How to lose your boat. The destroyer USS Fitzgerald collided with a Japanese container ship last night… which never turns out well for the captain of the warship no matter whose fault the collision was. Even if he’s asleep, the captain is considered responsible (which is why captains tend to be grouchy). This poor guy is in the hospital but the Navy is no doubt already planning his court martial.
This post was last modified on January 26, 2021
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Damaging a 1.5 billion dollar boat is no small thing. I hope the Captain is out of danger but yeah he doesn't need to be commanding anymore. Destroyers are supposed to be fast whereas container ships are plodders. The helmsman musta been working out the glory-hole rota schedule.
Interesting. It appears the container ship made two sharp changes of direction in order to hit the Fitzgerald:
https://market-ticker.org/post=232143
I hope I'm still alive when they finish their investigations.
I'm not sure I want to live that long.
You have to wonder what's up with this. Per the evening news that container ship make a u-turn then rammed the USN ship. WTF? Drunk Captain?
Well, it was a Filipino crew and they have Islamist nutjobs in the Philippines, including a branch of ISIS...
Plus Philippine Dirty Harry has been spewing anti-American rhetoric.
Time to send MacArthur back in.
Or a platoon of MOAB.
But the GPS said turn right
Think back to the recent article about a dirty bomb being on a container ship headed to Charleston SC. This could've been a dry run for an attack with more deadly results.
As for the captain. Yes his naval career is DONE. It happened on his watch, therefore it's his fault
Friggin kamikazees
A kamikaze container ship... This is why you don't work for the CIA.
He works for the FBI?
You sure about that? No, you really don't want to know if I do or don't. You know with all that 'have to kill you' secrecy BS they make us swear to.
"Secrecy BS?" If you work for the CIA you're gonna be in TROU-BLE.
No wait...
ooh, gotta run. Looks like some of the guys from work just showed up outside. Maybe they want to take me out for beers.
I hear they have really nice beach volleyball courts at Guantanamo. It's always guards against terrorists and the terrorists do better than expected considering they don't have fingernails.
Greetings from the sunny Caribbean y'all! Weather is great and the chow ain't too bad. Rec facilities are a little spartan for my tastes, but the full cable package makes up for where the gym lacks. I'm a little sleep deprived cause that damn call to prayer thingy still unhinges me. Maybe I'll get to where I can sleep through at some point, but right now it's still too eerie to ignore. The other fellas are pretty cliquish and still don't let me play dominoes with them. Maybe if I stopped yelling for them to turn off the "goat molesting alarm" when the prayer call goes out they'd be more accepting. I mean hey, the great satan incarcerated us both, you think they might be more tolerant of our differences...
Working on the full beard and have to admit, I rock the new look. Knitting one of those towel head beanies things in one of the continuing education classes in hopes it'll help me fit in as well. Time will tell.
Ok gang, gotta run for now. I made a shiv out of a foot bone I found in the yard yesterday. One of my fellow inmates is going show me how to 'hide it' so the guards don't try to confiscate it from me.
P.S. I've reconsidered my stance on enhanced interrogation techniques. Waterboarding though seemingly harmless and a welcome respite from the tropical heat, really, really sucks.
The trick on that waterboard thing is just don't breathe. Simple.
Shows what you know. They tickle you if you try to hold your breath.
On a side note, 'keistering' a shiv is going to take getting used to...
The trick to keistering is a low fiber diet.
Living on goat cheese, dates and Kit Kat bars right now, pretty low fiber IMO. I just can't keep the falafel and tabouleh down.
He just took command last month, too.
I always feel a bit sorry for the captain in these situations. It's pretty much the end of their career. Groundings too. Although, if the grounding was in a difficult area with bad charts and there's no real damage the captain will sometimes survive. This guy is toast, even if he was asleep which I'm guessing he was. I don't know what happened here but a destroyer should be able to avoid a container ship, no matter how "crowded" the area is. After all, war zones get pretty "crowded" too and destroyers have to avoid things much faster and harder to see than container ships.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/17/politics/uss-fitzgerald-leadership-removed/index.html -
As predicted JP, the axe has fallen.
The watch on either ship should have seen the other one. THAT is a leadership fault, on both captains. The XOs of both ships and CMC of Fitz will probably be relieved, too.
Whaddaya bet whoever had the bridge didn't want to wake the captain? Although I might be wrong about that since the captain had to be airlifted to a hospital... which sounds more like he was running up stairs or something than like he was asleep in bed. Sleeping people usually don't get hurt.
Captain was asleep in his quarters. His quarters were crushed by the cargo vessel. He barely crawlwd out, alive. Has a bad head injury.
Maybe the Captain's last name is Queeg.