This is NOT good…
The Navy removed the commanding officer of the Japan-based destroyer Howard on Tuesday – less than six months after relieving the previous skipper of the ship.
In a brief statement, the Navy said it ousted Cmdr. Cameron Dennis, who became the commanding officer of the warship in September, due to a “loss of confidence in his ability to perform his duties.”
Full article, HERE from Navy Times.
There has been a rash of CO firings in the last few months, and it’s enough to make one wonder what is going on…
Is this due to new guidance from the SecDef, SecNav, CJCS, or the new CNO?
Or are the current crop of COs that bad?
I don’t have a good answer, but our sailors deserve better than getting yanked hither and yon with all these changes. It takes time to get up to speed when a new CO takes over, regardless of the platform, and that impacts readiness, and operational capability.
Which is the LAST thing the Navy needs right now, especially in anything that is forward deployed!
Interesting. Dennis is a mustang with 30 years in the Navy, and was a destroyer XO previously. Given that the last USS Howard CO was relieved after running around, this stinks on ice.
Normally when there’s a problem ship, the officers and senior enlisted get transferred out and the junior enlisted get intensive training. Given the current manning issues, I bet CDR Dennis was told to shape the ship up as-is, and is now the scapegoat for not being able to do so.
Aground, not around. Blasted autocorrect!
Kinda makes you wonder if he held the crew’s feet-to-the-fire for performance and the professional malcontents pushed all of the buttons to sink him.
How many times does it have to happen before it is “Enemy Action”?
From my experience, a poor group of subordinates can destroy team performance with just a bad attitude. Also, in my experience, the only method to take control of a project was to fire almost an entire crew. Without that option, the disaster I envisioned as the certain future, would have happened.
Whether that happened in this situation may never be known, but removing that many skippers in such a short period of time shows either a good decision by those higher in command, or a poor decision by those higher in command. Considering the current military, I’m leaning toward the latter. Without the ability to increase envisioned effectiveness by drastic changes, no change will ever happen.
After reading the Navy Times linked article he ran the ship aground pulling in to a port call in Bali , a “soft grounding” . Hell Chester Nimitz ran a ship aground , so Ive been told , and made his stars . I wonder if the new kinder and gentler crews have a suggestion box to slam the “ol Man” . Wouldn’t surprise me at all , my buddy that works civilian now for navsea said he was on a carrier that has a safe space where khakis can’t enter , when shipboard life gets too stressful , a frickin “safe zone” . That’s some real pussification . On slow days when all caught up, I learned to walk fast, look determined, and carry a green tool bag and some MRC cards (a clipboard would work in a pinch) and nobody would fuck with you . Put some grease on your hands too , the khakis would leave you alone and your buddies wouldn’t stop you afraid you you had some ass ache shit goin on. Of course I was a stellar sailor , but it was important to look busy I figured that out right quick , and slow days were far and few between .
Here’s one for you , USS Lake Erie , in homeport Pearl Harbor at that time , had duty that day , working on the weatherdecks as a boatswainsmate does , having a smoke with one of the better E4’s under me, and heard PMS being done on one of the sea whiz (CIWS), it was doing the whir whir noise when all the sudden we heard a “braap” , I looked at my buddy and said , “you hear that shit?”. Seems a not so bright FC3 had fucked up and sent a few round inland into the neighborhood on the hillside known as Aiea. A second later, the 1MC said the brow was secured nobody on or off the ship . 5 minutes later , the Capt showed in his golfing attire to see what the fuck happened . I’ll spare the Capt’s name , but he kept command after this and completed his tour , he was a full bird and very competent , I didn’t care for him but he was okay. Big investigation , a full blown hullaballoo . The FC3 went to mast , got busted down and later got kicked out for being a peeping tom in the Moana Loa Terrace navy housing complex . Said he was looking for a lost cat, odd for a single guy living on the ship.
Anyway , they never found the fired rounds up on the hill , and nobody luckily got hurt or property damage done. Sorry no links but Ibet a google search for “USS Lake Erie fires into Aiea” will find an old news article on the event .
So yeah , the Capt never got relieved , but I bet he never saw Admiral , and this was a pretty big fuck up , him being overall responsible for the ship and all.
My reply in detail is here:
https://agtiger2.livejournal.com/100628.html
(Too many links otherwise, I’d get caught in your spam filter.) 🙂
In my opinion, everyone has one, I believe it is the people at the top of the DOD and the Naval Academy’s fault. One, the business of entrance to the Academy is not the same as it once was. By allowing woke and race to be used over academics has lowered the bar for those with lower IQs to be put in charge when they are incapable of handling the job. Two, if that is not the case then I must believe that it is a deliberate case of weakening the capability of the Naval forces in the event of an attack by the CCP on Taiwan.
+1
Has anyone noticed the disproportionate number of these firings over the last couple years occurring to C.O.’s based in Yokosuka?
All- Thanks, and interestingly, he’s the second Mustang CO to be relieved in the last month.
Speaking of the USS Lake Erie, they just canned the captain a few days ago:
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-military/2024/02/01/report-fired-uss-lake-erie-captain-instilled-a-culture-of-fear/
I thought a ‘culture of fear’ was traditional in the Navy?
Will- Yep, she was also a Mustang.
Are the COs that bad…or are they being canned because they aren’t buying into the DEI bullshit being foisted onto the rank and file by the corrupt Pentagon brass.
+1
The purge is continuing, and those left will toe the DIE line. It’ll go down thru the ranks from there, assuming people don’t see what’s happening and leave for self-preservation.
I’ll note the correspondence to other institutions that the left has taken over the same way.
As a followup, Navy times has an article today that his was fired for “unprofessional comments, so since his comment was not “inappropriate” (code for sexual in nature), I guess “unprofessional” is code for telling someone (a snowflake JO?) they are a farging ID10T? https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2024/02/08/fired-co-of-uss-howard-got-in-hot-water-after-unprofessional-remarks/
My question is, how long would it take to replace all the woke idiots and idiocy that is currently infesting the Navy, and get it turned around? Say, if Trump makes it into office, and demands that the Navy FIX THE PROBLEM! Is it possible, even with a top down mandate, or is it too late to regain the competency?