6 Navy Commanding Officers Sacked in 6 Weeks

[phrogpilot73]

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).

God bless you. I would have done the same thing...

 

[HeyJoe]

God bless you. I would have done the same thing...

I was polite, but firm the first time he interrupted my attempts (he called Ready Room from his stateroom with some innane request) to locate aircrews for a real world alert launch and then he showed up a few minutes later in khakis tried to lecture me (about how I should have stopped and answered his request to read him something off the flight schedule which was OBE now) while I was sending aircrews to the flight deck to turn jets (real world threat while in Alert 60 and going to launching and setting alerts which required rounding up lots of folks pronto). Regardless, I sent him packing without his pencil after he waved it in my face once too many times.

I'm not saying this is something to tuck away for a rainy day (use this technique with extreme caution), but this guy never got his major Dept Head tour and was sent home after one cruise with a request for a decent Tomcat experienced guy (he was a former RAG instructor, but you would have never known it).

 

[HAL Pilot]

What probably saved me was that as I marched out of the room I suddenly realized what a dumb ass I was. I continued straight to his office and was there waiting for him when the AOM broke up. A good ass chewing, a little fatherly advise on how to handle senior officers, SDO for a week (24/7 at the squadron) and I was forgiven.

It did help that I was right too - he didn't know what the fuck he was talking about and he knew it. He just didn't want to back down once he started.

 

[Flash]

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

I agree with Brett, a very poor technique for teaching a very valuable lesson......... I flew with a guy in Prowlers that was a prick, both in and out of the cockpit, and I could never tell if he was testing me or was jsut being a prick. I figured he was just the latter, and left it at that. if he was trying to impart a lesson it did nto really work with me.

The common theme with the poor CO's I had was that they were crippled by indecisiveness and the inability to make a decision. Never had a screamer.......

 

[Pugs]

The common theme with the poor CO's I had was that they were crippled by indecisiveness and the inability to make a decision. Never had a screamer.......

I'll toss in complete and utter cluelessness about how the back seat of the jet worked for two bad NFO skippers I had. That = little front seat time as an ECMO in that crew. I had more hours in the jet by the end of my first tour than one did as Skipper.

 

[FLYTPAY]

I was a JO victim of his tyranny. I waited three hours outside his office for him so I could brief him on SSC. F'ing SWO. He carried a rubber duckie around with him to take pictures with and send to his kid. Nothing wrecks Admirality credibility more than a rubber duckie.

Found the picture. Note rubber duckie in pic.