CO vs. sailor’s mother
November 17th, 2011 | Blogs Carriers Facebook Life at Sea | Posted by Joshua Stewart
The fight is between blogger and Navy Mom Mary Brotherton and Capt. Brian “Lex” Luther, commanding officer of the carrier George H.W. Bush, a ship with ongoing commode problems.
Brotherton has a blow-by-blow account of the head troubles on the carrier, complete with accounts from her son, a sailor onboard. It’s pretty thorough and includes details on how sailors handle widespread toilet outages, the clogs that cripple the toilet system and efforts to fix breakdowns. It was her work that tipped off a bunch of reporters on what’s happening on the ship.
Not to be outdone, Capt. Luther has spoken up as well, explaining the head issue from his perspective in a post on the carrier’s Facebook page. The CO of the Navy’s newest carrier offers a bunch of data and figures to bolster his side and provides a nuanced account of life at sea.
In his Facebook page, Luther disputes some of Brotherton’s claims but doesn’t mention her by name (look for this tactic during candidate debates – political hopefuls almost never mention their opponent by name. Candidates do it to keep their opponent’s name from appearing in print, bringing them additional attention. Luther seems to be doing it out of courtesy to Brotherton.) In response, Brotherton was more direct and posted “just as [Luther] stated that he will defend my rights as an American, as that American, I will defend and advocate for, to the day I die, those men and women who are serving their country.”
This is a tough fight to call. Luther has one of the toughest call signs around, giving him a huge intimidation advantage. Brotherton, however, is a Navy mom, and Navy moms — and moms of any service members, for that matter — don’t back down.
Freedom fades from gray to black
June 13th, 2011 | Blogs Navy Photos Ships | Posted by Sam Fellman
What’s wrong with this picture?
Freedom, the first littoral combat ship, has been in service for only two and a half years. But it’s lost that new ship shine. Exhaust blackens the superstructure and the hull in this photo, taken June 7 while Freedom landed a helicopter as part of a joint maritime exercise. More exhaust is visible spewing from the stack.
“The exhaust marks can be scrubbed off, but the closer you get to the orifice, the less it is soot and more it is actual burnt on charring,” a user named spek commented on the blog, Cdr Salamander. (Spek didn’t identify himself or say how he knew this.) “A suggestion was made to paint a black section of the hull to correspond with the marks, but it never went anywhere.”
But the ship’s builder, Lockheed Martin, saw the same photo differently. They posted this U.S. Navy photo, along with a few others from the day, under the headline, “Camera Smiles on LCS, MH-60R Helicopter.”
Firing Honors, pro and con, Week 2
January 10th, 2011 | Blogs Carriers Fleet Forces Command leadership Life at Sea Morale Navy Officers Personnel | Posted by Bill McMichael
Adm. John Harvey learned about the controversial, four-year-old shipboard videos co-produced by Capt. Owen Honors on Dec. 31 — the day before they were published for the first time outside the skin of the carrier Enterprise — and “immediately ordered an investigation,” he says in a Jan. 7 post on his command blog.
Harvey also says he reviewed the videotapes published online by Norfolk’s Virginian-Pilot newspaper that weekend and then made his controversial decision to fire Honors, who’d graduated from executive officer — his position when the sometimes-racy, meant-to-be-humorous short films were produced — to become the 49-year-old carrier’s commanding officer. Honors was canned barely a week before the carrier deploys Jan. 13, possibly for the final time.
“When I did view those videos, I took action – just as I would have had I seen them four years ago,” Harvey wrote.
Those weighing in on Harvey’s decision seem to fall into two distinct camps. 1: Honors was a great leader who motivated his hard-working, much-deployed crew with humor they could relate to, the content wasn’t any edgier than what is broadcast every day on cable TV and his dismissal is a gutless reaction to outside media pressure. 2: XOs and COs are supposed to behave like grown-ups; Honors created a poor command climate that denigrated at least some crew members; and like it or not, today’s naval leaders must be cognizant of the image they project, here and abroad.
One Honors supporter’s view: “How dare anyone act as if those silly videos compromise the Navy,” wrote a civilian identifying herself as Dani MarieBernadette D’Angelo. “They are what they are, a means of blowing off steam for our sons and daughters who are so far from home and in dangerous situations. … the only reason that they have become a problem now is because the Navy wants to bow to the politically correct agenda. Captain Honors lives by a set of core values that anyone would be proud of.”
Another: “Leaders lead by example,” Anonymous wrote. ” CAPT Honors produced a funny, over the top, and professional [sic] filmed movie which was not to be taken seriously. You talk to his sailors; CAPT Honors was all business, a role model, and one hell of a Navy Officer. He is the guy you want fighting your ship in battle.”
Others say Honors set a poor example for others to follow. “What those individuals have missed is, to my mind, the TRULY grievous act that CAPT Honors committed: setting a negative, hostile command environment for the crew of ENTERPRISE when he was XO,” wrote James. “He mocked anyone who objected to his unacceptable behavior. He erased ANY personal credibility that he had when it came to dealing with issues of sexual harassment. It was even implied that filing a grievance would do no good — he was `above’ their control. That, more than anything, is what makes his behavior so damaging and toxic.”
Added SubIconoclast: “The line between ‘bold’ and ‘reckless’ can shift depending on whether we are at war or in peace, and senior officers must recognize that even units employed in war WILL be evaluated against peacetime standards when they appear in the national media of a nation which is generally at peace.
“Today’s combat leaders simply have to meet both standards; complaining about it won’t change the fundamental facts of the situation. CAPT Honors knew that – he just made the mistake of assuming that he could get away with skipping the `Washington Post’ test before recording videos and broadcasting them to thousands. That doesn’t make him a bad American but it does diminish his ability to command effectively.”
Both camps generally express a common thread: Go after the senior leaders who knew of the videos and didn’t react decisively four years ago. Some of those leaders are the subject of our story in this week’s Navy Times.
Gobsmacked
December 6th, 2010 | Blogs Fleet Forces Command Navy Personnel Ships | Posted by Bill McMichael
Those with a particularly British cultural literacy know the meaning of this great slang term, but for the rest of us (including yours truly), “gobsmacked” means “utterly astounded.” It also describes the reaction of Yeoman 2nd Class (SW) Lucien Gauthier, whose post to a U.S. Naval Institute blog recounts his amazement that a four-star fleet commander ended up attending his Nov. 30 re-enlistment ceremony.
It started when Gauthier filled in a standard re-enlistment ceremony form’s question about “re-enlisting officer” with “Adm. Harvey.” As in, Adm. John Harvey, commander of Fleet Forces Command. Gauthier didn’t know Harvey but had posted to his blog — anonymously — while he was stationed in Afghanistan. His chain of command on the San Antonio, however, wasn’t swayed by Gauthier’s admiration of the admiral and said, “No way.” Gauthier said he understood, and opted instead for his former supply officer from the ship.
The morning of his re-enlistment, Gauthier was passed a surprise note and message from a YN3: “Dude, I think Admiral Harvey is going to come to your re-enlistment!” Gauthier doesn’t recount precisely how this came to be, and he probably doesn’t know, but to make a long story shorter, it happened. Gauthier recalled his remarks during the ceremony: “I didn’t think I would be saying this in front of such auspicious company.” He told members of the crew who were present “that they were the ones from who I learned what it means to be a Shipmate. It had been a long, strange trip aboard SAN ANTONIO. But, I’d gladly do it all over again.”
And of Harvey’s visit? Said Gauthier, “I can’t believe this happened. I just really can’t.”
Then start screaming
October 26th, 2010 | Blogs Navy Photos Safety | Posted by Bill McMichael
No, not a Halloween post — although Slide No. 4 in the Naval Safety Center’s “Signs of the Times” Vol. 6 contains elements of a good ol’, cheezy horror flick: Revenge of the Crocodilians!
The slide show (http://safetycenter.navy.mil/ — midpage, “Signs of the Times #6, a PowerPoint doc) is a collection of similarly bad yet humorous or tongue-in-cheek signage that underlines the importance of labeling hazards clearly and effectively — and taking even official-looking warnings (at least, the civilian versions) with a grain of salt. It’ll take a few seconds to download with a good connection, but it’s worth it.
Welcoming a brother blog
October 25th, 2010 | Blogs | Posted by Dave Brown
For you loyal Scoop Deck followers who feel the need to get muddy and fight the occasional land war, or if you just want to see what fun awaits you during your upcoming IA tour, Army Times has launched a new staff blog: Outside the Wire.
Here’s the mission, according to alpha-blogger and friend of Scoop Deck Mike Hoffman:
This blog is much more than a bunch of bureaucrats meeting inside the Beltway, though. We intend to cover everything from the new Multi-Cam uniform’s performance in Afghanistan to the best sights for your M-4 to Army leadership to the best way to get Copenhagen tins to a FOB. And everything in between.
We wish them well, especially with all that razor wire.
Thanks for reading
October 15th, 2010 | Blogs | Posted by Phil Ewing
The author, center, listening to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, has really enjoyed blogging for Scoop Deck and will miss it. // MCC Tiffini Vanderwyst
Today is my last day at Navy Times, and this will be my last post here on the Deck. I’ve gotten the chance to do many cool things in this job — trapped aboard aircraft carriers; flown in an MV-22 Osprey; visited several far-flung countries; dived on a nuclear submarine; and hit 40+ knots on both littoral combat ships. But the thing that consistently has been the most fun and rewarding was Scoop Deck. Composing posts and interacting with readers has been a blast, and I’m going to miss it.
Scoop Deck isn’t going anywhere; this is just a change of the watch. I stand relieved.
A golden age for naval blogging
September 2nd, 2010 | Blogs | Posted by Phil Ewing
"Bridge, combat, be advised: Looks like Boston Maggie got to go to a ceremony on the Constitution last week. Neat." // MC2 Kristopher Wilson / Navy
Galrahn made an interesting observation in a Twitter update this morning: There are 11 blog posts included in Thursday’s edition of Chinfo Clips, the indispensable aggregation of Navy news stories distributed every day by the quiet professionals in the office of the Chief of Information, or “Chinfo.” Eleven blog posts is a record, according to Galrahn’s records, and (cliche warning) it shows how big a part of the Navy’s media consciousness that blogs have become.
The invasion force
August 6th, 2010 | Blogs Maritime operations | Posted by Phil Ewing
The amphibious assault ship Makin Island is just one of the 46 American warships said to be bent on occupying poor Costa Rica. // Navy
Strikegroupsploitation! Only this time, it’s amphibious-ready-groupsploitation, aka ARGsploitation! A rumor that has apparently been simmering for weeks in the Patchouli-scented Baja hoodie corner of the Web burst into the mainstream this week: Huffington Post columnist Nikolas Kozloff warns that “a massive flotilla” of “46 warships” and “7,000 Marines” is bound for tiny Costa Rica, in the latest example of “the startling remilitarization” of South America. Those dastardly Yanquis!
(Do we even need to bother with any fact-checkery on this? OK, sample item: One of the Navy’s newest West Coast gators is apparently preparing for this huge assault by first stopping at SeaFair in Seattle.)
Like a lot of Navy-oriented Web rumor-mongering, this story has a kernel of truth: On July 1, the Costa Rican legislature authorized U.S. ships to come and go in its waters until Dec. 31, to “conduct anti-narcotic operations and humanitarian missions.” So, although fleet officials don’t publicly discuss deployments in advance, Costa Rica will, yes, likely get visits from gators and other warships. In the kookosphere, however, this translates to wars and atrocities.
There’s no question that the U.S. has a deeply checkered history with many of its southern neighbors, which seems to affect commentators’ capacity for logic. Who could forget 1992′s “The Panama Deception,” and its description of the American “directed-energy weapons” used against locals during the 1989 invasion — which, by the way, was conducted to “retake” the Panama Canal. And yet, 21 years later, those bumbling Americans somehow still haven’t recaptured it and, gee, for some reason, there isn’t a major U.S. Army garrison in Panama City.
Why does it seem like this year’s “invasion” and “remilitarization” of Costa Rica will end up the same way?
Check out our new hall of shame
July 29th, 2010 | Blogs | Posted by Phil Ewing
Our readers just can’t get enough stories about fakers — these guys you see nowadays who claim they received two Medals of Honor, three Silver Stars, eight Purple Hearts, Pink Hearts, Orange Stars, Yellow Moons, Green Clovers, Blue Diamonds, and Purple Horseshoes. One man claimed he survived the bombing of the destroyer Cole; another gave a speech pretending to be an admiral, even though he’d gotten out as an enlisted sailor.
You can find all these stories and much more online now in Military Times’ new Hall of Stolen Valor.