the law of the US of A?
46 USC App Ch. 27: —MERCHANT MARINE ACT, 1936
SUBCHAPTER I—DECLARATION OF POLICY
§1101. Fostering development and maintenance of merchant marine
It is necessary for the national defense and development of its foreign and domestic commerce that the United States shall have a merchant marine
(a) sufficient to carry its domestic water-borne commerce and a substantial portion of the water-borne export and import foreign commerce of the United States and to provide shipping service essential for maintaining the flow of such domestic and foreign waterborne commerce at all times,
(b) capable of serving as a naval and military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency,
(c) owned and operated under the United States flag by citizens of the United States, insofar as may be practicable,
(d) composed of the best-equipped, safest, and most suitable types of vessels, constructed in the United States and manned with a trained and efficient citizen personnel, and
(e) supplemented by efficient facilities for shipbuilding and ship repair.It is declared to be the policy of the United States to foster the development and encourage the maintenance of such a merchant marine.
frankly, the hypocrisy of have such words remain the law of the USA in 2021 is worse than painful for myself to realize…it is hideously, astoundingly and profoundly painful. I am now old and have lost all hope that pain will ever cease.
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You only have to look around to see that this problem the lack of morals and ethics is not unique to Kings Point. Every academy experiences the same. Every business and organization has the same problem. It is our society that needs to lift itself up. It starts with me and you! Are you up for it?
Capt. Earl Walker, K P 58
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Kumbaya
The first step to to remove the tumor from our body politic. Close the place so the corruption that feeds on it might whither at least a little bit.
“If anyone wants to save KP, demilitarize it first then rebuild it as a merchant marine training school offering upgrade and recurrent training for civilian mariners of all rates and certification levels.”
This requires closing it first then return the facility to a real merchant maritime training resource operated by real merchant mariners and educators for real merchant mariners.
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Baldy
Society does have its issues. Lack of moral integrity does pop up from time to time. When it does…. there are usually repercussions. No different now for Kingspoint. The Sash issue has put the academy under a microscope and all the warts are being examined. Warts are never fun to look at or remove. The process of excising the warts will be painful and leave scars. How do we eliminate the nasty virus that keeps growing the warts?
That is the question for the Kingspoint community to grapple with today. Not dealing with these issues will only allow the conditions to fester and cause more problems in the future. Others may advocate a closure of KP. I think that would be a knee jerk reaction and will not happen in the short term. However; if real changes don’t occur and shortly, I fear KP will slowly wither and atrophy from poor governance and lack of proper investments. Ironically following the path of the United States Merchant Marine over the last thirty years.
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I can’t really add much to what has already been written, yes maritime training needs to be redone, and while we’re at it, manning needs to be changed too, as does the licensing/ratting structure, but it likely won’t happen.
Most of the public have no idea that the merchant marine even exists, and for those that do, most of them think it is a branch of the military, or some government agency that someone joins.
When/if the war with China happens (likely within a decade) The U.S. will lose, largely due to a lack of sealift, everyone will blame everyone else, and the U.S. will go the way of the Ottoman Empire.
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If there is a war between two major nuclear powers EVERYBODY will lose.
I don’t think merchant ships will make much of a difference, one way or the other.
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That was tried back in the eighties ,I think it was. The name of the program escapes me but a good friend now deceased was an instructor and instrumental in setting up the program. Unfortunately the Academy Was taken to task,perhaps by the numerous maritime training groups and the program cancelled!
Sometime after I graduated, the Mission of the Academy was changed from “ To attract a high type of young American with a definite ambition to become an officer in the United States Merchant Marine.” To something else which included becoming an officer in one of the other services. This could not have happened without an act of Congress.
Even in my class, fully a third went on active duty in the Navy. I chose to stay in the Merchant Marine and sailed from 1958/1967 with United Fruit. 1967 /1970 with Poling Transportation,1970/2001 Portland Pilots inc. 1979/2016 Bath Iron works. Retiring after successfully testing DDG 1000, Zumwalt .I think in so doing fulfilled the Mission of my day.
You missed the point of my previous letter. We have a Morals and ethics problem! How do I know? I see this problem in every industry! I see this problem in every college and Academy.
As an example , the husband of one of my nieces, a former Seal, now teaches at Annapolis. He teaches Leadership, Morals and Ethics. Got to tell you something!
As for the American Merchant Marine, my take is sometime after Sputnik missiles became the weapon of choice . The need for ground troops and their resupply via ships became less needed or so it was thought. The strategy and tactics crowd lost sight of history! That is why their is no U.S.Merchant Marine. Leadership failed us and continues to do so!
Acta non Verba, Earl
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This is major thread drift, but, both the U.S. and China would have any number of reasons to keep any war between themselves conventional, and if the war goes nuclear, it would likely be confined to the combatants.
Normally I tend to stay out of these matters, but I can’t resist. One individual states that “the US will lose largely to a lack of sealift”… This type of single dimensional thinking is obviously lacking with regard to strategic thinking…
Sealift for what? Projection of sea power? A strategic order of battle on behalf of the Chinese would be first to “excite” North Korea into a confrontation with one of its neighbors in an attempt to force a reinforcement strategy on our behalf- one that will not be answered by a large “boots on the ground” response- or even a non-conventional response. The remainder of the free world will not stand by idly while worldwide trade (mostly coming from China) is brought to a screeching halt due to conventional armed confrontation. Incursion into Taiwan? Also doubtful- too forward.
The days of widespread ground battles, armored battles and etc. are passed. As far as air and naval air superiority? I’ll bet my stake that no one has the projection power like 10 or more Carrier Strike Forces…
Non-Conventional? Pipe Dreams. No one wants a confrontation of this magnitude- too costly all the way around. No, the next “war of aggression” is basically sabre rattling, chest beating and a lot of financial and cyber warfare… Don’t need boots on the ground and large scale sealift to fight those battles…
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Further, On the principal subject- IT IS the direct result of the large scale absence of good moral and social values which manifests itself in the behaviors in question. Society on the whole should drop back and self analyze- the loss of common decency, loss of good moral fiber is a systemic one- If anyone thinks that the behaviors which started this recent spate of events are confined to just the sea-going profession- they are greatly in error. These things occur every day- at college campuses, places of business, the military… and is indicative of a wholesale loss of values…
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As exemplified by a former president and his sycophants.
But back to the topic of KP and its value or lack thereof … until the recent spate of moral outrage building events with a KP connection only a microscopic portion of the poplulation even knew the place existed. That shows how important it is to society and marine transportation in general.
The place exists today only because a few generations of ring knockers in positions of influence refuse to accept that fact that KP is irrelevant and becomes more so each year as th US MM fades into the distance.
There are probably fewer events that rate moral hand wringing related to KP than other institutions of the same size but this instance is probably getting press because it embarrasses the hypocrites that have kept it going long after its usefulness to the industry vanished. It is a drain on the taxpayer and contributes nothing to mariners.
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I think we can all agree that the events leading to these discussions are absolutely terrible. Demonstrating the worst of society and our industry.
Where we may not agree is the role of USMMA in these issues. As a KP graduate I am fairly sure that we have a central role in this sad affair. I fully respect my fellow alum’s opinions, but the reality is our culture is flawed. We believe we are taking the high road and have endured a crucible of fire during our time at KP. The reality is we are merely following in others footsteps and as much as I respect those past mariners… we live in a different world today. A world that requires gender sensitivities that were absent in the past. I will leave it at that and suggest we all can be better shipmates. But it takes a honest look in the mirror.
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After a 39 year career as a Merchant Mariner I have to vigorously disagree with you. Getting out of High School from a farm in Ohio I had no idea what I wanted to do but I needed the education, might have gotten into USNA. Would I have paid to go to SUNY or MASS, nope, probably would have had a different career as I might have gone to OSU but probably would’ve started at the Fireland’s Community College. The problem is NOT the USMMA but the AH’s on the boats. Without all the facts of the case we really can’t say what exactly happened and how, we have an accusation, but the Officers on the ship should not be involved in any way with crap like this. THIS ISSUE SHOULD NOT HAVE EVEN COME UP ESPECIALLY SINCE THIS WAS AN ISSUE A FEW YEARS AGO. What would happen had this been a third? From SUNY or other?
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So stop conflating the issues.
My position is that there are perverts and a-holes everywhere and the fact that a KP cadet was a victim is as irrelevant as KP is to the US merchant marine.
The alleged rape of the cadet just brought KP into the spotlight and as long as it is visible for a few more days or weeks it is worth restating the obvious fact that the place either needs to be shuttered or turned into a civilian maritime training school for civilian mariners. It has been a tax parasite since 1945.
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I have no IDEA what your angst against KP might be, maybe you didn’t qualify to get in. BUT the school has been militarized since it was brought into existence. So tell me that SUNY or MASS isn’t, I worked with people from every institution and the State schools are as much regimented as KP and maybe more goofy with some “traditions”; except for GLMA which is very mildly regimented. Further, I often question the validity of getting sea-going experience loaded up on a ship with 600 of your best friends, a full crew of instructors, cruising to some port for inebriation training and the chance to do how much real hands on training. The issue to me seems to be, yes, there is a push to close the place, probably some big shot real estate developer has contributed mightily to some D politician to get that property, such as Pelosi did with hubby and the Citadel in San Fran because it was during Obama the first shot was fired and now this and the fact remains, it is not Kings Point, this did NOT happen at the school it happened on a SHIP and could this not have happened to an OS or a Third just as it happened to a Cadet? Whether KP is a value to the taxpayer or not is an entirely different issue from SEXUAL ASSAULT at SEA or an AMERICAN flagged merchant ship. By the way, Is $1.5 billion for new training ships a value to the taxpayer? Is anything the gov’mint spends a real value to the taxpayer?
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