Tuesday, 7 April 2020

This Aircraft Carrier 'Firing'

It's not a page one story.

Basically, the carrier 'Theodore Roosevelt' had a batch of Coronavirus occur.  The numbers kinda overwhelmed the commander of the ship.  He fires off a unclassified 'wordy' piece that goes beyond his boss, or his chain-of-command, and include twenty-odd other commanders.  Basically, he wanted his sick folks removed from the ship and care be rendered as soon as possible.

Several things then occurred, but the chief thing.....this guy was 'fired'. 

What he did wrong? 

His 'script was simple.  Just write a five-line confidential message to his boss, and inform him that the safety of the ship and mission was compromised.  It was in the best interest to steam off toward the nearest US port, and dock.  In the five to seven days that this would have required....he would have detailed out several hundred folks from the ship to carry on essential duties, and care for the quarantined folks on some indoor deck.  He failed on the 'script', and just acted like he wasn't ready for the decisions required.

The problem I would have worried about is that this is a nuclear-powered ship and you only have x-number of nuke technicians onboard.  If all of them got the Coronavirus.....you wouldn't Seaman Freddy from the chow-hall to be dispatched to monitor the nuke controls. 

I feel sorry for the guy, but it's often the case that when you have a fast-moving emergency situation....fifty-percent of people do the wrong thing, and can't react to fix their mistake....compromising the whole mess and hurting 'trust'. 

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