New Scandal Reveals Pattern Of U.S. Navy Disregard For Junior Sailors
Craig HooperSenior Contributor
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May 4, 2022,03:53pm EDT
In the space of three months, the U.S. Navy has been hit with two major scandals that have put a spotlight on its poor treatment of junior sailors. Compared with other recent Navy scandals like the long-simmering Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility water contamination crisis, the Navy has serious challenge in identifying and resolving “widely-known but unrecognzied challenges.” For junior sailors, naval leadership is far too often out of touch, either disinterested, unaware, or ineffective, only able to muster a viable response after sailors either die or go public with their frustrations.
A Navy that corrects chronic failures only when compelled by public notice is unacceptable.
The pattern is undeniable.
Earlier this year, after a fed-up sailor vented on the Reddit.com social media site, relating grim living conditions at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center barracks in Washington, D.C., both Congress and naval leadership were stunned. Junior sailors had gone “for years without hot water,” assigned rooms “without working fridges, thermostats or even locking doors,” and were “left to broil in barracks with broken air conditioning during humid Mid-Atlantic summers.” The Navy, stung by the public notice, lurched into action, fixing things.
But just as the Walter Reed scandal faded from the public eye, scrutiny turned to the USS George Washington, a super-carrier moored in Newport News, Virginia. The carrier is in the midst of a long refit—a refit that has run far longer than expected. After suffering a series of suicides, deaths accelerated, with three other USS George Washington sailors dying by suicide over the past month. In total, ten crew member deaths have been attributed—by one government entity or another—to suicide over the last two years of the carrier’s long refit.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/craighooper/2022/05/04/new-scandal-reveals-pattern-of-us-navy-disregard-for-junior-sailors/?sh=7c9463e82c70
