Any Navy Guys Want To Comment On This? The Fitzgerald Incident

4,078 Views | 17 Replies | Last: 5 yr ago by OverSeas AG
Madman
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I never served so I will just post and read comments.

http://theothermccain.com/2018/06/17/tip-pentagon-covering-up-fact-that-female-officers-nearly-sank-navy-ship/




Quote:

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!
Burnsey
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Gordon Lightfoot said it all.
74OA
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Poor training, maintenance, coordination and communication were so pervasive that singling out females amid such widespread failure contributes nothing to the conversation or the fix.
12th Man
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Don't share this article on the "You Know You Were In The Corps" page on Facebook... they come after you with pitchforks for posting stuff like this over there.
JABQ04
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Oh Jesus. In addition to demanding outfit and year at least 47 times. Old people and the internet I guess.
CT'97
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They relieved the CMC for a reason. There were serious command climate issues on board that ship.
Rabid Cougar
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What? They don't do command climate surveys every other month on a boat?????
CT'97
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Rabid Cougar said:

What? They don't do command climate surveys every other month on a boat?????
Not sure, just got home from San Diego and had the opportunity to spend some time around some senior surface officers, that was their comment.
Wildman15
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12th Man said:

Don't share this article on the "You Know You Were In The Corps" page on Facebook... they come after you with pitchforks for posting stuff like this over there.
That page is still around? I got banned from them a few months ago
bigtruckguy3500
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74OA said:

Poor training, maintenance, coordination and communication were so pervasive that singling out females amid such widespread failure contributes nothing to the conversation or the fix.
Exactly. I feel like that post is a perfect example of confirmation bias. The person who wrote it wouldn't have made a similar post if it was an all male crew. If that officer in charge of damage control was a male, he wouldn't have made some snide remark about them staying in the bridge to coordinate damage control.

It reminds me of when we had the first female Corps commander. Everyone came out of the wood work saying "there had to have been a better male cadet." There may have been, but whenever there's a male cadet chosen, no one ever even asks if there was a better female that might've been up to the job. Whether or not they're able meet the same standards as the males, they still have much more to prove to everyone else.
12th Man
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bigtruckguy3500 said:

74OA said:

Poor training, maintenance, coordination and communication were so pervasive that singling out females amid such widespread failure contributes nothing to the conversation or the fix.
Exactly. I feel like that post is a perfect example of confirmation bias. The person who wrote it wouldn't have made a similar post if it was an all male crew. If that officer in charge of damage control was a male, he wouldn't have made some snide remark about them staying in the bridge to coordinate damage control.

It reminds me of when we had the first female Corps commander. Everyone came out of the wood work saying "there had to have been a better male cadet." There may have been, but whenever there's a male cadet chosen, no one ever even asks if there was a better female that might've been up to the job. Whether or not they're able meet the same standards as the males, they still have much more to prove to everyone else.


No. The author of that hit piece clearly believes the limbo bar was raised for these officers; just as it was for LT Hultgren. That doesn't mean these officers got their water wings because the standards were lowered; it means that given the rare confluence of events that transpired, the author suspects they were.

Furthermore, it's decidedly NOT true that "no one ever even asks if there was a better female that might've been up to the job,"

The military and the Corps both ask this question. A lot.

Their telegraphed interest in "ensuring everything's fair" has caused the military in particular to focus on gender, race and other factors that matter not a whit to individual and unit effectiveness. This focus is a fact, and its overt, transparent existence is what led that author to raise his doubts.
bigtruckguy3500
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12th Man said:

bigtruckguy3500 said:

74OA said:

Poor training, maintenance, coordination and communication were so pervasive that singling out females amid such widespread failure contributes nothing to the conversation or the fix.
Exactly. I feel like that post is a perfect example of confirmation bias. The person who wrote it wouldn't have made a similar post if it was an all male crew. If that officer in charge of damage control was a male, he wouldn't have made some snide remark about them staying in the bridge to coordinate damage control.

It reminds me of when we had the first female Corps commander. Everyone came out of the wood work saying "there had to have been a better male cadet." There may have been, but whenever there's a male cadet chosen, no one ever even asks if there was a better female that might've been up to the job. Whether or not they're able meet the same standards as the males, they still have much more to prove to everyone else.


No. The author of that hit piece clearly believes the limbo bar was raised for these officers; just as it was for LT Hultgren. That doesn't mean these officers got their water wings because the standards were lowered; it means that given the rare confluence of events that transpired, the author suspects they were.

Furthermore, it's decidedly NOT true that "no one ever even asks if there was a better female that might've been up to the job,"

The military and the Corps both ask this question. A lot.

Their telegraphed interest in "ensuring everything's fair" has caused the military in particular to focus on gender, race and other factors that matter not a whit to individual and unit effectiveness. This focus is a fact, and its overt, transparent existence is what led that author to raise his doubts.
You're either missing my point or not understanding it.

I was speaking specifically of the Corps here, but before we had the first female Corps commander, I never once heard anyone say "I wonder if there's a more qualified female," or even when we had the Muslim deputy corps commander, the immediate reaction was that he was undeserving/less qualified than someone else in the Corps. Maybe there were better candidates, but when it's a regular male cadet, people don't start questioning their qualifications right off the bat.

And again, confirmation bias. The author looked for an example that supported his view. He didn't find examples of other times when all female crews performed well, he didn't look for recent examples where a male damage control officer didn't rush to the site of the damage to attempt the repairs himself.

And I'm not saying the bar wasn't lowered for them, or that this wouldn't have happened had there been fewer females on duty that night, or that the military doesn't look for opportnities for females to promote more equality, I'm merely pointing out that in this instance (and others) people look at an incident and make conclusions that they want to believe.
12th Man
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No, I do get your point, and it's not a bad one. If we're using catch-terms, though, "confirmation bias" is what you've done with this author's take. You believe, not unreasonably, that this author is abiding the known practice of assuming female officers, e.g., are ushered into positions of responsibility without meeting the standard; thereby unfairly characterizing the skill of all women as marginal. He believes the Navy may have set a different bar for qualification, and this too is not an unreasonable assumption, based on the Navy's past, demonstrable pattern of sliding the minimums.

You may be right. He may be right. The compelling thing is, to me, that both of you may be right, The military as a whole unreasonably allows irrelevant factors like gender, orientation, race, and religion to be considered. That's not right, and as the author points out, it has consequences.
CanyonAg77
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Quote:

when it's a regular male cadet, people don't start questioning their qualifications right off the bat.
Au contraire. Questioning the qualifications/sanity/brown nosing/etc of cadet leadership is a tradition as old as skipping class.

Some great leaders came and went when I was in the Corps, but I guarantee there were a lot of guys getting selected that made us wonder what they were smoking in the Trigon.
bigtruckguy3500
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CanyonAg77 said:


Quote:

when it's a regular male cadet, people don't start questioning their qualifications right off the bat.
Au contraire. Questioning the qualifications/sanity/brown nosing/etc of cadet leadership is a tradition as old as skipping class.

Some great leaders came and went when I was in the Corps, but I guarantee there were a lot of guys getting selected that made us wonder what they were smoking in the Trigon.
Right, that happens all the time among cadets, from 1st sergeants to the Corps commander. But it's typically by people that know the cadets, or know others that they think would've been better suited for the job. I did it when I was a cadet as well. I'm referring to the old ags that go online without knowing anything other than the status quo has changed, therefore someone more qualified must've been passed up.
ChiefHaus
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A ship has one DCO who is the ship's engineer. Their job is to run the damage control. They are not supposed to apply lagging or shoring. They run the show, period. It would be like saying the TAO stayed inside the CIC and never lifted a finger to load a bullet or push a missile down a p-way to the Sea Sparrow platform. Garbage.
PaulSimonsGhost
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74OA said:

Poor training, maintenance, coordination and communication were so pervasive that singling out females amid such widespread failure contributes nothing to the conversation or the fix.


Agreed.


IMO, female officers operate from a slight disadvantage already. Sometimes you have to circle the wagons for the greater good.
Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting.

Steve McQueen
Get Off My Lawn
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My take away was that the author was pointing out that the women being left unnamed in the reporting, and that was strange. They were treated with kid gloves in the aftermath. Why?

I get that a captain is ultimately responsible for his ship, but he only gets the personnel that the navy provides. And he will sleep at some point. Watch standing officers should be scrutinized when they fail, and their names should sink with their captain's when they fail their responsibilities to this degree.
OverSeas AG
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Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess
DON'T TREAD ON ME
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