Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm............

[Uncle Fester]

"Gentlemen, the results of this year's Reserve Flag board are on the street. Once again, sustained superior performance, breaking out against your peers in demanding billets, and no more than one FNAEB resulting from the deliberate shoot-down of a friendly F-4 remain keys to success."

I really feel for whoever was up against this dude for Flag. "I lost out to this fucking guy?"

 

[MasterBates]

No shit.

Sent from my PH44100 using Tapatalk

 

[phrogpilot73]

Here's what blows my mind about all this. The reality of the military of today is that there is no opportunity to recover from a mistake anymore. Senior leadership fucked up when they were JO's and they are able to continue their career. Does anyone really think that in this day and age, you could run aship aground as a CO and continue on to be the CNO/CJCS (or even better, be court martialed, found guilty and go on to be a Fleet Admiral)? Nope. What would happen if you shot down an Air Force jet during an exercise now? No second chance I bet.

And the people that would hammer you, are the same people who have made mistakes and overcome them. It's a bit of a double standard if you ask me.

 

[BackOrdered]

Here's what blows my mind about all this. The reality of the military of today is that there is no opportunity to recover from a mistake anymore. Senior leadership fucked up when they were JO's and they are able to continue their career. Does anyone really think that in this day and age, you could run aship aground as a CO and continue on to be the CNO/CJCS (or even better, be court martialed, found guilty and go on to be a Fleet Admiral)? Nope. What would happen if you shot down an Air Force jet during an exercise now? No second chance I bet.

And the people that would hammer you, are the same people who have made mistakes and overcome them. It's a bit of a double standard if you ask me.

It's all politics but I have heard of cases where the ship hits a buoy or a whale , the CO informs the ISIC, the investigation is conducted and the CO keeps his job. In fact, during one of my cruises a ship wrapped its propellers on a net in a how-the-hell manner and again, the CO was not relieved. It's all in the confidence the ISIC has in the CO.

I do believe that groundings have so many controls that yes, it is almost inexcusable. Every case study is riddled with controls that were slackened.

 

[707guy]

Oh the irony here....guy shoots down a friendly and goes on to become an INTELLIGENCE officer...

 

[HAL Pilot]

It's all politics but I have heard of cases where the ship hits a buoy or a whale , the CO informs the ISIC, the investigation is conducted and the CO keeps his job.

As OOD on TR I hit both a whale and a buoy. No one cared let alone was there any thought of the CO being relieved.

The whale was hit when we turned into the wind. One of the Shooters saw it happen and called the bridge. It took us to boats pulling on the damn thing for 15-20 minutes while we backed down to get it off. We were almost ready to have the EOD det blow it up.

As the stern swung out, we chomped a buoy during a turn in the channel going into Norfolk. I turned at the right spot and the same spot I'd turned 5 other times going inot Norfolk. The Harbor Pilot said "about every 10th carrier that buoy gets replaced". My CO said "every Sea and Anchor OOD gets that damn thing at least once, don't sweat it."

 

[Brett327]

Guys' Poppa was a three star when it happened, I don't see why it's surprising he wasn't thrown to the wolves.

But he was at the time, at least as an aviator. The board threw the book at him, finding him at fault. By the time he was up for any kind of competitive process for promotion (O5 level), his "Poppa" would have been long gone. I can see nepotism possibly being a factor right after the incident, but not in his selection for O5 through O7. Anecdotal experience here, but I've been in squadrons with three or four guys whose fathers were very high ranking (3 stars through former SECNAV) and there was actually quite a bit of effort on their part (and their parents) to avoid even the appearance of favoritism. Not saying that it can't or doesn't ever happen, but people oftentimes incorrectly make that assumption because it's salacious.

Brett

 

[insanebikerboy]

Anecdotal experience here, but I've been in squadrons with three or four guys whose fathers were very high ranking (3 stars through former SECNAV) and there was actually quite a bit of effort on their part (and their parents) to avoid even the appearance of favoritism. Not saying that it can't or doesn't ever happen, but people oftentimes incorrectly make that assumption because it's salacious.

Brett

Same here. Knew one guy who's Dad is the head of a fleet command. Needless to say the dude was a douchebag and definitely didn't get any help from Pops with his orders, he ended up actually getting a crappy job. Made me think that there are still things right with the world!

 

[Gatordev]

But he was at the time, at least as an aviator. The board threw the book at him, finding him at fault. By the time he was up for any kind of competitive process for promotion (O5 level), his "Poppa" would have been long gone. I can see nepotism possibly being a factor right after the incident, but not in his selection for O5 through O7. Anecdotal experience here, but I've been in squadrons with three or four guys whose fathers were very high ranking (3 stars through former SECNAV) and there was actually quite a bit of effort on their part (and their parents) to avoid even the appearance of favoritism. Not saying that it can't or doesn't ever happen, but people oftentimes incorrectly make that assumption because it's salacious.

Brett

As I've mentioned before, he's a SELRES. It's not that hard to make O-6 in the Reserves. I have a few stories, but alas, they'll have to wait for telling over a beer.

 

[draad]

The name of the game today with internet is "place blame somewhere so we cover our butts" Instead of taking incidents for what they are (that whole swiss cheese thing) we have to blame blame blame. The kid was setup for failure and he finished it with the last "swiss cheese hole" It wasn't his fault 100% nor was it the Navy's fault 100%. It's distributed. It's the procedures. It's the training. These procedures are the combined result of hundreds of CO's, IPs, safety-o's, etc. Yet when sh!t shows a flaw, the modern internet has turned everything into a CYA blame game instead of "how do we just fix this so it doesn't happen again. How do we fix it so a JO isn't put in a position like this."

 

[jmcquate]

The name of the game today with internet is "place blame somewhere so we cover our butts" Instead of taking incidents for what they are (that whole swiss cheese thing) we have to blame blame blame. The kid was setup for failure and he finished it with the last "swiss cheese hole" It wasn't his fault 100% nor was it the Navy's fault 100%. It's distributed. It's the procedures. It's the training. These procedures are the combined result of hundreds of CO's, IPs, safety-o's, etc. Yet when sh!t shows a flaw, the modern internet has turned everything into a CYA blame game instead of "how do we just fix this so it doesn't happen again. How do we fix it so a JO isn't put in a position like this."

He armed an AIM-9 on an exercise that was not a shootex. He blew the tial off of an RF-4C. He was not set up to fail........he failed.

 

[HueyCobra8151]

How do we fix it so a JO isn't put in a position like this.

The job description of a JO is "in over your fucking head." JO's are supposed to be put into positions that they don't have any experience in...

 

[JD81]

Here's what blows my mind about all this. The reality of the military of today is that there is no opportunity to recover from a mistake anymore.

Seen this first hand in the very recent past, costing JO's their designator and sometimes their AD naval career (over problems NOWHERE near the level of what this thread is about).

 

[Recovering LSO]

The name of the game today with internet is "place blame somewhere so we cover our butts" Instead of taking incidents for what they are (that whole swiss cheese thing) we have to blame blame blame. The kid was setup for failure and he finished it with the last "swiss cheese hole" It wasn't his fault 100% nor was it the Navy's fault 100%. It's distributed. It's the procedures. It's the training. These procedures are the combined result of hundreds of CO's, IPs, safety-o's, etc. Yet when sh!t shows a flaw, the modern internet has turned everything into a CYA blame game instead of "how do we just fix this so it doesn't happen again. How do we fix it so a JO isn't put in a position like this."

Ensign is it? Please walk into your student control office THIS morning and let them know that you DO NOT want to select any aircraft that carries forward firing ordnance. If its too late for that conversation then you really ought to reconsider some of your comments - start with (paraphrase), its the internet's fault...

 

[squeeze]

Ensign is it? Please walk into your student control office THIS morning and let them know that you DO NOT want to select any aircraft that carries forward firing ordnance. If its too late for that conversation then you really ought to reconsider some of your comments - start with (paraphrase), its the internet's fault...

I wasn't aware inadvertent release of ordnance was reserved for only forward-firing stuff.