Navy has spike in commanding-officer firings, most for personal misconduct

It's a tough world and it's not confined to the Navy- The Army has relieved a couple of Brigade Commanders this year for ethical issues or command climate isues.

The Navy has fired a dozen commanding officers this year, a near-record rate, with the bulk getting the ax for offenses related to sex, alcohol or other forms of personal misconduct.

The terminations, which follow a similar spike in firings last year, have shaken the upper ranks of the Navy, which has long invested enormous responsibility in its commanding officers and prides itself on a tradition of carefully cultivating captains and admirals.
Over the past 18 months, the Navy has sacked nine commanding officers for sexual harassment or inappropriate personal relationships. Three others were fired for alcohol-related offenses, and two on unspecified charges of personal misconduct. Combined, they account for roughly half of the 29 commanding officers relieved during that period...

Click to expand...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...nal-misconduct/2011/06/14/AGZJj7YH_story.html

tpg said:

They made poor choices....That happens and you usually pay the price when you do.

Click to expand...

Actually- you are being too generous in at least some cases- for at least one of the Army Brigade Commanders relieved- it wasn't merely a poor choice it was a downright slimy and appalling set of personal actions. What a slimeball- and in one of the premier units of the US Army.

This is the primary reason I spoke so strongly regarding ethics training.

Unfortunately, this is an issue none of the services are immune to: senior leaders removed or reprimanded for poor personal decisions.

I'm also wondering if this is a case where it is not so much that our leaders are more and more turning into deviants, but it is more of an issue that those above them are less and less tolerant of these types of issues amongst the so-called "rising stars". My feeling is that what may have been brushed aside in the past (looooong past) with a "desk drawer LOR" for the "golden boy/girl who made a personal mistake" in order to not jeapordize progression is now handled with instant removal and treated as career killers.

Still doesn't excuse the behavior. Just saying that the way they are handled now may lead to this so-called "spike".

Bullet said:

Unfortunately, this is an issue none of the services are immune to: senior leaders removed or reprimanded for poor personal decisions.

Click to expand...

Agreed. Most of these cases seem to revolve around 2 things - alcohol, and "inappropriate relationships." I can understand (not approve of in any way, though) that alcohol impairs the decision process, and can lead to poor choices while under the influence. Poor choices that are serious enough to wreck a career. And I can understand that love/lust/infatuation/desire/etc can lead to a person thinking not with their brain but with other parts of their body.

It's not like they are getting thrown out for running the ship aground, or other unwise command decisions made in the normal performance of their duties.

That's why I think the Blue Angles leader who resigned over the "altitude misjudgment" during a practice round was so popular of a story - a man who put integrity of his mission over his career, something rarely reported in the news.

But I still can't figure out why a full bird Marine colonel from Lejune would shoplift $65 worth of junk from Walmart, an embarrasing end to a 33 year career.

InterestedRetiree said:

This is the primary reason I spoke so strongly regarding ethics training.

Click to expand...

Do these classes actually help? I have taken classes and seminars on ethics. I knew right from wrong, appropriate and inappropriate before and after the class. Nothing changed.

Just curious?

Packer said:

Do these classes actually help? I have taken classes and seminars on ethics. I knew right from wrong, appropriate and inappropriate before and after the class. Nothing changed.

Just curious?

Click to expand...

Most do know right from wrong - as it might apply to other people. They don't care, or they believe it doesn't matter, or they believe what they are doing is so important (or they are so important) that rules don't apply to them anymore. Many are perfectly pleasant, nice, kind people, but they decide the (fill in name of service) has messed them over, so they decide to claim for expenses on a travel expenditure form they didn't incur, and they get caught. They know it's wrong, but "everyone does it," or, "the Navy never paid me for X, so I figured I was owed it." A military base closes, and many folks are out of a job. People who never took a pen home from the office are caught with reams of government-purchased paper and computers in the trunks of their cars, because they are mad and feel they have been treated unjustly. Somewhat trivial examples, but big ugly things happen in the same way. A general cheats on his NATOPS exam because he's too busy and too important in his own eyes to actually bone up on the material. A junior sailor "borrows" the Navy van over the weekend, because he/she does weird ethics calculations in their head about "it's not really wrong, because ..." I always enjoyed sitting in the back of the room at the annual New Flag Officers conference, with all the newly-selected admirals in attendance. The VCNO would give them a one-way transmission about looking around at their fellow selectees, and commenting that some percentage of them were going to be caught up in a sex scandal, inappropriate use of funds scandal or some other ethical/criminal breach, reminding them they had not suddenly become immensely smarter, more attractive or funny, just because they now wore the star of a flag officer. I have no doubt none of them thought that applied to them, yet within the year, one was caught sleeping with a subordinate enlisted person, another for living in government quarters and still receiving a housing allowance, and more in that vein.

Hubris is a big contributor.