Another one goes to prison 21 down, 12 (at least) to go!
In an email arranging to hand off proprietary Navy information to the flamboyant contractor Leonard Francis, Navy Cmdr. Troy Amundson described himself as “a small dog just trying to get a bone.”
Full article, HERE.
His supposed statement that the movement schedules weren’t classifed is pure BS! MOVEORDs are ALWAYS classified until the ship is underway. Ask any E-2 on the waterfront and they can tell you!
So far 21 people have been convicted, and it’s a question as to how high this whole thing will go. Fat Leonard made a mockery of the US Navy in 7th Fleet for way too many years, in addition to ripping off the Navy and others for millions of dollars for provisioning and husbanding.
The greed and egos involved is just stunning… And a huge black eye to the Navy and everyone involved in WESTPAC. The ships went where they were directed, and really didn’t have a ‘choice’ of what port to go into, so this isn’t on the individual CO’s, contrary to what some reports say. This was all directed at a much higher level, based on ‘country requirements’ for port calls to meet various metrics sent from PACOM/CNO depending on various ‘things’ going on at the State/Foreign Policy level.
I hope the others get convicted and sent to jail, and the Navy can finally move forward. The morale on the waterfront in WESTPAC sucks right now, and our sailors deserve better from their leadership than this shit!
Never been a sailor, but even I know that ship movements are (or should be classified). This infuriates me that an officer in the U.S. military would compromise the safety of the men under him for money and prostitutes.
Shooters and shoe clerks, and the shooters usually get shafted.
Re. Security of Movement Schedules:
This is not only about money. This is about lives.
I was an MP in the Army during the Unpleasantness in Southeast Asia.
Our unit was scheduled to go to Vietnam for convoy escort duty.
One of my earstwhile companions asked our Sargent, “Gee, Sargent. What is convoy escort duty?”
The Sargent replied, “Well, it is like this: Highway 1 runs north and south in Vietnam. We run convoys of supplies up an down the highway with a Jeep with a Ma Deuce mounted in it at the front and back of the convoy. The VC like to blow up the Jeeps to lock the convoy into a kill zone and shoot up the convoy. You MPs are riding in the Jeeps.”
It was pretty quiet after that.
I later learned that we no longer used Jeeps to escort the convoys due to the high casualty rates.
We switched to armored personnel carriers.
Then the VC switched to anti-tank mines. Duh.
Nixon became my favorite president when he announced in early ’73 that we would not sending more troops to Vietnam, so I was not deployed to the Land of Bad Things.
Intel regarding movements is critical. IIRC we all had have a secret security clearance.
Again, IIRC, those us assigned to escort nuke misses had top secret clearances.
Regardless, VC seemed to have no problem getting intel on movements in order to set up ambushes.
This type of intel, in enemy hands, gets people killed.
There are a lot of reasons the 7th fleet has morale issues. For the blueshirts (Can we still call them that?) the deployment schedules, lack of maintenance, lack of training are all far more damning than Fat Leonard.
Many issues indeed. Your WestPac got extended, some political stuff going on that you don’t know and don’t have time to care about. You got divorce paperwork in the mail, by the time it got to you, it’s already a done deal. That $50 per payday you took out for yourself? Well, kiss that goodbye, along with the rest of your check.
The DivO says that the drydock the ship desperately needs has been canceled, it’s going to be a pierside ‘availability’ instead. The CO tells the crew he’s taking his petty cash (what there is) and buying coffee with it, every workcenter needs to use that coffee to trade with the shipyard for parts. You try to figure out what parts you can get with six cans of coffee.
Your PO2 is getting out, EOS two weeks before the ship (now) gets back. Yeoman’s office has good and bad news for you. Good news, you’re getting a replacement sailor! Bad news, they’re a fresh boot, no school, no nothing. Down one fully qualified watchstander, you see port and starboard watches in your future. Goodbye, sleep.
Still, the Fat Leonard corruption deal is noteworthy morale-wise. It’s a sign that there are consequences for high-ranking military traitors, unlike in politics. At least they’re going after folks that made it worse while you were trying to hold the line with less and less.
It is a shame a few will not be executed
What he said.
NRW- Yep…
WSF- As usual… Dammit…
Waep- Exactly!
Clayton/Tweel- No question there are ‘other’ issues, but Fat Leonard is cussed on the deckplates too.
Rick- If only! Grrrr…
Come on!
I learned a s a kid:
Loose Lips Sink Ships!
The Navy really needs a re-boot, separate of the partisan racial and sexual BS. Mission first, no tolerance for those security violations and platform review: Maybe we can sell the LCS units in the fleet to some third world nation?
One need only look at the insane, unnecessary “uniform changes” that the Navy has undertaken as emblematic of a much deeper problem.
And despite all of that administrative BS, a lack of training at many levels and maintenance of ships kept forward deployed too long (creating sever retention issues)…the swabbies do a fundamentally great job.
This may be the first time I’ve heard of this.
Seriously disturbing.
I really do not like some of the possibilities implied. Let’s hope I’m simply paranoid and ignorant.
Ignorant, perhaps, but that is a readily treatable condition. I fear the paranoia diagnosis is untrue and you are afflicted with rationality. There is no cure.
Rope is cheap and gravity is free.
The UCMJ is a joke these days, I’d love to see shit like this punished rather than rewarded with sex reassignment surgery.
(BRADLEY Manning call your office. I don’t give 2 shits how you identify)
Re: Cure.
Any good sources for biographies of the parties involved?
How many people make Captain without being an Annapolis grad?