What if: What do you think the national reaction would have been had a Carrier been lost in Hurricane Joaquin, rather than the SS El Faro?

What would be your personal reaction?

I was responding to a misguided soul in another thread who thinks that all Sailors at sea are behind the lines. He said that in response to my statement that there are no REMF's on board a ship. Everyone fights the ship, from the cooks to the medics to the Captain. I detailed many of the dangers Sailors face, but I'll just focus on the largest for this thread: Mother Nature.

As a Merchant Marine, I've been on ships massively larger, by deadweight tonnage, than Carriers. The largest I've been on approached 300k deadweight tons, loaded. 3 times the size of, say, the USS Ronald Reagan.

I was on her in the Bering Sea during a 100 year-storm. And she was being tossed like a twig in 30'+ waves (Remember, a 30 foot wave means a 60 foot trough. That's a LOT of vertical movement). Even with her bow into the waves, she was still rolling 22-29 degrees sideways...and she only gets about 31. She was rolling hard enough that there was what seemed like a 10-minute hang on each side (because you're scared shitless), but in reality was probably only 1 second or so. I personally was chanting to myself each time, 'Come back, baby, roll back'. I suspect I wasn't alone. Here's the kicker, and why I'm using this to illustrate the point of this thread: we survived that, and ships do all over the world frequently, for one simple, elegant reason: We never lost power and went sideways to the waves. If we had, that giant ship, that titanic object, would have suffered the fate of the SS El Faro. Every single engineer on that ship was up, on watch or not, and in machinery spaces. And everyone not involved in navigation was down there with them to do whatever it took to keep those engines running.

So if your initial reaction to my headline was 'That's preposterous, that would never happen to a US Navy ship', you need to re-evaluate that thought. Navy ships have mechanical failures all the time. I've personally seen the USS Long Beach lose rudder control while alongside my ship, and if that had happened at the time and place of the El Faro, she would have went down, too. Just like the Reagan or, really, any surface ship would. Mother Nature is a stone cold bitch, and if you do the slightest thing wrong at just the right time, she will make you pay.

So: if it had been a Carrier that fateful day, what do you think the National reaction would be? What would be yours?

I think the initial reaction would be outrage, because this country hasn't suffered Naval losses like that since the USS Frank Evans was cut in two by an Aussie Carrier in 1969. Today's public just isn't used to the idea of the Navy losing ships (though every actual Sailor is keenly aware of the perpetual possibility). This would be unfair, in my mind. Sailors aren't any more or less important than Soldiers and Airmen. But the public is jaded from 15 years of war, hearing about those sacrifices. I think everyone in the CoC from Sec Def down loses their job if this happens. And I think the President is irreparably damaged. The optics would kill his term, imo.

Personally, I'd be devastated. I'd empathize. My entire adult life has been spent at sea, so I consider everyone upon it my brothers and sisters. I friggen teared up at the Canadian Merchant Marine memorial, for pete's sake.

What are your thoughts?