ProPublica addresses the CORIVRON Farsi Island fiasco

[nittany03]

https://www.propublica.org/article/...f-iran-what-really-happened-farsi-island-navy

Great look there, with a Commodore being alleged to have pulled people into the office and reamed them over a command climate survey. It's like the one free chance a CO gets to realize he/she might be fucking something away, and fix it before the Congresscritters and IG folks roll in, but nope.

 

[picklesuit]

https://www.propublica.org/article/...f-iran-what-really-happened-farsi-island-navy

Great look there, with a Commodore being alleged to have pulled people into the office and reamed them over a command climate survey. It's like the one free chance a CO gets to realize he/she might be fucking something away, and fix it before the Congresscritters and IG folks roll in, but nope.

Interesting that RDML Batchelder, CCSG 8 at the time, doesn’t get any mention in that article. It was his planes, ships, and Sailors that actually went into harm’s way to stop that shitshow from getting worse.

I was on the Truman for that deployment, and he was not letting those Sailors get taken from that island to mainland Iran.

Was an interesting couple of days.

 

[bubblehead]

Great look there, with a Commodore being alleged to have pulled people into the office and reamed them over a command climate survey.

The arrogance and reaction to learning you are not gods gift is not uncommon. My last Reserve unit CO (USNA football player pilot type) had a command climate survey initiated upon him ? When the NOSC was doing the focus group portion, he tried to sit in on the focus groups. When that didn't go over well, he tried to get one of his buddies to sit in on them. That didn't go over well either, obviously. During the entire process the turd made it sound like everyone else was the problem. The guy is still in denial despite being removed from command based on results of command climate survey process and getting a 2.0 FITREP on the way out with words to the effect of "not fit to be a leader" in Block 41.

 

[Angry]

I still don't understand why the upper echelons of our leadership won't just shoot it straight with Congress. "Yes, this situation got fucked up fast. It got that way because we don't have the money, parts, people, or time to do the jobs required of us. And we are missing those things because you won't give them to us." Either decrease the requirements or increase the resources. It's not a difficult equation. Anyone in the CoC who puts their subordinates at risk because they don't want to tell their boss "no" is exercising personal cowardice they don't have to bear the burden of when things go poorly.

 

[P3 F0]

I still don't understand why the upper echelons of our leadership won't just shoot it straight with Congress. "Yes, this situation got fucked up fast. It got that way because we don't have the money, parts, people, or time to do the jobs required of us. And we are missing those things because you won't give them to us." Either decrease the requirements or increase the resources. It's not a difficult equation. Anyone in the CoC who puts their subordinates at risk because they don't want to tell their boss "no" is exercising personal cowardice they don't have to bear the burden of when things go poorly.

While this is entirely true, there were some incredibly idiotic leadership/oversight decisions made here. CTF saying "navigation is navigation" so shut up and color, the watchfloor idiots doing nothing with call-the-boss-right-fucking-now-now-now information, no in-brief from NAVCENT.... These had nothing to do with lack of resources, although that certainly played a part in this.

 

[Brett327]

I still don't understand why the upper echelons of our leadership won't just shoot it straight with Congress. "Yes, this situation got fucked up fast. It got that way because we don't have the money, parts, people, or time to do the jobs required of us. And we are missing those things because you won't give them to us." Either decrease the requirements or increase the resources. It's not a difficult equation. Anyone in the CoC who puts their subordinates at risk because they don't want to tell their boss "no" is exercising personal cowardice they don't have to bear the burden of when things go poorly.

Don't forget that sequestration, which was a significant contributor to how we got in this maintenance, readiness and manning shit show of the past 5 years was a deliberate act of congress, and the Obama WH. They were all briefed at the time what the impact would be. Sequestration isn't the fault of senior Navy leadership. It comes down to doing the best you can with what little you have, and it isn't really about saying "no" or not, when you're trying to navigate new territory from a resourcing perspective. Trust me, those messages were being delivered by Navy leadership to SECNAV and SecDef loud and clear. Could a bunch of Admirals resigned in protest? Sure, but I don't think that would have changed the reality of the resourcing deficit, nor the operational demand signal. If you see the situation as inevitable, most of us type-A personalities would rather lead the organization through a difficult time than resign and hope that sends some kind of message.

BL: Civilian leadership in the Legislative and Executive banches got us into this pickle - not senior Navy leadership.

 

[HAL Pilot]

Queue the oak leaf wearing FOGO Défense brigade

You called that one....

 

[Angry]

Don't forget that sequestration, which was a significant contributor to how we got in this maintenance, readiness and manning shit show of the past 5 years was a deliberate act of congress, and the Obama WH. They were all briefed at the time what the impact would be. Sequestration isn't the fault of senior Navy leadership. It comes down to doing the best you can with what little you have, and it isn't really about saying "no" or not, when you're trying to navigate new territory from a resourcing perspective. Trust me, those messages were being delivered by Navy leadership to SECNAV and SecDef loud and clear. Could a bunch of Admirals resigned in protest? Sure, but I don't think that would have changed the reality of the resourcing deficit, nor the operational demand signal. If you see the situation as inevitable, most of us type-A personalities would rather lead the organization through a difficult time than resign and hope that sends some kind of message.

BL: Civilian leadership in the Legislative and Executive banches got us into this pickle - not senior Navy leadership.

I don't disagree with you at all on your first point; civilian leadership absolutely bears the lionshare of the responsibility for the shortfalls mentioned above. But when a number of investigators report that training was inadequate, and then it gets to a 4-star who doesn't like that response, initiates a second, more friendly investigation, and then endorses the favorable report instead of the initial one, that's got nothing to do with civilian leadership. That's someone watching out for themselves.

I do disagree that high profile officers resigning wouldn't have made a difference. Without that occurring, the only way attention is drawn to this problem is when people die in high profile incidents or create an incident with a foreign power. It's pretty clear that our civilian overlords, regardless of political party, only care about our problems when they hit the front page of a newspaper. I would contest most FOGOs are in the same camp. The comment of "most ships in 7th fleet didn't crash in 2017" is telling in this regard - it speaks of an attitude amongst the admiralty that implies "if you don't hear about a problem, then there is no problem". That's a pretty JV way to manage any organization, let alone the world's greatest Navy.

 

[Brett327]

don't disagree with you at all on your first point; civilian leadership absolutely bears the lionshare of the responsibility for the shortfalls mentioned above. But when a number of investigators report that training was inadequate, and then it gets to a 4-star who doesn't like that response, initiates a second, more friendly investigation, and then endorses the favorable report instead of the initial one, that's got nothing to do with civilian leadership. That's someone watching out for themselves.

No argument there. My comments were about sequestration and resourcing shortfalls, not the investigation. That situation was clearly problematic.

I do disagree that high profile officers resigning wouldn't have made a difference.

Tough to predict exactly how resignations would be received, but we do have a recent example to draw from. When Jim Mattis resigned in protest over Syria policy (and presumably other unstated disagreements), did that fundamentally change anything in the Trump Whitehouse? By most measures, I would say no. Trump is well known for rapid reversals of policy, and although we did cut our numbers in Syria by about 50%, we did not precipitously withdraw. Did Jim Mattis' resignation influence that? Perhaps, but it certainly did not result in a collective governmental gasp that would result in a reexamination of policies across the board. Now substitute a handful of 3 and 4 star officers into that scenario. I honestly think most people in government would shrug and promote the next guy in line, just like we've always done.

 

[Jim123]

What if the next guy in line also turned it down, out of conscience, and the guy after that turned it down too?

(It would never happen and I know that.)

 

[Brett327]

It would never happen and I know that.

There's your answer. I don't think it's realistic to expect that people do that, nor would I view it as some kind of moral shortcoming. Like I said earlier, we're all type-As and we all want a crack at fixing the problem.

 

[HAL Pilot]

There's your answer. I don't think it's realistic to expect that people do that, nor would I view it as some kind of moral shortcoming. Like I said earlier, we're all type-As and we all want a crack at slapping lipstick on the pig instead of fixing the problem.

FIFY

 

[Mos]

I like to think that the officers that would push back or resign in protest probably got out at MSR. But more likely is that Navy leaders are self-serving cowards because that is generally what human beings are.

 

[nittany03]

What if the next guy in line also turned it down, out of conscience, and the guy after that turned it down too?

We already found out decades ago. Let me Google that for you.

 

[Brett327]

I think this is over generous. I don’t think MOST senior officers want to take a “crack” at the decades long quagmire that is CENTCOM.

We're talking about two completely different things. I'm talking about the readiness deficit caused by sequestration.