6 Navy Commanding Officers Sacked in 6 Weeks

[Huggy Bear]

Had this CO and I won't mention names being he will most likely put on a star.....he's headed that way.....but he was a tyrant or at least close to it. He ruled by intimidation. I was an OIC of an FCLP det and had to call him to tell him about a near mishap and blown tire. I seriously felt like that General in Star Wars who had to tel Vader he lost the Millenium Falcon. He would just go off. The worst days was the department head meetings. You never knew what mood he would be in but it was generally bad. Sometimes he would go around the room, picking each DH and just lay into them. A fellow DH said his best meeting was when he told him to move out of the way so he could yell at me. We had these yearly ANA awards to write. None were from my department but he was very upset at the quality so all DH's were to get together and rewrite them. When done, he would look at them and if he didn't like them, return them with a big red X. Problem is, he wouldn't tell us what he didn't like about them...what was wrong with them. We had to keep rewriting until we got it right. He came in everyone morning about 0600 and if angry, like he was at me most of the time, he often would be sitting at your desk...like he did with me. He wanted to see a document one time, one he had signed (after briefing him on it for about 30 minutes) but when I showed it to him, he denied it was his signature and screamed bloody hell at me, demanding that I present the one he signed We had to work severl weekends in a row. I caught a bit of the stomach flew on a Sunday morning. I called early but the CO was walking around so I left a message with the OPS O (XO out of town). When he found out, not only did he demand I get to work but he chewed the asses of the guys who worked for me. He told me it was punishement for me not showing up to work. If he couldn't punish me he would punish them. Future Admiral

Wow! What an ass.

OTOH, some yellers are allright. I can think of sim instructors who took a special pleasure in yelling (think, Dr. Cox on Scrubs), but once you realized it wasn't personal, you learned a lot from them. You almost looked forward to seeing what the next tirade would be about. I take it your CO was not this type of yeller.

 

[e6bflyer]

Back in another life, I was once a young third class on a submarine (yes, it was long, black, and full of seamen). We had a CO who was a prior Green Beret and decided somewhere along the line that he wanted to be a Sub Nuke. The guy was a huge prick, every single man from the XO down to the mess crank had a healthy amount of fear of his tirades. Some of his finer moments: He threw a chair at a JO in the wardroom after an inadvertant reactor shutdown. He also fired our weapons officer while he was OOD on the conn and told him "I don't want to see you for a week", the weps stood EEOW and ate at second seating for the rest of the week. He also sounded the general alarm three days prior to pulling in to port and made the entire crew clean for 24 hours hoping to extract a confession because someone took a crap in a bag while on watch and let a mess crank crush it in the compactor (boom!). He was quite popular.

 

[Gatordev]

made the entire crew clean for 24 hours hoping to extract a confession...

But did he find the strawberries?

 

[HooverPilot]

Had this CO and I won't mention names being he will most likely put on a star.....he's headed that way.....but he was a tyrant or at least close to it. He ruled by intimidation. I was an OIC of an FCLP det and had to call him to tell him about a near mishap and blown tire. I seriously felt like that General in Star Wars who had to tel Vader he lost the Millenium Falcon. He would just go off. The worst days was the department head meetings. You never knew what mood he would be in but it was generally bad. Sometimes he would go around the room, picking each DH and just lay into them. A fellow DH said his best meeting was when he told him to move out of the way so he could yell at me. We had these yearly ANA awards to write. None were from my department but he was very upset at the quality so all DH's were to get together and rewrite them. When done, he would look at them and if he didn't like them, return them with a big red X. Problem is, he wouldn't tell us what he didn't like about them...what was wrong with them. We had to keep rewriting until we got it right. He came in everyone morning about 0600 and if angry, like he was at me most of the time, he often would be sitting at your desk...like he did with me. He wanted to see a document one time, one he had signed (after briefing him on it for about 30 minutes) but when I showed it to him, he denied it was his signature and screamed bloody hell at me, demanding that I present the one he signed We had to work severl weekends in a row. I caught a bit of the stomach flew on a Sunday morning. I called early but the CO was walking around so I left a message with the OPS O (XO out of town). When he found out, not only did he demand I get to work but he chewed the asses of the guys who worked for me. He told me it was punishement for me not showing up to work. If he couldn't punish me he would punish them. Future Admiral

Yeeechhh, I know who you allude too. My condolences to my comrades who will be working in his sphere...

 

[snake020]

But did he find the strawberries?

Well that's why he fired the weapons officer, because he wouldn't tell him who made the duplicate key.

 

[bunk22]

Wow! What an ass.

OTOH, some yellers are allright. I can think of sim instructors who took a special pleasure in yelling (think, Dr. Cox on Scrubs), but once you realized it wasn't personal, you learned a lot from them. You almost looked forward to seeing what the next tirade would be about. I take it your CO was not this type of yeller.

Yeah, I had a CO back in 99/00 timeframe who like to yell, a lot. However, he took care of his people, his officers as long as you worked hard for him. He might of called you the worst fucking officer he's ever had worked hor him but at the end of the day, you got the breakout EP regardless.

 

[bunk22]

Yeeechhh, I know who you allude too. My condolences to my comrades who will be working in his sphere...

Being you went through there not to long ago, you know. I heard he mellowed....somewhat....towards the end. He actually came by VRC-30 during some San Diego training, saw me (I was trying to hide) and told me to come out and give him a hug Yeah, he hugged me. Just crazy.

 

[phrogpilot73]

Yeah, I had a CO back in 99/00 timeframe who like to yell, a lot. However, he took care of his people, his officers as long as you worked hard for him.

I had an XO that was a HUGE prick (or so I thought when I first checked in), everyone dreaded being on the flight schedule with him because he was a screamer at best. One night, I was scheduled to get an initial HLL goggle 'X' with him and was not looking forward to it. For 3 straight hours he yells at me, essentially calling me an idiot and a shitty pilot. I was so stressed coming back that I lined up for the wrong runway (for New River guys, I was coming back from SW water tower, and lined up for 19 vice 23). To top it all off, I blew past the taxiway we normally turn onto (Delta) and had to request to back taxi on the runway. He unloads on me in the fuel pits, and we taxi back to the line silently. After we shut down, he gathers the entire crew in the back of the aircraft and says that I had a rough night, it's to be expected for a newbie, and if he ever hears the Marines referencing that night, and referring to me as a shitty pilot - he'll come find them and crush them. Huge respect points for that.

Flash forward to an instrument check with him. After 3 hours of being yelled at for screwing just about everything up, we're doing the final approach into home. PAR to runway 23. My instrument scan is going fierce, and the controllers are turning me to final. He keeps telling me that I need to tighten my turn to final (because he's looking at the runway, and the student controller turned me late). Finally, I explode "God damnit sir, My ball is centered, my turn needle is one full needle widths deflection. That's a standard rate turn, and a standard rate turn is what the controllers are expecting, and that's what I'm going to fucking do!" Very quiet. After we return to the line and start to debrief (me thinking that I'm done, and that this flying gig was fun), he says "at least I know you were listening." Turns out he intentionally beat up on the Lt's to see if we would utilize the "Assertiveness" portion of CRM. Some Lt's never did, and he never respected them because of it. After that flight, we got along great both in the cockpit and out - and he even requested to fly with me when he was a visiting instructor during WTI.

Sometimes they surprise you.

 

[e6bflyer]

I had an XO that was a HUGE prick ...Turns out he intentionally beat up on the Lt's to see if we would utilize the "Assertiveness" portion of CRM. Some Lt's never did, and he never respected them because of it. After that flight, we got along great both in the cockpit and out - and he even requested to fly with me when he was a visiting instructor during WTI.

Sometimes they surprise you.

I dunno, phrog, still sounds like a real prick to me. The guy sounds like a CRM nightmare, hard to believe a guy like that would be a CRM facilitator and a WTI. I would hate to fly with a dickhead like that, even if he was just "testing" me.

 

[phrogpilot73]

I dunno, phrog, still sounds like a real prick to me. The guy sounds like a CRM nightmare, hard to believe a guy like that would be a CRM facilitator and a WTI. I would hate to fly with a dickhead like that, even if he was just "testing" me.

Don't get me wrong - I DREADED flying with him, until I pushed back. After that, I enjoyed flying with him and learned alot from him. He told me that he thought communication and assertiveness were the two most important aspects of CRM, and that he thought assertiveness was the toughest to overcome (he was a LtCol select with 4000 flight hours at the time, I was a 1stLt). He would try and push us to our breaking points and make us be assertive with him. He also told me that he could talk until he was blue in the face about assertiveness, but we wouldn't really "get it" until we stood up to him, and he demonstrated that there were no reprecussions. Were his techniques the best? Probably not. Did I learn that there truly is and needs to be no rank in the cockpit? You're damn right.

 

[Brett327]

I dunno, phrog, still sounds like a real prick to me. The guy sounds like a CRM nightmare, hard to believe a guy like that would be a CRM facilitator and a WTI. I would hate to fly with a dickhead like that, even if he was just "testing" me.

Yeah, for every guy he identifies as "assertive," there are going to be another 10 who are terrified to speak up at the moment where it might really count. Great technique.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but none of the dozen or so COs I've ever dealt with have been anything like some of the horror stories described above.

Brett

 

[Gatordev]

Yeah, for every guy he identifies as "assertive," there are going to be another 10 who are terrified to speak up at the moment where it might really count. Great technique.

Brett

I've run into guys like Phrog's story, but they're not necessarily aware what they're doing. Sometimes you just have to sack up (often times out of the cockpit, not just in the cockpit) and push back a little and they back off and realize they're not dealing w/ who they thought they were dealing with. Usually I've had good luck w/ people like that after the fact. Then there was that one DH/MO.....that guy just was not a fan of mine.

I remember my RI-18 in the HTs. I was the second go and my partner was a Marine in the back. Our IP was 17 year Capt and was slightly bullying in the cockpit the whole first X. During the beginning of my check, we're trying to check into PNS ATC and he wouldn't change the freq for me and wanted to argue about something I did or said (can't remember what). After two requests for him to change the freq, I finally just said, "Sir, we can brief this later, but right now I only have 1 minute to check in and and that time is up, I need the freq now." My RI partner in the back was really worried for me, telling off an O-3 (he was an O-1, I an O-2). The IP changed the freq, I made my call, and then tried to apologize. His words: "Don't you dare try and apologize. You did what you had to do."

I have no idea if that was planned or not, but we finished the checkride w/out incident and an above for CRM.

 

[HAL Pilot]

Sometimes you just have to sack up (often times out of the cockpit, not just in the cockpit) and push back a little and they back off and realize they're not dealing w/ who they thought they were dealing with.

Just choose your time & place.......telling the Skipper at an AOM to "fuck off you don't know shit about it" and storming out of the room muttering "I don't need this shit" doesn't work well .

 

[MasterBates]

Just choose your time & place.......telling the Skipper at an AOM to "fuck off you don't know shit about it" and storming out of the room muttering "I don't need this shit" doesn't work well .

So THAT explains my FITREPs... :icon_smil

 

[HeyJoe]

Just choose your time & place.......telling the Skipper at an AOM to "fuck off you don't know shit about it" and storming out of the room muttering "I don't need this shit" doesn't work well .

I also learned telling off a LCDR dept head a month before they got together and ranked LTs for XO/CO isn't good headwork, but if I had to do over, I'd still do it again even the breaking of his pencil and ordering him out of Ready Room (I was SDO trying to launch alert aircraft and he was clueless and interfering).