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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces guarding our country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
Posted on 04/30/2016 9:40:22 PM PDT by pboyington
In January, two US Navy high speed Riverine boats were apparently underway from Bahrain to Kuwait when they strayed into Iranian waters, while attempting to contact a vessel to refuel. The Pentagon first said that they had engine trouble. Yet, if that was the case, why didn’t the other boat tow the boat with mechanical problems to international waters and safety?
Then, the Pentagon said that they had navigational issues. How is this possible in 2016, with each boat having an array of GPS and radar equipment? Even if one boat’s systems completely shut down, couldn’t they rely on the other boat’s GPS or radar?
Somewhere during this time, the Americans strayed into Iranian waters near Farsi Island.
Lieutenant David Nartker, commanding officer of the two US Navy Riverine boats, surrendered his men and his craft with superior firepower to a half dozen Iranian thugs in bass boats that looked like they belonged on Babe Winkelman’s fishing show. Nartker surrendered without firing so much as a flare. After boarding the Navy boats, Nartker and his men were ordered down on their knees while the Iranians trained machine guns and cameras on them.
Nartker doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on his disgraceful conduct by apologizing to the Iranians for a worldwide TV audience.
“It was a mistake. That was our fault and we apologize for our mistake,” Nartker said in the video. “It was a misunderstanding. We did not mean to go into Iranian territorial water. The Iranian behavior was fantastic while we were here. We thank you very much for your hospitality and your assistance.”
Fantastic?
To add insult to injury, one of his men felt it was an opportune time to start bawling his head off like he was a guest on Oprah, letting the Iranians and everyone on the planet know that US Navy sailors are complete wimps. In an earlier Navy, a keen eyed Chief would’ve have put an end to that disgraceful behavior by muttering under his breath that if the young sailor didn’t stop crying, he was going to find himself at the receiving end of the Chief’s fist.
Have no doubt, Lieutenant Nartker’s first action, to surrender his boats and personnel without offering any resistance is a violation of the US Military’s Code of Conduct, Article II, which states,
I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.
Nartker’s appearance on the video and his subsequent conduct during the interview were a blatant violation of Article V of the Code of Conduct, which states,
When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.
As of now, the public has never been told what actually happened in the Persian Gulf. The Pentagon has done a good job of hushing up and cubby-holing the disgraceful conduct of the US Navy in the Persian Gulf last January. After a couple weeks of news coverage, the story disappeared like a fishing trawler in a Bermuda Triangle gale.
Smoke and Mirrors is job one at the Pentagon.
The conduct of Lieutenant Nartker and his men (and one woman) speaks volumes about the decaying state of the US Navy in 2016. And, I’m not talking about all the budgetary and readiness issues the Navy has. That is another disaster entirely.
Lieutenant David Nartker should be court martialed. Nartker may not be in violation of Article II, as he may have been ordered by some feather merchant echelons above God to surrender.
But, Nartker is certainly in violation of Article V. If found guilty of violating at least Article V of the US Military Code of Conduct, Lieutenant David Nartker should be given a dishonorable discharge and tossed out of the Navy.
In response to the disgraceful conduct of Nartker and his men, the Navy laid out a huge smokescreen. Cmdr. John Schofield, said that specialized fleet training, such as that regarding capture, depends on fleet warfare designations.
“Training for those specific designations does not take place at commissioning accession sources like the Naval Academy,” he said. “The Naval Academy trains and educates all of its students morally, mentally and physically to become officers of character and consequence.”
I’m sure Mr. Nartker learned about the code of conduct at Annapolis and at Surface Warfare School as an Ensign. Commander Schofield’s comments are genuine Grade A horse dung.
Nartker must be brought up on charges to show the world the US Navy will not tolerate cowardice and more importantly, to show the enlisted personnel of the US Navy that their senior leaders will not tolerate junior officers who are cowards. The enlisted personnel in the US Navy must know that their officers have the courage to lead them into battle. Enlisted people will tolerate a lot of behavior from officers, but they will not countenance people leading them who lack intestinal fortitude.
Nartker should be cashiered before he gets someone killed. He obviously doesn’t have the chops to be a surface warfare officer or any kind of officer in the US Navy.
Moreover, our enemies must know that the US Navy does not tolerate incompetent officers and cowardly officers.
The US military is in crisis mode. David Nartker’s lack of bravado is atypical of the death of the American warrior under Obama. The warrior spirit of the US military is being flushed down the drain and with it 240 years of glorious heroics.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter may be able to stow Nartker away from the public and John McCain’s radar sweep, but he can’t hide the Navy’s incompetence and cowardice from the enemies of this nation.
Lieutenant David Nartker is the poster boy for the new Navy.
We are weak and the bad guys damned well know it.
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| "I am an American fighting man. I serve in the forces guarding our country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense." |
I agree. And I also feel that Obama should be impeached for this and on numerous other charges.
Obama impeached? Let me count the ways
The way things are now, would anyone be surprised if he was simply following standing orders?
DISHONORABLE DISCHARGE. A little brig time too. The crying sailor should be outed on social media ( yes, I’m sure she has Tweeter and the Facebook things ) and ridiculed into oblivion
Obama impeached? Let me count the ways
I think he was ordered to surrender, but he did violate Article V on his own,
Cash delivery. Public service ad in Tehran courtesy of obama / Jarrett. Did we get the boats and hardware / software back?
It was not the "she" that was crying - it was a male sailor.
Since it was determined that Iran diverted one of our drones by using fake GPS signals to fool the drone into thinking it was somewhere it wasn’t so they could capture it, then I would give the benefit of the doubt to these sailors and assume that the same GPS trick fooled them too.
But giving up a heavily armed riverine craft to a few fishing boats without firing a shot is something no American military person should ever do.
How is radar spoofed?
A Boy Scout could have done that trip with a map and compass. And we are supposed to believe that US Navy sailors “got lost”?
L
5.56mm
I don’t buy it. A court marital would give him the chance to state that he was ordered, or not ordered, to leave his route.
And yet he's calling for Lieutenant David Nartker to be court martialed? Sorry but no one can convince me that Nartker wasn't acting on orders from above.........
It would indeed. We’d probably learn a lot of very interesting things.
L
Reality check: a graduate of the Annapolis Yacht Club is neither being court-martialed nor tossed out of the Navy. Just not happening...
The article contains several issues. One, we are not with Iran, in fact our White House collude with them daily. We treat that country as one of our most valuable allies. Given this inconvenient fact, how could have the commander justified opening fire on the Iranians?
Two, the Code of Conduct is not a punitive document, you don’t charge someone with a violation of the Code of Conduct, you have to rely on the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Since this Lieutenant was presumably doing precisely what his chain of command, all the way to the White House, expected him to do, what charges would you bring?
I don’t know what happened on that day, but the White House is controlling all actions in the Middle East and either they directed these actions, or they made it clear that nothing could be done until they explicitly authorized specific actions. This is what happens when you wage war led by Obama and Jarrett.
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