Posted on 06/19/2018 3:34:19 PM PDT by Rummyfan
An anonymous email came in over the transom this morning:
Hi, Stacy.
During the early weeks after the USS Fitzgerald was speared by a lumbering Philippine container ship, it was noteworthy that the captain and a couple of admirals were publically named, but not the actual officer in charge, the officer of the deck. (OOD) The other person who should have kept the Fitz out of trouble is the person in charge of the combat information center, the Tactical Action Officer. That individual is supposed to be monitoring the combat radar, which can detect a swimmer at a distance of two miles. Not until a year later, when the final reports are made public and the guilty parties have been court-martialed, does the truth come out. The OOD was named Sarah, and the Tactical Action Officer was named Natalie, and they weren’t speaking to each other!!! The Tactical Action Officer would normally be in near constant communication with the OOD, but there is no record of any communication between them that entire shift!
Another fun fact: In the Navy that won WWII, the damage control officers were usually some of the biggest and strongest men aboard, able to close hatches, shore up damaged areas with timbers, etc. The Fitz’s damage control officer was also a woman, and she never left the bridge. She handled the aftermath of the accident remotely, without lifting a finger herself!
Look it up: The OOD was Sarah Coppock, Tactical Action Officer was Natalie Combs. . . .
When I noticed last year that they were doing all they could to keep the OOD’s name out of the headlines, I speculated to my son that it was a she. Turns out all the key people (except one officer in the CIC) were female!
Indeed, I did some searching, and Lt. Coppock pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty. Lt. Combs faced a hearing last month:
In an 11-hour hearing, prosecutors painted a picture of Lt. Irian Woodley, the ship’s surface warfare coordinator, and Lt. Natalie Combs, the tactical action officer, as failing at their jobs, not using the tools at their disposal properly and not communicating adequately. They became complacent with faulty equipment and did not seek to get it fixed, and they failed to communicate with the bridge, the prosecution argued. Had they done those things, the government contended, they would have been able to avert the collision. That two of the officers — Coppock and Combs — involved in this fatal incident were female suggests that discipline and training standards have been lowered for the sake of “gender integration,” which was a major policy push at the Pentagon during the Obama administration. It could be that senior officers, knowing their promotions may hinge on enthusiastic support for “gender integration,” are reluctant to enforce standards for the women under their command.
This was the story of Kara Hultgreen, the Navy pilot who died in a 1994 F-14 crash. Investigation showed that Hultgreen had been allowed to proceed in her training after errors that would have meant a washout for any male pilot. But the Clinton administration was pushing for female fighter pilots, which resulted in a competition between the Navy and Air Force to put women into these combat roles. It is not necessary to believe that (a) women shouldn’t be fighter pilots, in order to believe (b) lowering standards for the sake of quotas is a bad idea. Of course, you may believe both (a) and (b), but it is (b) that gets people killed.
It seems obvious that the Pentagon (and the liberal media) sought to suppress full knowledge of what happened to the Fitzgerald in the immediate aftermath of the June 2017 incident that killed seven sailors, in the same way the details of Kara Hultgreen’s death were suppressed. It took investigative reporters like Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times a lot of hard work to find out what actually happened to Hultgreen. Let’s hope other reporters will dig into what’s happening in our military with the “gender intergration” agenda at the Pentagon now.
Well whadda know. They drive ships like they drive cars.
This was the story of Kara Hultgreen, the Navy pilot who died in a 1994 F-14 crash. Investigation showed that Hultgreen had been allowed to proceed in her training after errors that would have meant a washout for any male pilot.
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The INCOMPETENT PILOT JOHN MCCAIN was not washed out. Perhaps the fact that his father and grandfather were admirals had something to do with it.
The same was not true of the McCain collision. I think they blamed it on an 18 year old who did not know how to work the equipment properly.
I don’t buy the gender angle. Too many incompetent Naval mishaps. Gender has no relevance except maybe in how the defense is handled and how these are buried.
I am not the least bit surprised. So every link was n the chain was woman who should not have been there. Explains the lack of a coherent explanation for over a year.
oops
Swinging handbags on the Good Ship Lollipop!
Woman Onboard a Ship Will Bring Bad Luck.
“Looking for comfort at sea, sailors have a long standing tradition of being superstitious. One of these traditions is that having a woman on the ship will bring bad luck to the ship and it’s voyage. One article stated, that sailors once believed that having a woman on board a ship would anger the gods of the sea. This would bring about violent waves and disastrous weather conditions. It is believed that in rare cases, woman were sometimes thrown from the ship to seek the forgiveness of the gods.”
http://www.pseudoparanormal.com/2011/04/woman-onboard-ship-will-bring-bad-luck.html
Wondering whether I should send this to my mostly liberal brother, Annapolis grad who has stop the OOD.
My question was why they weren’t talking to each other through the watch?
They were operating in one of the busiest maritime traffic zones in the world.
Captain’s standing orders would have required the OOD to contact the Captain for any contact with a CPA of less than X yards.
None of that happened, and CIC did nothing in the way of communicating anything with respect to intercept, etc.
Can’t understand that. My Academy class graduated a bunch of female OODs, and they all had to pass the same classes and boards the men did. Literally no difference. They were every bit as capable as we were.
Mind you, we had to work out intercepts using manuevering boards (even though the radar system worked it out automagically) and we kept paper plots on paper charts.
If there was DRAMA between the officers, and they weren’t on speaking TERMS, then fire everybody.
Hazarding a vessel is covered under Federal law for civilians and the UCMJ for the military.
Punishable by death if the court deems it.
Should have been the Petty Officer who trained him.
Well whadda know. They drive ships like they drive cars.
—
And build bridges. Remember that walkway that collapsed down in Florida was designed by an all woman engineering team.
This is not the fault of the women.
It’s the fault of those who put these incompetent women in these positions.
All in the name of “diversity”
OUCH! Ping...
I was thinking more “Thelma and Louise”
(-:
” I think they blamed it on an 18 year old who did not know how to work the equipment properly.”
Yeah... I just bet they did hang a collision in a busy ship channel on an 18 year old. Convenient...very convenient.
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