March 28, 2024

Sailors Fault Navy Culture for Failures

US  Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Joshua Fulton/edited by Stuart Rankin, some rights reserved.

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It’s the leadership, according to a lawmakers survey finding 94% of sailors connect “damaging operational failures” in the Navy to its culture, reports USNI. A study, titled “A Report on the Fighting Culture of the United States Navy Surface Fleet,” surveyed 77 current and recently retired surface sailors “about their insights into the culture of the United States” and how it related to incidents that included the 2017 fatal collisions in the Western Pacific that killed 17 sailors, the 2016 incident in which the crews of two Navy patrol boats were captured by Iranian forces in the Persian Gulf, and the pier-side fire that resulted in the total loss of the former amphibious warship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6).

Military personnel make particularly attractive targets for fake social media profiles, according to a threat analysis firm ZeroFox, especially when there’s a change in administration, reports Defense One. Last year, ZeroFox took down 40,000 social media accounts that impersonated others, up from 1,000 three years ago. During that same time span, the FBI saw complaints about impersonations of government officials and employees rise 40%, according to an FBI report.

Emails regarding the USS Bonhomme Richard fire raise questions about criminal charges, reports Navy Times. While the Navy has remained mum, emails mentioning preservation of evidence continues speculation over whether criminal charges will emerge from the devastating multi-day fire when the ship was docked in San Diego a year ago.

The Navy wants to inactivate 22 ships in fiscal 2022, reports Navy Times, scuttling four littoral combat ships: Detroit and Little Rock, which have faced issues with combining gear, commissioned in 2016 and 2017, respectively; and the Fort Worth and Coronado, which have served less than a decade.

Defense News reports the House Appropriations Committee has already rejected this plan, releasing Monday its  defense spending bill, which would block retirement of the Fort Worth, Detroit, and Little Rock. The committee would add $915 million for Navy shipbuilding including $23.5 billion for eight new ships.

NASA is grappling with Hubble Telescope’s most serious problem in years, reports UPI.com. Hubble stopped working suddenly June 13 while astronomers were using the 31-year-old telescope to examine pulsating stars 200 million miles away. NASA is trying to understand what went wrong on the orbiting telescope, without which hundreds of astronomy investigations had to be put on hold or canceled.

Wildfires threaten homes and land across 10 Western states, reports AP. Nearly 60 wildfires tore through bone-dry timber and brush from Alaska to Wyoming, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Arizona, Idaho, and Montana accounted for more than half of the large active fires. The fires erupted as the West was in the grip of the second bout of dangerously high temperatures in just a few weeks. A climate change-fueled megadrought also is contributing to conditions that make fires even more dangerous, scientists say.

The Army has launched a trio of imagery satellites, each about the size of a loaf of bread in its quest for the capability to find and target threats beyond-line-of-sight, reports C4ISRNET. Development of relatively affordable and highly capable small satellites that can operate in low Earth orbit has convinced military leaders that it can play a tactical role on the battlefield.

 

 

The Air Force has entered patent license agreements with the private sector for code it developed in-house to detect software vulnerabilities, reports C4ISRNET. Signing patent documents with the private sector is a first for the service. The software calculates the probability of whether a file is malicious.

A Marine received 3D-printed teeth from reconstructive jaw surgery — a military first, reports Marine Corp Times. When Lance Cpl. Jaden Murry underwent immediate reconstruction surgery to remove most of his lower jaw due to a tumor, surgeons at Naval Medical Center San Diego opted to use part of Murry’s fibula, to reconstruct the Marine’s mandible. For the denture prosthesis, DoD surgeons installed 3D-printed teeth.

The Pentagon has begun moving toward allowing the return of up to 90% of personnel to the office, reports FCW. “This change is not a return to pre-COVID-19 normal,” said DoD spokesman John Kirby. Telework flexibility and enforcing social distancing will remain.

The Taliban surge in north Afghanistan has sent thousands fleeing, reports AP. The north was a traditional stronghold of US-allied warlords, dominated by the country’s ethnic minorities. Thousands of families  are fleeing their homes, fearful of living under the insurgents’ rule. In the last 15 days, Taliban advances have driven more than 5,600 families from their homes, most of them in the northern reaches of the country, according to the government’s Refugee and Repatriations Ministry.

The top US commander exits Afghanistan amid the Taliban surge, reports Military Times. Army GEN Scott Miller handed over his command to Marine GEN Frank McKenzie, at a ceremony Monday in Kabul.

The Navy is investigating a shipyard “hot work” fire aboard USS Gettysburg, in Norfolk, reports USNI. The fire  originated with sparks from “hot work” and was extinguished without impact to the ship.

Military Times reports millions of veterans could be eligible for an additional year of education benefits starting next semester thanks to another federal court ruling rejecting the Department of Veterans Affairs prohibition on collecting both Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits and Montgomery GI Bill payouts.

The Navy denies that Chinese forces chased away the USS destroyer Benfold during its freedom-of-navigation maneuvers in international waters, reports USNI News. The People’s Republic of China claimed it drove the Benfold away, according to Reuters. The US 7th Fleet said China’s statement was false.

White House does not rule out Haiti request for US troops, reports Reuters, still reviewing a request for troops made by Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Claude Joseph to help secure its airport and other infrastructure after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

Contracts:

International Business Machines Corp., Bethesda, Maryland, was awarded an $8,922,266 modification (P00001) to contract W15QKN-21-C-0033 for information technology services and support. Work will be performed in Radford, Virginia, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 13, 2021. Fiscal 2021 operation and maintenance, Army funds in the amount of $8,853,859 were obligated at the time of the award. US Army Contracting Command, Newark, New Jersey, is the contracting activity.

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