{"id":3838,"date":"2017-08-18T16:27:34","date_gmt":"2017-08-18T07:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/?p=3838"},"modified":"2017-08-19T18:59:25","modified_gmt":"2017-08-19T09:59:25","slug":"uss-fitzgerald-investigations-continue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/uss-fitzgerald-investigations-continue\/","title":{"rendered":"USS FITZGERALD Investigations Continue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s an update from Reuters, linked by the inexplicably popular gCaptain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About a dozen U.S. sailors are expected to face punishment for a collision in June between the USS Fitzgerald and a Philippines cargo ship, including the warship\u2019s commanding officer and other senior leaders of the ship, the Navy said on Thursday.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The headline is in factual error, but the story sounds well-researched. Only one officer will be relieved of command, of course. More than officers will be disciplined — at least one enlisted man will be shuttered in some way.
\nAlongside the tales of heroism and sacrifice, there remain of course the more tiresome details of administration and fault-finding.<\/p>\n

“What difference at this point does it make?” Of course, the difference made is in the prevention of future such fatal mistakes. The only way to save lives in the future is to hold accountable those responsible for the past. The pursuit of truth and the meting out of punishment are what Big Navy owes to those killed in the incident, and to those who will continue to place themselves in harm’s way.<\/p>\n

In the Navy, only the Captain is in command, and command means responsibility for everything that happens on his ship. No matter what, this captain was always going to be relieved, at a minimum. We may make educated guesses in private about which other officers and watchstanders may expect bad news soon — they know, of course. Those who messed up know what happened, and so far, all have been blessedly silent. The men and women who will pay a price for culpability are certainly demonstrating a high degree of shut-the-hell-up, which is always welcome from a professional.<\/p>\n

Good people are going to be professionally ruined, and this is appropriate. We do not have room in the Navy for a fact pattern of “seven died and nobody got fired”. The well-being of future sailors, and some small fraction of peace of mind of those sailors and families forever diverted by this incident depends mightily upon the law of the sea being exercised by the Navy. This is a bad business all around — soon it will come to closure. The Navy will draw lessons learned from this awful collision for decades. One of the lessons reinforced is the oldest — the absolute responsibility of command.<\/p>\n

It will be tough to watch young and old officers and enlisted take their lumps. It would be tougher not to.<\/p>\n

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Here’s an update from Reuters, linked by the inexplicably popular gCaptain<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About a dozen U.S. sailors are expected to face punishment for a collision in June between the USS Fitzgerald and a Philippines cargo ship, including the warship\u2019s commanding officer and other senior leaders of the ship, the Navy said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The headline is in factual error, but the story sounds well-researched. Only one officer will be relieved of command, of course. More than officers will be disciplined — at least one enlisted man will be shuttered in some way.
Alongside the tales of heroism and sacrifice, there remain of course the more tiresome details of administration and fault-finding.<\/p>\n

“What difference at this point does it make?” Of course, the difference made is in the … Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3838"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3843,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3838\/revisions\/3843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}