Posted on Jan 19, 2018
Congratulations To The Navy For Charging Its Officers With Negligent Homicide
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Edited 7 y ago
Posted 7 y ago
Responses: 4
To me, it sounds like they are scapegoating them... sure they should be punished but no previous CO's that I know of have been charged with the same for similar incidents in the past. Plus, like you said failures of policy and doctrine, to which I would add training, manning and OPTEMPO decisions, which is fully on the Flags. I would not send a sailor to mast if they screwed up because I didn't set them up for success...
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Being Captain of a naval vessel is a terribly hard job. Uncharted sandbar? You're relieved if you hit it. Subordinate screws up on a mid-watch? You're to blame. Seventeen dead sailors is terrible - but I don't know enough about what happened to judge those two Captains. I pray for their families.
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CDR Dan Cunningham
As an ensign, future five-star Adm. Chester Nimitz ran the USS Decatur aground in 1907 and was convicted at court-martial for hazarding a ship. Thankfully, he was allowed to remain on active duty. Not trying to imply this should always be the case, but not making exceptions leads to a risk-averse cadre of Commanding Officers and that's not good either.
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Suspended Profile
Congrats is an awful way to go. In the end though, when the CO states "I relieve you" it's in his/her lap regardless if Change of Command had happened 2 minutes earlier.
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