{"id":125306,"date":"2022-04-26T09:42:47","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T13:42:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=125306"},"modified":"2022-04-26T09:42:47","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T13:42:47","slug":"mcpon-tells-sailors-to-lower-their-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=125306","title":{"rendered":"MCPON tells sailors to lower their standards"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MCPON Russell Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We’ve talked about Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Russell Smith before<\/a>, a few times, most recently when it was announced he was under investigation<\/a> for misconduct (which apparently is still ongoing). Smith took over as MCPON when his predecessor abruptly resigned amid his own misconduct accusations.<\/p>\n

Recently three sailors assigned to the carrier USS George Washington (laid up in dry dock for refit) died within days of each other. They join four others who died aboard ship in the last year. The death of seven sailors assigned to the minimally manned in-port warship is triggering an investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amidst this, the highest ranking enlisted sailor in the fleet met with sailors for an all-hands question and answer meeting. This leader of men did not inspire confidence among his troops. Here are some of the highlights. I’m abbreviating quotes, but according to the sailors present, these are the messages they received.<\/p>\n

Sailor: “My question for you is I saw that we are offering a $25,000 bonus for new enlistees. Are we doing anything for the people trying to stay in?”<\/p>\n

MCPON: “I give you a paycheck for that.”<\/p>\n

Sailor, addressing livability issues, asks: “Some of those things include the allocation of our BAS to ship meals, parking issues, cold water, hot water. Living standards that aren’t necessarily up to par.”<\/p>\n

MCPON, before going off on a tangent about how he enjoys his E-9 parking privileges (no joke): “I think we probably could have done better to manage your expectations”<\/p>\n

Sailor asked if they’ve hired more mental health doctors, and the MCPON basically said the schooling for such is tough, long, and expensive. It “doesn’t lend itself necessarily to come to the Navy.”<\/p>\n

Even the MCPON isn’t immune to being given the brush off by mental health: “When I went through a divorce last year, I tried to get a mental healthcare, uh, appointment and they said, Hey, it’s gonna be six weeks. I was like, well, I’m gonna be in a very different place in six weeks. So I think I’m gonna, I’m gonna take care of myself cause I can afford to.”<\/p>\n

MCPON, responding to quality of life aboard ship: “What you’re not doing is sleeping in a foxhole like a marine might be doing.”<\/p>\n

Why are sailors killing themselves? We don’t know, Mr. President. We sent the man whose job description is “The Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy is appointed by the Chief of Naval Operations to serve as a spokesperson to address the issues of enlisted personnel to the highest positions in the Navy. As such, they are the senior enlisted advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) and to the Chief of Naval Personnel.” He reports that the tone deaf beating he gave them did not improve morale. We’re baffled and out of ideas, sir.<\/p>\n

Full transcript here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve talked about Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Russell Smith before, a few times, … MCPON tells sailors to lower their standards<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[209,220,213,237,126,119,18,271],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teh-stoopid","category-the-floggings-will-continue-until-morale-improves","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-big-pentagon","category-disposable-warriors","category-navy","category-support-the-troops","category-ygbsm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=125306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=125306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=125306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=125306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}