What happens to a destroyer CO when he hosts a reception on board his ship in a foreign country, complete with beer? Nothing, usually.
What happens when he forces personnel on duty to drink? He arms the explosive bolts on his command pin.
What happens when a fire starts later that night and sailors show up too drunk to put on their firefighting gear? When he alters an official report on the incident in order to minimize accounts of damage to the ship? Which a subsequent fire later reveals?
Twenty-seven years. Damned shame.
Assuming the facts are as reported in the linked story, I’m surprised an Article 32 investigation wasn’t started.
>Twenty-seven years. Damned shame.
I guess he was one of those “5%” you talk about.
Too bad our politicians are not held to the same standards as folks in the Armed Forces. Pity.
There but for the grace of God…
I was aboard a similar Destroyer in 2000 when we hosted a dignitary party on a small island in the Pacific that rhymes with bomb. Our CO was the first of his native brothers and sisters of said island to be a CO of a warship as I remember it. Attendance was mandetory for all khakis, even though I was on duty. Alcohol was free flowing, and another fellow Chief and I stayed glued at the hip, lest we fall into a beer and soil ourselves on duty. Took quite a bit of discipline to stay that course, but we did. Not so sure that everyone did that were ‘duty bound’ that night though. Of course, we were lucky, we didn’t have a fire that night.
Not sure that “There but for the Grace of God” applies here. Some major judgment and integrity issues involved with this guy. Altering the official report was the icing on the cake.
Most folks who host these kind of receptions keep the duty section sober and put the “drinking lamp” out when the last guest leaves.
I’m with C-dore on this one, Lex. The judgement failure was not in serving the alcohol, or in suggesting that duty officers imbibe. It was falsifying the report – lack of integrity in a commander being a huge failure.
Well, technically Barb, if you’re in a “duty status” meaning that in some way you are tasked with responsibilities above and beyond those of your normal shipboard job (usually a 24 hour period, you stand “duty” once or twice per week) then you can’t drink. There’s usually only 5% of the ship that would fall into this category at any given time, but telling them to drink is a HUGE no no on his part. Most commands reward the people who are on duty during a party with free admission or less duty the following week for the very fact that they’re forced to attend a party where everyone else but them is drinking. This all just sounds so impossibly short sighted on the skipper’s part…
YOWSER! Kudos to the posters above who kept their sobriety while in duty status. The right thing, is not always the easy thing to do. In the late skipper’s case, the altered report was sufficient cause for detachment, and IMHO encouraging his duty section to drink is likewise unacceptable, period. While the hosting of social functions with “demon rum” may get the wink-wink treatment today, that is a clear cut violation of dastardly Josephus Daniels’ alcohol ban way back circa WW1/prohibition era. Recent (okay, I’ve been [ret] for a while) rule changes apparently allow beer aboard for celebrations after exteneded periods underway, but either we follow the silly a$$ rules, or we don’t. In this case Party-skipper seems to have been a real “bender”.
John S.—the Regulations re: alcohol aboard ship were changed about 20 years ago to permit COs to serve beer, wine, and (obviously in deference to the folks of Josephus Daniels’ era) sherry when hosting official functions aboard their ship while inport. They also state that the bar is supposed to close when the visitors leave. Have hosted these type of functions several times and it usually isn’t that much of a problem unless you’re stupid like this guy was.
Sir,
I was always under the impression that a fire on board ship was an all-hands evolution – EVERYBODY shows up ready to fight the fire, not just a specialized team.
Best regards,
Mike
That’s true, but inport there’s usually a duty section that acts as the first responders.
The “there but for the Grace of God” was applied to myself. For temptation the evening I was in a similar circumstance was truly tempting…
Coulda been me too.
We used to let guys in the duty section go to sunset parade receptions on Coral Sea. That way we could meet our “quota” of bodies standing around with out screwing someone out of a well earned day of liberty. That was your “watch” . You could drink-unless you had something else going later.
In other words-the wardroom was treated as adults. Which is a far cry from the world of today.
I noted in the comments on the linked story somebody immediately decided the ship was a nest of alcoholics. Now it seems to me if one is an alkie joining a dry Navy probably isn’t something one is interested in. Having a drink on liberty every few months doesn’t quite fixate that jones, you know.
On the other hand, there may be something to being at sea for six months without a drink, hitting a libery port, and over-doing it. You know, binge drinking. Seems to be a pretty common thing with college students who’ve only just recently become legal to drink, it sort of makes me wonder…
Kind of makes me wonder if the Brits, with their grog ration, didn’t have a better idea.
— Max
I’m with Max, here. That said, this was way extraliminal, and the falsifying of the report, well, git a rope.
Military folks depend,more than most, on their comrades telling them the truth. Lie to your enemies, maybe, for necessary ruses of war, but don’t lie to your own folks.
A lesson to all the JOs or those on AD intelligent enough to decipher this…..
As Skippy alludes to. Don’t buddy-up with subordinates when you are in command. Command is lonely because it needs to be. You would not believe what comes out when the chips are down and the Q&A starts and when self-preservation supplants Honor. I’ve seen it a thousand times….
A profession REQUIRES professionalism. I know some of you enlightened newbies will think..”But my leadership” appeal transcends this type of thing from happening…WRONG.
b2