I just happened to be talking to someone in the submarine community this weekend and he said it was well known in the community, even before the accident, that CDR Waddle was a self-important, risk-taking so-and-so.
So what? Procedures are supposed to keep the playing field safe and level, no matter what personalities are on the field. But, it sometimes happens that an occasional personality will come along and overwhelm the procedure, with the result that ship happens. E.J. Smith might not have been as abrasive as CDR Waddle, but he was as big a risk-taker. His violation of procedure, whether informally sanctioned by the Line or not, killed a lot more than 9 students. So, it's not just the U.S. Navy which is involved in scandal.
I saw a lot during my career in the Navy. Yes, there's a lot that goes on that the public doesn't know about. Most of it is none of the public's business. I-have-a-right-to-know fanatics are wrong about one thing...paying taxes does not automatically give you have the right to know everything. Argue it the whole day long, but that's not going to change. The military is not a democracy, and a successful democracy needs an un-democratic military to safeguard her liberties. In my experience, I have seen many more lives saved by our Navy than I have seen lost or hurt. So, the system, imperfect as it is, works.
Sure, the Navy has had its badly-handled scandals. Humans are in the loop, and they sometimes make decisions based on human emotions. More often than not, those human-based decisions save lives. It's a thin line to thread, and I dare anyone to show me where it's done better (keep in mind that as the stakes are raised, so do the risks...I would like for someone to show me an organisation that accomplishes as much as our Navy with less mistakes, with one exception which I will discuss below).
Why are we having this conversation on this particular board? The same argument applies to the decision-making that led to Titanic's demise, as I've already alluded to above. The same decision-making process applies today, in many areas that affect your safety. What you need to do is find out if the overall outcome is worth the occasional sacrifice.
I've given plenty here for people to get riled at. You can go ahead and retaliate, but nothing anyone can say will change the basic fact that our Navy is doing the job our Government chartered it to do, and is doing it well. In my opinion, there's only one other service who does their overall job better, and that is the USMC (which is within the Department of the Navy). Feel free to disagree with me -- it's one of the freedoms which I used to protect, and which I continue to support.
Parks