US Navy destroyer collision

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

So, ultimately we are in charge, but that doesn't mean we get to micromanage USNavy procedures.

It's reasonable to want reassurance that this IS indeed a 'micro' problem, and not the result of a more widespread systemic oroblem.

(I think most here agree that this probably was an isolated lapse, and not a symptom of a more pervasive problem)

[estarzinger]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

So, the vast, vast majority of people who read that report and make judgments based on reading it won't understand any more about what happened after they read it than they did before they read it

i have been on several marine investigative panels, and have read a lot of investigative reports, and very very few involve the sort of complexity you are talking about - only one I remember was related to a sub incident. Aviation is probably often more technical. So, I continue to disagree with you on this.

But let's put that aside, and say somehow this report is complex - I still think it should be released (classified info redacted ofc). Some citizens could understand it all, some could understand parts, and for some it would just be a demonstration of confidence and transparency but that is worthwhile in and of itself. On the flip side there is little benefit to hold it secret.

We also pay for all kinds of non military stuff but we aren't allowed to be privy to the discussions and committee meetings where all OUR money is being spent

You still don't seem to understand the law in this regard. Finished work product (e.g. Final reports for instance) of the government belongs to the people, by law (unless it can be shown to be against the national security interest of the nation). Discussions and committee meeting do not (as they are unfinished product). I have been told that navy avoided the legal FOIA for the Porter report by never "finishing it" - that action and others like it damages our rule of law and the principle of civilian control of the military.

we vote for others who hopefully represent our interests and speak for us.

Citizens help set the agenda of our representatives. To do so we need to be as informed as possible. Publishing investigative reports (redacted classified info) can only help inform.

you'll have an uphill battle persuading 51% of the eligible voters that seeing this accident report should be a top priority for them.

sure, this specific report is a marginal incremental issue . . . . But on a bigger picture don't you think the majority of voters want to be confident their trillion dollar military spending is in capable hands? Systematic Institutional actions either build or wreck that confidence. Hiding and covering up is not in the best practice playbook either for improving the institution, nor for building stakeholder confidence.

"Trust us" may not be what you want to hear but it IS effective.

for me, and others, it is no longer a satisfactory answer. WTF is our strategy in Afghanistan after 16 years of failure? Why did our multi billion dollar Iraq military training effort collapse in the face of a few thousand isis fighters? Why does Navy have a significant totally stupid incident every 2.5 years. Why are we spending the combined amount of the next dozen countries (many of who are allies) but not "winning" much?

To be perfectly honest, I no longer have confidence they know what they are doing, nor that what they are doing is in the country's best interest. And I am not alone on this. And I am not a nutjob. I am a reasonable intelligent, reasonable middle of the road, reasonably informed citizen, and I have lost confidence in them.

THEY ....will make appropriate changes. Obviously, aboard the Fitz, there were problems that badly needed to be addressed, and rest assured they will be, "just trust us!"

unfortunately I don't have any confidence in that. What appropriate changes were made after the Porter? We don't know because they hid the report.

Bottom line. . . . Hiding this report gains nothing at all and possibly does further (yes, small incremental) damage to our principles of rule of law and civilian control . . . . while releasing it might benefit both those principles, and would be in line with best practices for organizational improvement..

That has all gotten too "political" for my taste, so I'm out until we get more incident info.

[TwoBlocked]

Originally Posted by Captsteve53

From a retired Navy guy re manning levels just for info, and yes the point is that commercial vessels may have three on the bridge at night (if your lucky) but a warship close to land or approaches:

QUOTE::The bridge team then consisted of:
1)The Officer of the Deck who was in charge during his watch.
2)Sometimes a Jr. Officer of the Deck to assist him.
3)A Quartermaster - a petty officer to help with navigation and kept the log.
4)A Boatswain mate of the watch in charge of the other enlisted watch standers. He also ensured that the people under him rotated their positions every 15 minutes to keep them alert.
5)The Helmsman - actually steers the ship.
6)The Lee Helmsman - controls the ships speed
7)The port lookout - on the port wing of the Bridge
8)The Starboard Lookout - on the Starboard wing of the Bridge.
9)The After Lookout - who was stationed on the 02 deck in the aft part of the ship.
10)There was also a Signalman in the Signal Shack just slightly aft of the Bridge

I was in the USCG in the 70s when a sister ship, the USCGC Blackthorn had a collision in Tampa Bay. I wondered what might have happened so as to avoid the same thing happening on our Cutter. One line in the newspaper made the situation very clear to me - all of the officers on board were on the bridge at the time of the collision (Probably about 6). Full situational awareness can only reside between one set of ears. Get too many people involved and you run the risk of something important falling through the cracks.

[sestina]

Was USS Fitzgerald running dark? No mention so far.

My encounter with the USN off Beaufort NC on an early foggy morning. A very smudgy target on my radar. About to call on Ch16, when 3 quick flash greens were seen. No other nav lights. Turned out those greens were on the aft edge of the deck, not your normal stern light!

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by estarzinger

Bottom line. . . . Hiding this report gains nothing at all and possibly does further (yes, small incremental) damage to our principles of rule of law and civilian control . . . . while releasing it might benefit both those principles, and would be in line with best practices for organizational improvement..

That has all gotten too "political" for my taste, so I'm out until we get more incident info.

I was talking strictly about military accident investigations and you were the one that just brought the unrelated political issues of Afghanistan policy and Isis, etc. into it, then say it's "gotten" too "political" for your taste. That would be sort of funny in a very ironic way but apparently you're serious. But YOU were the first and only one to bring politics into this discussion that I thought was just about the pro's and con's of our military releasing details of accident investigations to the general public even when very few will really understand all the reports implications and no civilian is in a position to remedy the problem that caused the accident being investigated. If you wanted politics to stay out of this discussion a better solution would have been to simply hold down the "backspace" button for 10 or 15 seconds before hitting "Submit Reply."

[Pelagic]

Jtsailjt, the discussion is not political, it is all about "Transparency" without compromising operational security, which IMO is not an unreasonable request.

In our society we depend on the Media to ask questions and protect their right to do so.

So in this social media format we are in fact performing a similar task, but without any political agenda.

[lancelot9898]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

It's reasonable to want reassurance that this IS indeed a 'micro' problem, and not the result of a more widespread systemic oroblem.

(I think most here agree that this probably was an isolated lapse, and not a symptom of a more pervasive problem)

I wish I could agree that it was an isolated lapse, but for me this is a lot more serious than can be imagined. Even additional training programs which will probably be the result of the final report may not help unless we get to the root cause of this "lapse". A determined enemy will win over a better equipped and trained military ....it's just a matter of time as history shows. So let's take off the rose colored glasses and look at how we conduct ourselves and prepare our military.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by lancelot9898

I wish I could agree that it was an isolated lapse, but for me this is a lot more serious than can be imagined. Even additional training programs which will probably be the result of the final report may not help unless we get to the root cause of this "lapse". A determined enemy will win over a better equipped and trained military ....it's just a matter of time as history shows. So let's take off the rose colored glasses and look at how we conduct ourselves and prepare our military.

I think I mentioned this earlier... but if we're on the cusp of having self-driving cars avoiding collisions at 60 mph... you'd think AI would already be more than capable of keeping two ships apart... or at least anticipating and warning of possible collisions.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Jtsailjt, the discussion is not political, it is all about "Transparency" without compromising operational security, which IMO is not an unreasonable request.

In our society we depend on the Media to ask questions and protect their right to do so.

So in this social media format we are in fact performing a similar task, but without any political agenda.

I'm not sure why you addressed the above to me since it was Estargazer who began introducing politically charged topics such as Afghanistan policy and the reason for the rise of Isis and then ironically said this thread was getting too political. I was strictly discussing the (as we agree) non political subject of what's to be gained by civilians having access to all details of military accident reports including individual sailors names, etc.

One reason that's been cited here as an excuse for the degree of transparency you seem to desire is the important principle of civilian control of our military. That arguments flaw is in its suggestion that WE are the civilians who are supposed to be controlling or auditing our military when it's our civilian Commander in Chief and civilian SecDef, etc who are charged with this responsibility, not civilian message board posters like you and me. I think it's important and appropriate that we were made aware that the collision occurred and that an investigation into it is ongoing and appropriate action will be taken to avoid it happening again. I just don't see the value, other than simply satisfying curiosity, of the whole world learning all the details of who did what and who should have been doing what and which particular protocols were violated and what specific changes will be made and why. I have no use for all that information. For me it's enough to know that it's being looked into and appropriate action will be taken. I have no desire to peer inside the sausage factory and purport to be qualified to tell them how they should be doing it differently even after somebody obviously screwed up big time , I just want them to conduct themselves as safely as possible and I want to see better results in the future. But that doesn't mean I think I'm qualified to tell them how to achieve those better results other than in very general terms such as "pay more attention to what's going on around you and look out the window!"

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by jtsailjt

One reason that's been cited here as an excuse for the degree of transparency you seem to desire is the important principle of civilian control of our military. That arguments flaw is in its suggestion that WE are the civilians who are supposed to be controlling or auditing our military when it's our civilian Commander in Chief and civilian SecDef, etc who are charged with this responsibility, not civilian message board posters like you and me

I guess I view hyperbole as akin to political tactics and a number of your comments appear to have that characteristic. [emoji4]

No one here who is asking for the track of Fitz is trying to "control" the military.

But we do have a public right to oversight of all those paid to serve the country, including the CIC.

It is the arrogance of them trying to control basic information of an International enquiry of a marine accident that I am criticising..
.....Nothing more.

That stinks of politics!

[David M]

Does the public have the right to know every last detail of a military related accident? No.

Are we curious as hell to know? Hell yes.

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

I guess I view hyperbole as akin to political tactics and a number of your comments appear to have that characteristic. [emoji4]

No one here who is asking for the track of Fitz is trying to "control" the military.

But we do have a public right to oversight of all those paid to serve the country, including the CIC.

It is the arrogance of them trying to control basic information of an International enquiry of a marine accident that I am criticising..
.....Nothing more.

That stinks of politics!

hy·per·bo·le
[hīˈpərbəlē]

NOUN
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
synonyms: exaggeration · overstatement · magnification · embroidery · embellishment · excess · overkill · rhetoric · purple prose · puffery

Specifically, to what hyperbole do you refer? I haven't exaggerated anything about this accident and I haven't exaggerated what anyone else has said here on this forum. Let's try to keep it real.

As I mentioned very recently, YOU and I have NO right to direct oversight of the military. That seems to be a misconception that you and a few others on this site share. Instead, we have the right to elect those politicians who will oversee and who will appoint others to oversee our military and of course if we don't like how they do their jobs, we can elect new ones. Thus, THEY have a need to know all the details of military affairs but we do not. We have the right to what has been covered in the press.

You already have the "basic" information that the ships collided in clear conditions and sailors were killed, the ships made it back to port and the whole fiasco is being looked into. What good will it do you or anyone else or the USNavy to make more details, such as the exact track of the Fitz or which seaman failed to monitor which mode or which instrument, available to you? Monday morning quarterbacking has always been a popular pastime but so far hasn't won any Superbowls. You find it arrogant for the Navy to withhold that info and I find it arrogant for you to demand it. I certainly understand and even share in your curiosity about exactly what happened, but I recognize and accept that I'll probably never know and that even if I were allowed access to all the information that's gathered regarding this accident, I'm not even close to being the best person, or even in the top 10000 or 100000 people, to analyze it and arrive at all the correct conclusions and to recommend specific changes to Navy procedures. There are others who are far better qualified than you or I are and I very much want them to take a hard look at what happened, analyze it and make recommendations to avoid recurrences. I'm not arrogant enough to think I can do that job better than they can.

[Pelagic]

I guess we will just have to disagree on the value of open transparency involving a civilian ship and crew in a peacetime accident[emoji111]

[transmitterdan]

No one disagrees that the public should know the facts. But it serves no good purpose to put out less than all the facts. The track of the Fitz is a limited set of data which cannot be interpreted in isolation.

I remain confident a full report will be made public absent classified details. But it will take a year or more as most accidents resulting in several deaths usually do.

[Wotname]

The principle is pretty simple. Employees are expected to be honest, open and able to discharge their duties allocated to them; the employer (shareholders) expects them to transparent and truthful.

All government personal are simply employees of the shareholders (citizens).

The further you stray from the principles, the murkier society becomes.