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USS Fitzgerald collision in C7F
- Thread starter Ken_gone_flying
- Start date
I had this happen to me once. A senior federal agency official was testifying before Congress on same sex marriage. He made a joke in the prep session about the Adam Sandler movie “Chuck & Larry.” Nobody laughed. I said verbatim “Do not say that joke to Congress.” Guess what he quipped to Congress the next day? Yep. It did not go well. Sometimes you can’t fix stupid.
Not defending what he said, but those sessions are a high-wire act for the guys testifying and people can sometimes choose the wrong words or say something stupid that they did not intend. If you listen to the entire exchange, he does a better job of explaining what he was trying to get across. I don't know much about ADM Davidson, but I don't think it's reasonable to label him as an incompetent just because he said one stupid thing. We decry the zero-defect mentality in other circumstances. This should be no different.
I'm not labeling him an incompetent. I'm wondering if there could possibly be a hypothetical leader in this Navy who would either a) only surround him/herself with yes-people, or b) create a workplace culture in which competent advisers are strongly disincentivized (if that's a word) from offering good counsel if it contradicts the preconceived notions of the "principal." Someone can be very good at some things in the Navy and poor at others.
If this is in reply to a question, I could go for it being a high-wire act. This looked like a prepared statement.
Guys, Brett can not endorse the particular words chosen by the admiral, but he can confirm that Navy policy is to not sound like an utter slapdick on Capitol Hill.
exNavyOffRec
Well-Known Member
There are some things you think, but you do not say, at least in a public setting.
Remember that guy that said something to the effect of "they should have just went and bought a prostitute" in response to the sexual assault of a Japanese girl.
Remember that guy that said something to the effect of "they should have just went and bought a prostitute" in response to the sexual assault of a Japanese girl.
My ears!
On your first point, yes, of course. Not sure how that meshes with Davidson’s testimony, if you’re drawing linkage there.
As for the exchange with Sen King, it was not part of the prepared remarks, but was in response to a question.
Video and story:
Admiral to Congress: Think about the 280-plus ships that didnât have collisions
It was a tense exchange between Adm. Phil Davidson and Sen. Angus King.
www.defensenews.com
"Weren't having collisions" must not include USS Lake Champlain and the fishing boat that snuck up on her in international waters, like the steam roller in Austin Powers, a month before the FTZ incident. That's a sea lawyer way of thinking about collisions.
I wish the Senator had put him on the spot about that incident, along with the Leyte Gulf (vs Peary) incident last week... or for that matter the laundry list of 7th Fleet shenanigans for the past five years and pepper it with some other great ship handling incidents like the helicopter on WPL in the Red Sea. Or maybe I wish that the Admiral had pushed back by directly saying something like "You screwed us with sequestration and then we were too dumb to tell you what was really going on." But none of these things are how it works on the Hill.
But hey, the senior leadership feels really bad, we're good at pushing buttons to shoot missiles, and we got that MiG.
I wish the Senator had put him on the spot about that incident, along with the Leyte Gulf (vs Peary) incident last week... or for that matter the laundry list of 7th Fleet shenanigans for the past five years and pepper it with some other great ship handling incidents like the helicopter on WPL in the Red Sea. Or maybe I wish that the Admiral had pushed back by directly saying something like "You screwed us with sequestration and then we were too dumb to tell you what was really going on." But none of these things are how it works on the Hill.
But hey, the senior leadership feels really bad, we're good at pushing buttons to shoot missiles, and we got that MiG.
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Careful with that one... because then he might have to explain why the Navy was so mismanaged for so long that it was using OCO money for day to day and acquisition. Sequestration was bad, it was made much much worse because the Navy had no idea what it was doing with it's money, before it was "cut."
"If you can’t take your ships to sea and accomplish the mission with the resources you have, then we’ll find someone who will.”
-Adm. Philip Davidson
www.propublica.org
www.usni.org
-Adm. Philip Davidson
Navy Promised Changes After Deadly Accidents, but Many Within Doubt It’s Delivering on Them
Interviews and an examination of the Navy’s publicly announced reforms raise uncertainty over whether senior leaders have fully followed through on them after the 7th Fleet disasters in 2017.
www.propublica.org
Recent Improvements to SWO Training Are Not Enough
Many improvements have been made to surface warfare officer training since the tragic 2017 ship collisions, but they haven't gone far enough, especially for prospective surface warfare officers who are still midshipmen.
Why doesn't the Navy send SWO's to train with the experts: the Coast Guard. There is a reason that the Coast Guard makes it difficult for SWOs to transfer "SWO time" to a Coast Guard license: SWOs have to be able to document their actual bridge time (i.e., OOD Underway).
The number of Navy SWO's needing training would likely overwhelm whatever schooling the Coasties do for their SWO's, then there is the simple fact that as the largest Navy in the world we should be experts ourselves.
I think the something along the lines of reestablishing a real SWOS focusing on seamanship and maritime basics, which could happen by the end of the year at the latest if the CNO wanted it, and maybe certifying folks to the International Maritime Organization's standards like the Royal Navy and others do would be steps in the right direction.
As has been posted before, this article is an excellent view of our sorry state of SWO training from 10 years ago along with an excellent proposal on how to overhaul SWO training in the Navy.
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