Two Ship Collisions Killed 17 US Sailors. Is Obama's Leadership of the Navy To Blame?
In the summer of 2017, two high-profile naval incidents revealed a fleet in crisis.
First, it was the USS Fitzgerald, which collided with a cargo container ship. The crash killed seven United States sailors. Just a few months later, the USS John S. McCain suffered an accident with another cargo ship. Ten of her crew died as a result.
Although the incidents happened under President Donald Trump, poor leadership under former President Barack Obama appears to be the real culprit here.
An in-depth report by ProPublica reveals these disasters were not unavoidable. Lack of training, knowledge and common sense resulted in a fractured fleet that was primed for catastrophe. In fact, many sailors and officers were ringing the alarm bells long before anyone lost their life.
“It’s only a matter of time before a major incident occurs,” one sailor warned.
Vern Clark, a top Navy officer in the early 2000s, appears to be the origin point for the manpower crisis. In a push for corporate-like efficiency, Navy officers’ lengthy classroom time was swapped for packs of instructional CDs. Many jokingly called the discs “Surface Warfare Officer School in a box.”
This and other similar overhauls understandably left officers woefully unprepared for the task of operating America’s warships.
Part of the cuts championed by Clark resulted in the removal of sentries on the sides of ships, a post that, if manned, could have prevented at least one of the 2017 collisions.
Clark told ProPublica that his efficiency drive was experimental, and that, “only a nitwit of the highest order would continue down this path without seeing if it’s working.”
Enter Obama.
Shortly after his inauguration, Obama nominated longtime Democrat politician Ray Mabus as the secretary of the Navy.
Mabus was warned of the Navy’s shortcomings. Average crew size was dwindling, there were leadership faults and manpower was stretched thin. The physical condition of the ships began to deteriorate as well. Unprepared and untrained junior officers were being promoted, compounding the problem even further. The cost just to reverse the substandard training across the Navy was priced at $3.5 billion.
This fractured Navy wasn’t given rest, either. Foreign military aid, joint training and “presence missions” (like the sailors captured by Iran swapped for a pallet of cash) left ships working overtime, often with skeleton crews.
Despite this, the Obama administration pushed for new technology and new ships. One of the designs that flourished under Obama and Mabus was the littoral combat ship. The LCS was a mess from the beginning but maintained the president’s support regardless.
Officers from the Seventh Fleet (home to both the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain) were unimpressed by the LCS, saying it was not suited for their area of operations.
A memo addressing the misunderstanding of the Navy’s needs made its way to the force’s leadership.
“If we continue to invest in the latest and greatest equipment and the most capable weapon systems without making an equivalent investment in our workforce,” the memo read, “we will move further away from being a ready force.”
In 2017, Obama’s stripped Navy was shuffled onto the plate of newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump. Mabus defended fantastical Navy programs like the LCS until his last days in the position.
In the Seventh Fleet alone, half the ships lacked sailors for an important senior navigational post. Investigators discovered the USS Fitzgerald was one of these ships, and the unstaffed position contributed to the deadly collision. Unfortunately, USS McCain’s story is even more tragic.
While navigating through a crowded area, a sailor began having difficulty controlling both the speed and direction of the massive warship. The captain then played a fatal game of musical chairs, desperately reassigning sailors to different stations until, in all of the confusion, the ship executed a sharp turn.
This would line the McCain up for the fatal collision.
When asked about the two disasters, Mabus refused to take the blame, calling it “a coincidence.”
None of this looks like a coincidence, but it does go to show that poor leadership can literally cost lives. Bad leadership trickles down, and often hurts those at the bottom the most.
The United States Navy is no different. With a new commander-in-chief, these shortcomings will hopefully be addressed and fixed before any more lives are lost.
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