I don’t buy the gender angle. Too many incompetent Naval mishaps. Gender has no relevance except maybe in how the defense is handled and how these are buried.
My question was why they weren’t talking to each other through the watch?
They were operating in one of the busiest maritime traffic zones in the world.
Captain’s standing orders would have required the OOD to contact the Captain for any contact with a CPA of less than X yards.
None of that happened, and CIC did nothing in the way of communicating anything with respect to intercept, etc.
Can’t understand that. My Academy class graduated a bunch of female OODs, and they all had to pass the same classes and boards the men did. Literally no difference. They were every bit as capable as we were.
Mind you, we had to work out intercepts using manuevering boards (even though the radar system worked it out automagically) and we kept paper plots on paper charts.
If there was DRAMA between the officers, and they weren’t on speaking TERMS, then fire everybody.
I disagree that the sex of the officers in question has no relevance. I think it is extremely relevant.
And it doesn’t mean women can’t do some of these jobs like manning a watch station or being an OOD. (I am not going to bring up the physical, logistical, or unit cohesion issues since they don’t necessarily have a DIRECT bearing on THIS.)
When you look at it through the light of affirmative action, what it does mean is that in the pursuit of ‘diversity’ being an OOD ceases to be a military function on a naval vessel and becomes the focus of how many people in your command have qualified as an OOD.
Don’t you think for a second that this Navy does not monitor those things...how many of your female officers have qualified as an OOD? I will bet money there is pressure on the Captains to produce results that the Navy can tout.
I have to disagree with you. It isn’t because a given woman can’t do that job which is not strictly a physical but a mental job, it is because the focus is not on the QUALITY of the process the produces an OOD, but how many females meet the OOD qualifications in a deployment.
That is what killed Kara Hultgreen. I find it offensive, and it makes me angry.
<I don’t buy the gender angle. Too many incompetent Naval mishaps. Gender has no relevance except maybe in how the defense is handled and how these are buried.<
I do buy the gender (or more accurately sexual) relevance.
I have seen too many instances of “gender” corruption in the US Navy not to have some valid opinion based on personal experience.
Women do not belong in the military anymore than they do in the Boy Scouts. Women have ruined both, and a bucket of tears will not wash that fact out.
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Women don’t belong in the Navy period.
if there was lack of training, lack of achievement, lack of ability, that is on the Officers who placed them in that position....
it goes directly to the poor quality of officer recrutiment under the 16 yrs of the Toon and barry bathhouse...
just look at that pipsqueak communist that just got booted out...but it took 4 yrs of free education and a yr on duty to get the stupid leadership to do it....
there were two ships that collided recently and do we know who was in charge of the second collision?...
incompetence is absolutely at fault...
We had eight years where meeting goals on affirmative action for minorities and women was a big factor in promotion decisions, over things like competent ship handling. It will take YEARS to weed out the politically correct "perfumed princes" and restore competence and discipline.