I see a lot of traffic on social media from SWO types and former shipmates of mine that are now out, and the feeling I get is a strange one. Mostly people are posting pictures of the event, and cheering on their shipmates that are involved fighting the fire. That's a great take. What bothers me is when people are essentially showering gatorade on each other because the fire is out, or they got a different ship underway that was affected by smoke from the fire, or they supported their shipmates from a different ship in their attempts, etc.
This ship is fucked. There was no victory here. This is a significant set back. And oh, by they way, if this happened in China do you think we would be seeing all these pictures online? Am I the only one that thinks we need a serious reevaluation of our OPSEC standards? Why are helo crewmembers taking pictures, and posting them online? What purpose does that serve?
I don't really think there's inherently a problem with the pictures going public...as already pointed out, the news choppers (and you could see the ship from outside the base gate), the fact there was an explosion which could be felt miles away, all sort of let the cat out of the bag. Anybody who cared to know knew what they needed once the island was on fire and the damn foremast collapsed.
The direct uploads to social media without any vetting or letting the PAO types do their jobs to do the whole "INFOWAR" thing, yeah, more of a problem.
As for the cheering...don't really see an issue with junior folks taking some accolades for dealing with the shit sandwich they got on Sunday morning.
And at the deckplate level, there actually are positive notes on that. Weekend duty section getting a DDG u/w while in FFEs in smoke...that's not easy and worth a kudos to the guys who pulled it off. Even more so all the junior sailors across the waterfront, off other ships or from shore commands, simply showing up to volunteer to help. Word is they had more volunteers than they needed, to the point folks had to be ordered home, to go into a ship with a major fire burning, serious explosions, and unknowns about her stability pierside. One sailor went into the fire 8 times over 4 days.
So, the guys and gals who went in and fought this thing, absolutely deserve the Gatorade shower for their efforts. In peacetime, this is as close to combat as a ship crew gets and it would seem our sailors aren't lacking in moto. I'd buy any of those kids a beer.
For more senior types? Yeah, this isn't a victory. On a strategic/system level, we fucked up and need to fix things.
And the danger is letting the good news stories prevent the necessary fact finding from happening to develop the details and dissemination of what are likely going to be some major lessons that need to be learned to figure out why the fuck this happened in the first place.
But that doesn't mean we should rain on the parade of Seaman/Airman Timmy who's been busting their ass for the past 4 days and finally got to the light at the end of a smoky tunnel.
