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The author touched on the heart of the matter in the article: ".What has not been discussed, but which should be significantly more concerning, is the fact that if ships’ officers are not up to the fundamental task of safe navigation, how can they possibly be up to the task of complex warfighting?"

I have been saying this over, and over, and over again since I began paying attention to the condition of the Navy after the Fitzgerald collision. I have said it in so many different ways, until I am blue in the face and have grown tired of saying it, as some of you I have pinged well know.

This isn't some stupid sabotage, or hostile action, or muslims, or death rays from communists, Russians, or aliens.

This is poor readiness, pure and simple. Overall readiness is a triad of training, material maintenance, and leadership. If any one of these three things fails, overall readiness will suffer.

To my horror-and yes, I am not being theatrical or hysterical-horror, I have come to understand that our Navy is not just failing in one of them, it is (and apparently HAS been) failing in all three of these things.

I have not been paying close attention in many ways, and have been looking at the Navy over the last 10-20 years from various specific aspects, assuming that the triad was still functioning.

I assumed that training was taking place. That it was adequate and relevant. How, I thought, could it not be?

I assumed that material maintenance, even if new platforms and systems weren't being acquired or updated, was taking place, even to a minimal level.

I assumed that leadership was still practiced, even though I knew full well that the Navy was chock full of corrosive politically correct stupidity, even beyond the Army or Air Force, hard as that seems to believe. I had a naive view that there were enough individuals to ensure there were still islands of crackerjack ships and units out there operating on the sheer will of some people to be leaders and drive quality and readiness.

I can see now I was wrong. Very wrong. And I cannot tell you how much this angers and hurts me.

I came from a Navy family, my father served for 30 years. We grew up on Navy bases all over the world. As kids, we watched Navy life, saw all the drama, the crazy parties, the massive entertaining, the broken marriages, the infighting, the good, the bad, and the ugly. As kids, it wasn't hard to see and understand, it was right out there in the open, everyone talked about everything all the time in every house you went into, and it wasn't hidden.

My dad was a high functioning alcoholic who drank off hours but was always squared away and ready for work at 0500. My mother was a Navy wife who did her duty, but she could often not restrain her tongue in the appropriate circles and occasionally made things difficult for my dad in his chain of command. Sometimes she just could not be "The Good Navy Wife".

There are some of you reading this who recognize all that and nod your heads in understanding. You have seen it too.

I did a tour in the Navy myself, as did a brother. I served in the mid-late Seventies, a time that is universally recognized as the nadir of the military services in many respects. Supposedly, morale was low, professionalism was low, racial tensions were high, discipline was lax, money was short, systems were dilapidated, and leadership, from the Commander in Chief Peanut Farmer on down was in the toilet.

That is how many look at the Post-Vietnam military, and some of it is true.

So, when I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and began looking at the Fitzgerald situation, it was a wake up call for me. Anyone who knows ANYTHING about the way ships operate knew that something was terribly wrong on that ship. But to me...it still seemed...isolated.

And then the McCain collision occurred. That indicated to me that something was seriously amiss, but...could it just have been a bad coincidence?

And yesterday (Thanks to Presbyterian Reporter who provided the link) I read the official finding of facts document from the US Navy on the grounding of the USS Antietam.

WHAT I READ SHOCKED ME.

I am 100% convinced that the processes in the US Navy are rotten to the core, and I came to that conclusion after reading that document.

As bad as things were in the Seventies by some accounts, I was dumbfounded to read that document on the grounding of the Antietam. In the Seventies, I had plenty of occasion to closely watch sailors on various ships getting underway, pulling into port, doing underway refueling and replenishments, etc.

Even in the so-called horrible Seventies, they carried out seaman's tasks in my eyes like professionals. I was an Airedale, but because I was good at my job, I could recognize professionalism in theirs as they carried out their tasks. They were where they were supposed to be, and did the things they were supposed to do, and did it with confidence in a businesslike manner. I never, ever, even once, saw a hint of the complete and inexcusable (to my eye) incompetency that the Antietam grounding report conveyed to me.

Reading that Antietam report depressed me in ways I cannot fully express.

I grew up in a Navy family, served a tour myself, and as you can probably tell, am prouder of the job I did as a jet mechanic in the Navy than I am of nearly any other job I have done in my life since then. And I am grateful to my government for allowing me to serve, and the US Navy for the wisdom and life experience I got out of it.

But I am going to be a harsh critic, because there is no excuse, none, for this terrible, terrible state of affairs. We will count ourselves lucky if we can avoid getting into a real shooting war, because for the first time in my life, I believe our Navy will be unable to put up a real fight, even with our numerical advantages.

As I said at the beginning, if we cannot navigate from a pier to an anchorage without putting on a goddamned clown show like they did on a 10,000 ton Ticonderoga class cruiser and running it aground, what chance are we going to have in combat?