Your 2024 relieved Naval Commander Thread

[Gunz]

I can guess.

 

[DA SWO]

Coast Guard enters the chat…

Coast Guard relieves commander and top enlisted leader of San Diego sector

I’d give almost anything to learn what “treated unfairly“ translates to…

Capt. James Spitler, left, and Master Chief Petty Officer Michael Dioquino were temporarily relieved of command on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, as the commander and senior enlisted leader of Coast Guard Sector San Diego after an investigation into reports that they had treated subordinates unfairly.

Enforcing standards is my guess.

 

[Steve1839]

Even election cycles cannot stop the party...

Air Force fires commander at Montana nuclear missile base after investigation

And the Navy fired two of its own...the commander of its Leadership and Ethics Command and the commander of its Information Warfare Command...looking for clean links to those...

 

[AWP]

Please let the Ethics Command be a lack of ethics…

 

[The Quartermaster]

I am forecasting just by the name alone as a placeholder for this thread, there will be a relieved commander of the upcoming Virginia class USS Massachusetts. Reason? Probably having it driven like a typical masshole would.

Any gentlemen bets?

 

[Devildoc]

Ok, I'm stumped where this should go. If this Marine is as innocent as the article suggests I hope he's exonerated and the JAGs get nailed.

Marine gunner court-martialed over Mattis task force confusion

 

[Marauder06]

Seems like pretty sketchy behavior on the gunner’s part.

 

[AWP]

Not being a Marine...how do you not have a FITREP in 3-4 years and don't bring that up at some point? Maybe he did, it is an article that will not know or present some facts, but that sounds odd.

Working as a contractor while on terminal leave is fairly common, but his situation sounds different.

I'm not getting the pitchforks ready or a cask of tar and a feather pillow, but I don't understand those aspects. As presented in the article, it doesn't make sense. That said, given the JAG shenanigans of late, I hope this man receives a fair trial. Sadly, those seem to be in short supply for high profile cases.

 

[Marauder06]

IIRC you can do a job for pay while you're on terminal leave (with permission) but you can't double dip a job when you're in regular duty status and transitioning to a civilian job. So you can't do the military's Skill Bridge internship program and get paid by both the civilian job and the military. It's not clear to me what the ground truth is in this case.

 

[ThunderHorse]

IIRC you can do a job for pay while you're on terminal leave (with permission) but you can't double dip a job when you're in regular duty status and transitioning to a civilian job. So you can't do the military's Skill Bridge internship program and get paid by both the civilian job and the military. It's not clear to me what the ground truth is in this case.

I know a lot of folks who own small businesses that they run on the weekends.

Bliss had two skillbridge programs, I don't know about the pay part I don't think they paid you they just trained you and gave you a job once you passed certifications. Windmill Repair Man and Cell Tower repair man. They both required you to have more than six months left in service and the great part about most commands is they suck and most of the guys doing SFL-TAP were like two months out.

 

[Marauder06]

I know a lot of folks who own small businesses that they run on the weekends.

Bliss had two skillbridge programs, I don't know about the pay part I don't think they paid you they just trained you and gave you a job once you passed certifications. Windmill Repair Man and Cell Tower repair man. They both required you to have more than six months left in service and the great part about most commands is they suck and most of the guys doing SFL-TAP were like two months out.

Me too, I was one of them. There is nothing wrong with having a side gig, but in the Army at least you had to have chain of command permission.

Also, you couldn't do the side gig as your main job and get paid for both, which appears to be what the gunner is accused of doing.

 

[Devildoc]

The whole thing is just weird, and the way the article reads is that JAG is throwing everything and will see what sticks.

The story kind of reminded me of some reservists who were demobilizing at Camp Lejeune on the early GWOT years, I want to say 2003 or 2004. One guy was just a ghost, he showed up but none of his paperwork showed up, nothing, and no one knew what to do with him. It was weird and he ended up staying like a month after he should have been demobilized.

 

[Gunz]

He’s rated 100% disabled for PTSD by the VA and he’s still serving on active duty? That sounds a bit wonky to me.

 

[DA SWO]

He’s rated 100% disabled for PTSD by the VA and he’s still serving on active duty? That sounds a bit wonky to me.

Not if your in the MEB process.

 

[The Quartermaster]

I've purchased things from small business company's in the past who either still in or was in at the time, some even had products with NSN's on them.

These were both active and mostly reserve guys.

But I figured they had permission while on active duty prior to.

 

[Gunz]

Not if your in the MEB process.

I gotcha. But this Marine has sure got a lot going on.

 

[DA SWO]

I gotcha. But this Marine has sure got a lot going on.

Agree, the truth is somewhere in-between.

 

[AWP]

Given the incoming administration, the Corps would do well to avoid allegations of undue command influence…

 

[ThunderHorse]

He’s rated 100% disabled for PTSD by the VA and he’s still serving on active duty? That sounds a bit wonky to me.

I had like 5 of those people in my first platoon at Knox. They reported to PT formation every morning and then boarded a bus to Lincoln Trail for treatment 4 days a week. There were a lot of these folks in 3/1 IBCT I think they had like 3-4 buses worth of people every day. Now, I didn't see that when I got to Bliss...so, dunno. But the previous deployment for that unit had been really bad.

 

[Totentanz]

Not being a Marine...how do you not have a FITREP in 3-4 years and don't bring that up at some point? Maybe he did, it is an article that will not know or present some facts, but that sounds odd.

Working as a contractor while on terminal leave is fairly common, but his situation sounds different.

I'm not getting the pitchforks ready or a cask of tar and a feather pillow, but I don't understand those aspects. As presented in the article, it doesn't make sense. That said, given the JAG shenanigans of late, I hope this man receives a fair trial. Sadly, those seem to be in short supply for high profile cases.

There's one part that jumps out to me.

A point of particular controversy came in November 2022, when LaRose accepted a position as a Marine Corps infantry officer at defense contractor ManTech, and showed up on base in his contractor role.

(emphasis mine)

When I left the Army I started working for a large DoD contractor (not ManTech) while on terminal leave. There were a few (not many) hoops I had to jump through for their legal department in order to do so. One of those not-many-things was that under NO circumstances was I to represent them to a DoD entity until my terminal leave expired. Every echelon of management I interacted with was aware of the situation and to the best of my memory all of them made mention of it during my first few weeks there. I'm not a lawyer, I didn't deep-dive into the legal aspects and I'm not going to delineate where the laws stop and their corporate policy begins -- I trusted their interpretation of the ethics laws. I worked at their offsite location while on terminal leave and I walked into the USAF office I was supporting the morning after my leave ended.

This part of the following paragraph:

and accepting compensation from the contractor “for making representations to the Marine Corps.”

makes me think that's likely what got him in trouble.