The complaint about readiness appears to be saying the Navy is undermanned. That class of destroyer has a manning roster and it takes X number if people to man it when it goes to sea.
They either had the proper number of people on that ship or they didn’t. If they did, then the overall navy is not the issue when that vessel was at sea.
I'm painfully familiar with a case where a highly technical team was formed of (literally) hand-picked new recruits with at least three years of college, high IQs, and upper 10 percentile entrance exam scores -- and, "to fill slots", teamed with NCOs -- literally from Supply, Motor Pool, etc.
Worse, they were all put through a 4X accelerated electronics course together -- where the mental incompetence of the NCOs was blatantly obvious to the recruits.
"Fully staffed", indeed.
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How do you think that worked out?