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They Fixed SWO Culture!

Notanaviator

Notanaviator

Well-Known Member
Contributor
Or maybe they’re still working on it. From the outside looking in maybe a little meat on the bone here. This just seems chickenshit.

news.usni.org

Lawyer: Destroyer CO Removed for Making Plaque from Seized Weapon - USNI News

This post has been updated to include links to U.S. law and DoD policy on captured weapons. The commander of a guided-missile destroyer was relieved of command after attempting to make a morale-boosting plaque from a captured weapon for his crew to celebrate the 2019 interdiction of an Iranian...
news.usni.org news.usni.org
 
Notanaviator

Notanaviator

Well-Known Member
Contributor
To be clear I was being sarcastic. If a “way to go guys we seized a big haul of Iranian weapons parts” morale booster results in a loss of confidence in ability to command, I hope I’m missing something.
 
Jim123

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
Relieved for loss of confidence for that, maybe there's more to the story or maybe not.

On the other hand, maybe it's because I did an IA in the sandbox, but I remember an AFN commercial with the jarhead holding the samurai sword that his grandfather took off a dead guy but nowadays war trophies aren't okay, UCMJ, something something blah blah AFN commercial. The attorney's statement that squids don't always get the same theater brief that grunts do, that seems like a very uh lawyerly thing to say.

Personally I think the plaque sounds pretty great (and big picture I don't think we need to be firing skippers over things like that), but it seems like it would require a crap ton of CYA paperwork. And if there's one thing the admiralty loves these days it's CYA paperwork.
 
Treetop Flyer

Treetop Flyer

Well-Known Member
pilot
1st LAR had/has some cool AK’s in their armory. One was gold or nickel plated. Maybe one of each but I only played with them a few minutes and don’t remember exactly.
 
Hair Warrior

Hair Warrior

Well-Known Member
Contributor
Brett327 said:
There are laws and DoD policy governing "war trophies."
Click to expand...
Learning has occurred. This?
www.navytimes.com

Laywer: Forrest Sherman CO was fired for turning rusted AK-47 into war trophy for his ship

Cmdr. Frank Azzarello was not aware of the Defense Department procedure for such things, his attorney said.
www.navytimes.com www.navytimes.com

Somebody should tell DIA about the SCUD missile in their atrium.

But in all seriousness, doesn’t NCIS have better things to do? And, is removal from command (apparently one week before a scheduled change of command) really the only way to deal with that situation? Maybe there’s more to the story I’m not seeing.
 
Flash

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Brett327 said:
There are laws and DoD policy governing "war trophies."
Click to expand...

Hair Warrior said:
Somebody should tell DIA about the SCUD missile in their atrium.
Click to expand...

I've seen scores of 'war trophies' so it isn't like this is a new thing but there are laws and regs in place for very good reasons from safety to accountablity, preserving evidence and preventing criminality. A couple of questions come to mind: Was the AK-47 properly demilitarized? Can you imagine the shit storm that would result if it had not been then subsequently stolen or lost? How did the CO attempt to make it into a 'war trophy'? Did he deliberately hide or obscure what he was doing? Were investigators/analysts able to exam it and get all the info they needed to from it? The provenance of the weapon could provide important information on where it came from and how it got to the dhow. Lots of questions, no answers yet.

This isn't all that new or unusual, a big part of the reason for the laws and regs, a Navy ship CO being involved the outlier. Talking to the customs inspectors in the big sandbox was an education, with plenty of instances of folks trying to bring home trophies that were still 'live' and fully functioning. Most were more 'innocent' with folks just wanting trophies to hang on their wall at home but more than a few were a bit more nefarious.
 
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nittany03

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Still wondering what the ultimate rationale was for the relief. This seems like such an easy win if you just started with “ISIC SJA, I want to do this for crew morale; tell me who I need to talk to to make it legal. GM1, lock this thing in the armory in the interim.” And then just start peeling the paperwork onion.
 
DanMa1156

DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
BigRed389 said:
Inclined to agree if this is literally the only thing making it’s way to paper. But also weird...why is the CSG firing him? DESRON can fire a DDG CO, there seems to be some messaging in that as well.
Click to expand...

Turns out I have a buddy who worked for him in the past and he told me today; "I am shocked it took this long and this was the thing that broke him," just adding some more speculation that it wasn't the single thing for which he was fired.
 
P

Pags

N/A
pilot
DanMa1156 said:
Turns out I have a buddy who worked for him in the past and he told me today; "I am shocked it took this long and this was the thing that broke him," just adding some more speculation that it wasn't the single thing for which he was fired.
Click to expand...
See also: pretty much every Skipper ever fired, eg Holly Gaff, Robocruiser, etc.
 
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