SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the pain-and-disability-are-their-own-punishments dept.
Former USS Fitzgerald CO Benson to Retire as Commander Next Month - USNI News
The former commander of a guided-missile destroyer that was involved in a fatal collision in 2017 will retire at his current rank and will be eligible for retirement and medical benefits, his lawyer confirmed to USNI News on Wednesday.
Cmdr. Bryce Benson will retire from the Navy on Dec. 29 after a two-year legal battle with the Navy over his role in the June 17, 2017, collision of USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) and container ship ACX Crystal off the coast of Japan that resulted in the death of seven sailors.
Benson's retirement was first reported by ProPublica.
The Navy had scheduled a Board of Inquiry for Benson following the dismissal of criminal charges earlier this year, USNI News had learned. The ruling of the board could have threatened his medical care for treatment for traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder Benson suffered during the collision. The stateroom where Benson was sleeping during the time of the collision was crushed by the bow of Crystal, and Benson was flown off the ship for medical treatment as soon as help arrived on the scene. The Navy reversed course last month and allowed Benson to leave the service without a board of inquiry.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:13PM (3 children)
There's the appearance of some karma... traditionally the folks running our naval ships don't get any sleep while underway, then something completely predictable and utterly inevitable happens due to sleep deprivation, and everyone acts like it was an isolated incident that was merely one individual's fault. Its almost unimaginable in the Navy that the guy responsible for nobody getting any sleep got hurt because of sleep deprivation while he was asleep, LOL.
The navy has an anti-safety culture kinda the opposite of OSHA. The Naval equivalent of OSHA climbing regulations would be 16 continuous hours of powerpoint telling seamen "just don't fall off" and then when they fall, "solving" the problem by demanding 32 additional hours of death by powerpoint. In the real world, they'd just issue climbing harnesses and fire anyone seen not using them.
Its one of the main reasons I didn't join the Navy. The Navy has other problems, of course, and other services have other problems, but nothing says Navy quite like setting stupid policies and when the inevitable happens, blame the individual victims.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday November 23 2019, @05:07PM (2 children)
rolleyes
Uh-huh.
Sleep deprivation is something I addressed in a post some time back. In five years of sea duty, I was never deprived of sleep because of poor leadership. I was often deprived of sleep due to sea conditions. I was sometimes deprived of sleep due to Soviet actions and threats. But, I routinely got all the sleep I needed, and sometimes all the sleep I wanted, when the ship wasn't under threat. Sorry, but I don't think your opinion is based on very many facts.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Saturday November 23 2019, @11:14PM (1 child)
Might the situation not have changed since you served though? Mismanagement across the board seems to have gone up in the last few decades.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @03:23PM
Since our never-ending Middle East wars, operational tempo has increased quite a bit. It's not hard to look this up.