Old dino is right, it is just there are few, if any ships to replace them. The Navy has developed a bad habit of sending them there, and leaving them there, forever. They get overhauled in Japan, and the crews live there in Yokuska. The logic was it saves on deployments and fuel and time, but they seem to have become like the Philippines were in WW2, and we all saw how well that worked.

Read the Navy Times article:

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-n...

Absolutely true! BT

Doc, you are right on the money.

"years of neglect our military has undergone"
This the content of this entire comment sounds like crap, and so does the original article.

I don't take the article seriously because it comes off as sensationalism rather than reporting.

But when I read people commenting on it as Ayn Rand fans, I try to give it the benefit of the doubt. I accept that even in a large organization with millions of people, a strong leader can set the tone that flows down layers of management.

My baloney radar goes off in a big way though:
- The president has an overwhelming impact on things like ship maintenance and the ratio of missions to ships.
- The presidents are cast as either saints or sinners.
- The saints/sinners, at least in this small sample, fall along partisan lines.
- A vague "establishment" "hates" the POTUS and does not care about people working in the military.

Assuming for the moment my "baloney radar" is actually right, her explanation of politics (not sure that's the right word) is what drew me to Ayn Rand. I'd seen politics, and I always thought that it was caused by people seeking an end goal for themselves but using deceit to get there. Fountainhead and AS got me inside the villains heads. They weren't playing politics out to get what they wanted. Rather they didn't have an end goal, and politics was an end in itself.

One reason I'm interested in policy is I'm far enough away from it that I'm not even tempted to think about politics. For the people in the thick of it, making one set of politicians look like saints and the other sinners is their entire life.

The NY Post article and some of the comments remind me of talking to someone with an agenda at a company after a merger. Everyone who came from one company is a saint, and the people from the other company are sinners. In an extreme case, they don't even hide the politics. It doesn't ring remotely true. They're not giving evidence, and don't expect anyone to believe the whole thing. They have some plan to get paid or to get whatever Peter Keating was after in life, and they're just going full-on naked politics, hoping some of it sticks.

So basically I think it's not only crap, but it seems to be evil too. I apologize for making a judgment based on my "radar", which could easily be wrong. 20 years ago I thought some really stupid things; so this could be something else I'm wrong about. Maybe some presidents push the Joint Chiefs to do more with less. They also might signal they want to cut corners, thinking they're cutting through red tape, not understanding the procedures are there for a reason. I don't know. I've only had remote connections to people and projects for the gov't. As an outsider, though, reading this, it's sounds like a window into a world of the evil manipulating the unsophisticated, reminding me of Toohey mentoring people to give up on their dreams.

One would hope, and that is one of the great questions in these 2 debacles, no one has adequately addressed how that can happen, as well as, what happened when the 2 little patrol boats got caught by Iran. That was never adequately explained either. They love their secrets...

That may be, but it still takes a lot of OJT training and leadership, as well as good senior enlisted to run a ship, or submarine. If you have that, you can deal with morons from college who come aboard and will try to tell you everything (usually being wrong), but without it, the command is doomed. I have several books on WW2, written by veterans, covering all aspects, air, sea, submerged, and they all indicate the average joe was a newbie maybe, but quickly learned the job and how to survive. But then, people shooting and bombing you then to make that a priority in war, and in peace there is a lethargy that sets in, where people are more concerned about promotion and next assignment, than the routine day to day business.

Every command is different, every story varies. It is driven by three people: CO, XO, and Command Master Chief. Any one of the three can be a douche, and just mess up the command, if all three are, you will have a "prison ship".

Did you read the Navy Times article:

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-n...

"These comments are not unique. Each survey runs hundreds of pages, with crew members writing anonymously of dysfunction from the top, suicidal thoughts, exhaustion, despair and concern that the Shiloh was being pushed underway while vital repairs remained incomplete."

"Frequently in focus is the commanding officer’s micromanagement and a neutered chiefs mess. Aycock was widely feared among sailors who said minor on-the-job mistakes often led to time in the brig, where they would be fed only bread and water."

"While government watchdogs have warned of such issues for years, the Navy’s problems have come back in to the spotlight in the wake of this summer’s at-sea collisions involving the destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain, disasters that killed 17 sailors. The Shiloh belongs to the same chain of command as those two ships, where several top admirals were recently fired."

I have NEVER, in 20 years of service, heard of anyone going to the brig, or bread and water, for ANYTHING. If you got that far, you were discharged. There is something seriously screwed up, if that is what they are doing today.

This sounds like typical Washington BS crap: "

Navy officials declined to discuss survey details, but acknowledged that Aycock’s superiors at Task Force 70 were aware of problems after the first negative survey taken two months into his command.

Aycock’s bosses were tracking the dysfunction and counseling the captain, officials said, yet Aycock remained on the job and rotated out in a standard change-of-command ceremony on Aug. 30."
You do NOT have a CO show up, take command, and THEN get "counseling" on how to be a commander, and ruin a ships crew, and then be allowed to go away gracefully. That sounds a lot like all the crap from DC, where Hillary breaks the law, gets away. Comey lies to congress, gets away. Money is exchanged for half of our uranium, enriching Clinton's, gets away. No accountability, just the "good ol boy gang". The Command Master Chief must have been a puss.

Nope, read the article and comments above from the Navy Times, this dude tossed people in the brig on bread and water. Not a good morale program. Also, while it may be some mellineal meltdown, poor leadership, dumb ideas, and the attitude of "Shut up, I am smart you are not" can permeate a command. I have 2 son's in the Army, both at 17 years or so, and they say the same thing about the crappy leadership, incompetent officers, and the need to get grades and awards, and hide failure. One son took over a battalion mechanic area in FT Lewis, and they didin't even have the right equipment, tools or spares, and when he ordered them, the turned them down saying "it would make us look bad". The command says they can deploy, but really they can't as they are missing 50% of the stuff then need. You cannot make this stuff up, it is real, and it differs from command to command depending on the quality of leadership, and how much they want to lie.

Actually it was the CO and XO, although the root cause (which they are loath to admit) is too few ships, too many commitments, and so they are always deployed at sea or training, and the trainng time is very limited, and crew time off is also very limited. Add to that young college grads who are unleashed on divisions who think they have to be "superior" on the backs of their men and women, and you have a recipe for disaster. We have heard zip 0 on what caused it, they know, they have a real good idea, but they will not admit it until some individual is found to blame. Probably people fell asleep, systems turned off or alarms silenced, that sort of thing. The fact we have about 20 dead sailors should be a huge wake up call to them that you have to treat your people right, and having Captain Queeg on board trying to make the next grade is not a good idea.