{"id":84866,"date":"2019-02-08T08:24:24","date_gmt":"2019-02-08T12:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=84866"},"modified":"2022-01-13T20:32:28","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T01:32:28","slug":"sailors-combat-death-leads-to-navy-wide-policy-changes-but-should-they","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=84866","title":{"rendered":"Sailor’s Combat Death Leads to Navy-Wide Policy Changes – But should they?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is something about this whole thing that makes me take pause.<\/p>\n

Navy officials are changing what a top admiral called “fundamental flaws” in its waiver and appeal process for commissioning programs after a sailor who was denied a chance to pursue a career as an officer was sent to Syria, where she was killed in a suicide bombing.<\/p>\n

Adm. William Moran, vice chief of naval operations, sent a letter detailing the changes to the family of Chief Cryptologic Technician (Interpretive) Shannon Kent,\u00a0Stars and Stripes reported Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The action follows a call\u00a0from seven lawmakers<\/a>\u00a0demanding that Navy leaders explain how they planned to update the policies that left Kent\u00a0deployed\u00a0to the war zone after rejecting a plan that would have allowed her to pursue a doctorate degree as part of a commissioning program.<\/p>\n

The Navy denied Kent’s plans to attend a clinical psychology program,\u00a0Stripes reported, because the 35-year-old mother of two had previously been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Despite that, the service considered her fit to deploy, and the linguist landed on her fifth combat tour in November when she was sent to Syria where she — along with 18 other people — was\u00a0killed by a suicide bomber<\/a>on Jan. 16.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The loss of\u00a0Chief Kent was tragic, as is the loss of any American who is serving this nation.<\/p>\n

However, since when is seeking to become a Commissioned Officer considered to be a valid reason to get out of a deployment?\u00a0 What most of the articles I have read seem to imply is that the Navy has\u00a0“fundamental flaws” that resulted in the death of Chief Kent.\u00a0 Had she been selected or her appeal granted they she would not have died.\u00a0 That very well may be true.<\/p>\n

Who was supposed to die in her place?\u00a0 Is it somehow more acceptable to send a Chief Petty Officer who has no intention of becoming an officer to their death?\u00a0 Her death and her\u00a0being denied a chance to pursue a career as an officer are mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n

If you are deployed into harm’s way, or about to be, you simply apply for a Degree Completion Program to get out of it all.<\/p>\n

Filling the Officer Ranks with individuals that want to avoid combat deployments is hardly the way to make our\u00a0military more lethal.<\/p>\n

There may very well have been problems\u00a0with the selection process and even the appeal process.\u00a0 Creating a situation where people who apply are now plucked from deployment is unacceptable.<\/p>\n

I am sorry for her loss, I am disappointed that others lack the intestinal\u00a0fortitude to do the right thing in the wake of her death.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: Sailor’s Combat Death Leads to Navy-Wide Policy Changes | Military.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is something about this whole thing that makes me take pause. Navy officials are changing … Sailor’s Combat Death Leads to Navy-Wide Policy Changes – But should they?\u00a0<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":667,"featured_media":84867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,192,188,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government-incompetence","category-professional-development","category-reality-check","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84866","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\/667"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/84867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}