Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Lt.(Ret) Perry Rides Again

Well, Lt. Raymond Perry USN (Ret), who recently wrote a couple of ridiculous pieces on the San Francisco grounding that I fisked here and here, opened up his pie-hole again about the submarine force. While he doesn't specifically bring up his baseless charges that a senior officer was riding the San Fran, he shows that he's clearly being fitted for a tin-foil asshat with lines like this in his latest article (emphasis mine):

"...More recently, the Navy processed those deemed guilty of grounding the USS San Francisco via Article 15. In this case, the hearing for the former Commanding officer, Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, was held at a time that appears to have been chosen to minimize news coverage.

Mooney’s
Admiral’s Mast (an Article 15 hearing convened by a Navy flag officer) was held on a Saturday morning in Yokosuka, Japan. Given the time zone difference this hearing was effectively held late on a Friday evening in the United States. I believe this was chosen precisely so that the entire weekend would intervene in the modern 24-hour news cycle so that by Monday morning it would be old news.

Additionally - unlike the admiral’s mast following the Greeneville-Ehime Maru collision - this hearing was held well before the completion of the formal investigation, leading me to wonder if there was a reason that senior Navy leadership wanted this hearing to be well in the past when the investigation was completed and approved."


Normally, I might agree with someone who says that the Navy senior leadership handled the punishments associated with the San Francisco grounding badly, but in the case of Lt. Raymond Perry, USN (Ret.), I just can't do it. Good ol' Ray seems to be saying that CDR Mooney should have been taken to a court martial; this may have given Captain Mooney more of a chance to defend himself, but I don't think that's what Perry was wanting. Also, he never comes out and says it, but I can't help wondering if his belief that the Navy was trying to "cover up" the NJP (which explains the official press release they put out, I guess) was because of his continuing belief in the fictitious "senior rider". I'd write him again, but since he didn't answer last time, I probably won't waste the bandwidth.

Staying at PD...

Update 0059 06 Apr: Darn! I thought I might have invented the term "tin-foil asshat" in the post above, but it turns out it's been used before...

4 Comments:

Blogger Skippy-san said...

Perry may not be right, but he does highlight an important issue. Namely the tendency of flag officers to throw O-5's and O-6's to the wind, to keep any flags from being tainted with blame. I still think there should have been some retribution on the flag's in the Greenville case.

4/06/2005 8:15 AM

 
Blogger bothenook said...

yes he does highlight some issues, but that doesn't in any way mitigate the fact that this clown is out with knives drawn, looking for a target to slice and dice. too bad he doesn't have a clue. tin-foil asshat, indeed. with visor.

4/06/2005 11:12 AM

 
Blogger Bubblehead said...

Ninme, you hit the nail right on the head. Although submarine news is big within a fairly small demographic, they could have released the news at even the most favorable time, and it wouldn't have rated more than a page 6 story and a 15 second blurb on a 24 hour cable channel.

4/06/2005 1:16 PM

 
Blogger CDR Salamander said...

I always find the below link to be usefull to explain the hat thingy.
http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

4/08/2005 7:58 PM

 

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