Inadvertent? Good question right there. Two boats, one with “trouble” but NO TOE LINE? Really. Something smells right there.
Obama forgot to tell them that a screw up on this secret mission would result in losing everything.
That event stank from day one. I have done a lot of offshore fishing and you always want to try to keep another boat in sight, signal flares, and towline. Bad things happen when you fail to follow simple safety measures. I know this but OUR NAVY DOES NOT? Not believable, IMHO.
After almost 30 years active duty, and now just an old retired guy, I seem to remember a requirement for “Code of Conduct” training. I recall something about the enemy and a soldier, sailor, airman, (Ooops Read: Air person) and Marine’s required behavior. Maybe these sailors just missed that block of instruction.
A Captains Mast for the sea cook! That’s the answer.
...just Odungo being the petulant little azzhole he is....an excuse to screw up the military.
Looking back on it, there's no doubt I overstepped my authority during an ARTEP (tac eval). My CO went catatonic on us after flubbing a mission order, and the platoon leader didn't question the order.
How ludicrous was it? The towed Vulcan had a max effective range of 1KM, and the order sent to this platoon was a 10 KM long route defense.
Anyhow, I took over the end of day meeting, and told the platoon leaders and NCOs what they would do the next day. I had moral authority as I was the only officer in the unit who had successfully taken 3 platoons through their ARTEPS. I knew like the back of my hand the duties of every position in our gun and missile platoons.
Unknown to me, the chief evaluator was standing near our CP van, and heard every word I said. He could have been 50 feet away and still heard, I was so incensed over the lack of leadership from the platoon leaders.
As I left the CP, I saw the chief evaluator with a big smile on his face, and he said, "LT, that was beautiful." In today's Army, I likely would have been court martialed. I escaped with a less than stellar efficiency report.
Those who GAVE THE ORDERS to stand down instead of fight need the punishment.
Given who the CiC is, and his loyalties to our enemies, I hope the GOP looks into this case soon, and rectifies any unfair punishment of our men. This incident stinks.
Hard to train and maintain in Obama’s skeleton military. So long as women are in every job, gays are out and Christians not, he is happy.
The gubbermet and navy has been lying their collective asses off about this issue since it happened. Time to recognize the public will NEVER hear the truth about this incident.
Let me see if I’ve got this right. There are several endemic failures including lack of proper maintenance, lack of proper training, lack of outside support, and sending small boats on a voyage across open water in a hostile environment, yet only nine relatively low responsibility individuals are being investigated?
Sounds like the investigation should go all the way to the commander in chief.
From what I have read, the chain of command on those two boats went from an LT, or LTjg, to a white hat. There did not seem to be a CPO present. If present, the chief would have taken over and gotten the group out of harms way.
I’m in the minority here, but I don’t see anything conspiratorial about the event. Just a good old fashioned screw up.
But the heart of the issue is that our sailors and marines did not know if they were ‘allowed’ to fight. So they let a few Iranian fishermen take them prisoner. Heck, we don’t even know for sure if the sailors had ammunition. This speaks to a bad command climate from top to bottom.
Also, it seems that the movement of these boats was logistical, and not part of a tactical plan...and the Navy treated it like they were just shuffling some cars around on a used car lot. These guys don’t appear to have had good communications, or even anybody who would notice that they weren’t where they were supposed to be. Way too complacent for moving around in the Gulf. Again a bad command climate.
Too much attention to social issues, and not enough to the important stuff.
VADM Donegan (5th Fleet) should be relieved. He was ultimately responsible for what happened.
Not entirely sure they were actually in Iranian waters.
Launching from Kuwait and heading south, there is no way, based on tide currents, that these boats would ever stray or drift into Iranian waters (within 3-miles of the Iranian coast-line-—3 miles. . .that would require the boats driving north).
Here is a graphic depiction of the current flows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZl8fVHWanQ
Perhaps the Navy, always the most sensitive to the political waters (since Tailhook), they are sacrificing a few personnel to make it the fault of the US (Navy) and therefore can’t blame Iran for their actions.