{"id":92836,"date":"2019-11-22T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T16:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=92836"},"modified":"2019-11-22T11:10:07","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T15:10:07","slug":"update-on-uss-fitzgerald-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=92836","title":{"rendered":"Update on USS Fitzgerald Incident"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fitz damage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fitzgerald\u2019s \u00a0CO will retain his rank in retirement. He will be medically retired.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.navytimes.com\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/11\/21\/navy-to-allow-ex-fitz-co-to-retire-at-current-rank\/<\/a><\/p>\n

From the article: It\u2019s the latest twist in the case of Benson, who learned in September that he would appear before a panel convened to determine whether he should be punitively removed from the sea service for his role in the collision.<\/p>\n

Dogged by allegations that senior Navy leaders wielded unlawful command influence to keep Benson from getting a fair trial, prosecutors dropped dereliction of duty and hazarding a vessel charges seven months ago.<\/p>\n

Benson\u2019s quarters suffered a direct hit when the ACX Crystal cargo ship plowed into the destroyer\u2019s starboard.<\/p>\n

While he\u2019s officially assigned to\u00a0Naval District Washington<\/a>, Benson has spent each day getting treatment for injuries at\u00a0Walter Reed National Military Medical Center<\/a>. –\u00a0 article<\/p>\n

Benson was finally transferred to Walter Reed as there was no one in Yokosuka qualified to treat his injury and mental health issues. It is disturbing to find a reference to ‘unlawful or undue command influence’ anywhere. Benson may have been out of his depth as a skipper, but to whom did he answer? Likely, the very people who are trying to fry him now. He was physically injured in that collision.\u00a0 It does not excuse his inability to do his job as the ship’s CO, but if they think he’s an embarrassment, what are they?<\/p>\n

The investigation into the collision of Fitzgerald<\/em> and ACX Crystal<\/em> is below, as a refresher.\u00a0 https:\/\/www.navytimes.com\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/01\/14\/worse-than-you-thought-inside-the-secret-fitzgerald-probe-the-navy-doesnt-want-you-to-read\/<\/a><\/p>\n

From the article:\u00a0 Unsparingly, Fort and his team of investigators outlined critical lapses by bridge watchstanders on the night of the collision with the Philippine-flagged container vessel ACX Crystal in a bustling maritime corridor off the coast of Japan.<\/p>\n

Their report documents the routine, almost casual, violations of standing orders on a Fitz bridge that often lacked skippers and executive officers, even during potentially dangerous voyages at night through busy waterways.<\/p>\n

The probe exposes how personal distrust<\/em> led the officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Sarah Coppock, to avoid communicating with the destroyer\u2019s electronic nerve center \u2014 the combat information center,\u00a0or CIC<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 while the Fitzgerald tried to cross a shipping superhighway.<\/p>\n

When Fort walked into the trash-strewn CIC in the wake of the disaster, he was hit with the acrid smell of urine. He saw kettlebells on the deck and bottles filled with pee. Some radar controls didn\u2019t work and he soon discovered crew members who didn\u2019t know how to use them anyway.<\/p>\n

Fort found a Voyage Management System that generated more \u201ctrouble calls\u201d than any other key piece of electronic navigational equipment. Designed to help watchstanders navigate without paper charts, the VMS station in the skipper\u2019s quarters was broken so sailors cannibalized it for parts to help keep the rickety system working. – article<\/p>\n

A dysfunctional CO makes for a dysfunctional crew. In essence, that is what the investigation found, in addition to lack of training and training time, malfunctioning equipment that should have been replaced and\/or properly repaired – there is a long list of these things. The blame for this lies with many people. How long it will take the Navy to fully recover from the morass it became is unknown, but the Good Idea Fairy should have been smashed flat a very, very long time ago.<\/p>\n

For those of you mumbling in to your coffee cups that ‘women don’t belong on ships, etc.’, the issue is not ‘women on ships’ or anything remotely ‘women this or that’. The issue is an officer in CIC who did not communicate properly with the crew and a CO who was apparently so dysfunctional that his ship’s crew became unable to do its job properly, which was to keep the ship out of harm’s way.<\/p>\n

It is also not about whether or not women belong here, there or anywhere, as there are plenty of very competent women who are not dysfunctional, who do their jobs without broadcasting their personal issues, and without making fools of themselves in the public eye. They are cops, doctors, nurses, instructors, truck or bus drivers, heavy equipment operators, farmers, accountants, lawyers, soldiers, sailors, pilots, Marines, etc.<\/p>\n

They are not grabbing the spotlight, not looking for public attention – none of that.<\/p>\n

They don’t have to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fitzgerald\u2019s \u00a0CO will retain his rank in retirement. He will be medically retired. https:\/\/www.navytimes.com\/news\/your-navy\/2019\/11\/21\/navy-to-allow-ex-fitz-co-to-retire-at-current-rank\/ From the … Update on USS Fitzgerald Incident<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":653,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92836","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\/653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92837,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92836\/revisions\/92837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}