Because their gender doesn't matter. We've moved past that in the military, if only the rest of the country would follow.

I don’t know, maybe so. She liked it. :)

I retired in 1993..1991 was not a good year for the aviation community(Tailhook '91)...lots 'changed' after that, some for the good, lots for the bad. It certainly wouldn't have flown in 1991/2..

the state of the union (citizenry) is always the state of the navy
 

I mean with respect to attitudes and bias. I entered in '88, left in 2016. We had gang-based cries, to include murder, at Camp Pendleton. Despite the best efforts of the military to break down what is there and replace it with esprit d corps, the baggage is often carried forward. However, I do feel there has been much progress (in my opinion). I am at heart a tolerant type; tend your own garden is my takeaway (figuratively, not literally) from Candide.
The the navy became more tolerant during my time,and although I heard some shipmates voice their disapproval and decry it as weaker, I don't see that as true and the vast majority I served with didn't either. There was a shocking amount of racism and misogyny still at the naval academy in 1988-89, and the off-color or frankly abhorrent remarks continued throughout my career, but over time I noted they were not nearly as open/public, certainly not as often, but instead became things overheard. It never ceased to amaze me how individuals felt comfortable referring to others with derogatory racist/sexist terms--particularity when advancement results, or selection for certain command leadership or collateral duty opportunities, were made. I can't imagine when I see the news clips of folks screaming at each other over race or orientation or whatever, that this is not now also reflected in the sailors and soldiers, but hopefully hammered down by peers and leadership as it occurs.

I would like to steer this discussion back on topic.

The supposedly anonymous letter, while disgusting in its attempt to make this about gender, only further exemplifies the dysfunctional way in which the USN attempts to navigate their vessels. While the rest of the world actually teaches bridge crews to navigate, follow the COLREGS (Rules of the Road) and sends them to Bridge Resource Management school to teach effective bridge skills and ship handling, the USN relies on overworked officers who receive on the job training from officers who have a small percentage of the skills of a licensed deck officer. They rely on radar operators who aren't looking out the window, and have only recently begun allowing their AIS to broadcast in busy channels. While the rest of us are integrating AIS, radar and ECDIS (electronic charts) for real time information, the USN is in what amounts to the stone age.

It's time the NAVY quit treating vessel navigation as an also ran, and make Ship's Masters a full time Naval Profession, just like Aviator and Surface Warfare Officer. Both the McCain and the Fitzgerald incidents were caused by poor training and practices. The incidents themselves were very very different, yet had the same tragic results. If they don't make big changes, these incidents will continue happening.

OK, I've ranted enough.

CaptStash....

Follow up
 

Informative piece from ProPublica.
https://features.propublica.org/navy...crash-crystal/

Good information!
Thanks for sharing

that looked to be a really fascinating read. wish it was regular black text on white background, my eyes can't take that kind of page layout. i only made it through bits at beginning and jumped several pages to catch what happened later on. what a story though!

it's got some great graphics, worth the time to read, really gripping.

Thanks for posting. Will get time to read all the way through later.

One thing jumped out in the first part. "Ships Navigator had to use hand held GPS and paper charts to navigate back to port". Do they not use sextants and regular charts anymore? I was a ship's nav and the younger quartermasters would sometimes grouse about it, but that's why I insisted on traditional AM and PM fixes in good weather. GPS wasn't as reliable either when I did that.

Copy-paste to a Google doc.

a well-written piece.

as someone with no military experience, it was astonishing to learn of the lack of training and state of disrepair of the vessel...

in the aftermath of such a tragic event, it was disheartening to see that the USN's primary goal seemed to be blame-assessment, not problem-solving.

I've seen a lot of organizations where blame assessment is substituted for problem solving.

ahhh, the occasional (assisted) moment of brilliance!

great idea, thanks! there's so many web-based stories i like to read, but just can't, for longer than a minute or two if white text on black background.

i copied/pasted right into a word doc as plain text, since i don't know what google docs is. presto, worked like a charm.

:) :cool:

Having served as an Operations Specialist in Combat Information Center (CIC) in those same waters, that was difficult to read. I can't imagine being a radarman in that scenario and not having a tech brought in to fine tune my scope's presentation to remove any sea-clutter so I could track any nearby surface contacts. That's just so inexcusable. There should've been continued chatter between the bridge and CIC with CIC making course and speed recommendations to the bridge to avoid the other traffic. What an entirely avoidable tragedy.

Kevin g