Scathing report indicts LCS’s entire Chief’s Mess in WiFi scandal
Grisel Marrero, former Command Senior Chief of LCS USS Manchester (LCS-14)
A while back, in one of my Stupid people of the week features, I mentioned the above pictured sailor. In June she was convicted at court martial and reduced in grade to E-7 for installing and utilizing an unauthorized WiFi set up while her ship (USS Manchester [LCS-14]) was under way. Her bio indicates she has a background in the intelligence field. My dad always did say, “Military intelligence is an oxymoron.” This would seem to be the case in point.
At the time, I remember thinking that the CMDCS might have had good intentions. I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she made this insanely large lapse in operational security judgement for the betterment of her crew. Not that an LCS is known for being out to sea for months at a time like a ballistic missile sub, but giving her sailors ready Internet access while underway would be a good morale boost.
I should definitely not have assumed the CMDCS here had her crew’s interests in mind. A scathing report on the incident has been released, and apparently the Senior Chief’s security breach was only for those in the Chief’s Mess. The ol’ goat locker takes care of their own. The whole lot of them not only were aware of it, but went along with the plan to literally ratchet strap a Starlink dish to the weatherdeck of their ostensibly stealthy warship.
From Navy Times;
Today’s Navy sailors are likely familiar with the jarring loss of internet connectivity that can come with a ship’s deployment.
For a variety of reasons, including operational security, a crew’s internet access is regularly restricted while underway, to preserve bandwidth for the mission and to keep their ship safe from nefarious online attacks.
But the senior enlisted leaders among the littoral combat ship Manchester’s gold crew knew no such privation last year, when they installed and secretly used their very own Wi-Fi network during a deployment, according to a scathing internal investigation obtained by Navy Times.
As the ship prepared for a West Pacific deployment in April 2023, the enlisted leader onboard conspired with the ship’s chiefs to install the secret, unauthorized network aboard the ship, for use exclusively by them.
So while rank-and-file sailors lived without the level of internet connectivity they enjoyed ashore, the chiefs installed a Starlink satellite internet dish on the top of the ship and used a Wi-Fi network they dubbed “STINKY” to check sports scores, text home and stream movies.
The enjoyment of those wireless creature comforts by enlisted leaders aboard the ship carried serious repercussions for the security of the ship and its crew.
“The danger such systems pose to the crew, the ship and the Navy cannot be understated,” the investigation notes.
Led by the senior enlisted leader of the ship’s gold crew, then-Command Senior Chief Grisel Marrero, the effort roped in the entire chiefs mess by the time it was uncovered a few months later.
Marrero was relieved in late 2023 after repeatedly misleading and lying to her ship’s command about the Wi-Fi network, and she was convicted at court-martial this spring in connection to the scheme.
She was sentenced to a reduction in rank to E-7 after the trial and did not respond to requests for comment for this report.
The Navy has yet to release the entirety of the Manchester investigation file to Navy Times, including supplemental enclosures. Such records generally include statements or interview transcripts with the accused.
But records released so far show the probe, which wrapped in November, found that the entire chiefs mess knew about the secret system, and those who didn’t buy into it were nonetheless culpable for not reporting the misconduct.
Those chiefs and senior chiefs who used, paid for, helped hide or knew about the system were given administrative nonjudicial punishment at commodore’s mast, according to the investigation.
All told, more than 15 Manchester chiefs were in cahoots with Marrero to purchase, install and use the Starlink system aboard the ship.
“This agreement was a criminal conspiracy, supported by the overt act of bringing the purchased Starlink onboard USS MANCHESTER,” the investigation said. “Any new member of the CPO Mess which then paid into the services joined that conspiracy following the system’s operational status.”
Records obtained by Navy Times via a Freedom of Information Act request reveal a months-long effort by Marrero to obtain, install and then conceal the chiefs Wi-Fi network from superiors, including the covert installation of a Starlink satellite dish on the outside of the Manchester.
When superiors became suspicious about the existence of the network and confronted her about it, Marrero failed to come clean on multiple occasions and provided falsified documents to further mislead Manchester’s commanding officer, the investigation states.
Unauthorized Wi-Fi systems like the one Marrero set up are a massive no-no for a deployed Navy ship, and Marrero’s crime occurred as the ship was deploying to the West Pacific, where such security concerns become even more paramount among heightened tensions with the Chinese.
“The installation and usage of Starlink, without the approval of higher headquarters, poses a serious risk to mission, operational security, and information security,” the investigation states.
Believe it or not, there’s even more at the source. What a shit show. Hug your DD-214 tonight ladies and gentlemen. Try not to think about how these are the people that are fighting in the forces which guard our country and our way of life and who are supposed to be prepared to give their lives in our defense.
Category: "Teh Stoopid", "The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves", Dick Stepping, Navy, WTF?
There’s no such thing as national security when the current generation refuses to let go, even for a minute, of there electronic tether.
Great, succinct point, Harry.
Thank you…however spell check on my electronic tether made me look mildly illiterate…it’s “their” not “there”.
Boosting morale is OK but there are limits. OPSEC is one of those limits.
If no one tried to speak up and put a stop to this, then there’s no telling how many other issues that Mess probably has, that is yet to be discovered.
It wasn’t even for the morale of the entire crew. Chiefs Mess only, kids!
So much for leading by example.
During my time in training as a Chief Selectee, I was told to remember the troops. Obviously these assclowns forgot about that part.
Bust them all.
An “example” is saying cool sh*t today– all hooah, do-aah is for suckers! /sarc
“My troops don’t need to trust me, only my senior rater needs to trust me,” one POS I knew said.
That’s the mentality of many. It’s not about taking care of the troops; it’s about taking care of me. That Private who’s drowning in debt with an unfaithful wife he met at the local strip club be damned… I need to look good in the eyes of my leadership, and what better way than to simply recommend a chapter and treat PVT Nochance like a piece of crap while his world crumbles around him. If he becomes a statistic, oh well, I can add it to the next safety brief and plan a nice memorial service.
I got mine… the battalion CSM knows I’m the hottest commodity since Audie Murphy, and I’m heading to the top. E-7 in seven, I’m gonna be a 1SG before my buddy pins SFC, and my senior rater needs to know that there’s only one man for this job. Retire at 32 years as a 00Z, with glowing reviews from the General. The dozens–if not scores–of careers I trampled on to get here matter not, for CSM(R) POS already has that nice lucrative advisory job lined up!
Of course, the above is all my own brand of sarcasm, but I’ve known plenty with that mentality. Screw the Soldier, I’ll impress my peers and seniors and reap the benefits… I took another path, looked out for my Soldiers while often pissing off my leadership, and retired on my terms.
Navy’s actually testing this– what’s OPSEC between friends, Chicoms/Russia would never exploit this. /Sarc
https://www.wired.com/story/us-navy-starlink-sea2/
Illegal as hell, got busted, didn’t own it, lucky they just lost some strips or whatever you Navy people call them.
“Stripes”
“That’s the facts Jack!” Now…ifeen they had of had ARRRMEE Training and been members of the E-4 Mafia(if such a thing actually existed), ever body but the Os woulda had themselves some high speed low drag inherwebz.
What The Actual F*CK!
Terminal Lance’s would still be on it. However, any one of them caught using it for anything other than porn would have their access taken away.
Hack was at 7th Comm Battalion, and we had a young lad who prior to being assigned to Okinawa, decided that he didn’t want to go to Okinawa, so he took a few months off. The Marine had a problem with that, so they busted him a paygrade and sent him to Okinawa. He gets to the Battalion and is assigned to the Data Comm Platoon. Gets busted for accessing porn on a government computer. Two strikes against, but he learns his lesson. We are off island on an exercise, and the SNCOIC of the Data Platoon is busting the balls of the troops, pulling their liberty and putting them on working parties for bullshit activities. So one day, while monitoring network as part of his duty, he brings to Hack’s attention that someone in the Battalion is receiving training material for a correspondence course in gynecology. Hack looks at the photo and immediately recognizes the furniture as standard issue for those residing in Base Housing on Okinawa. Want to guess who was receiving those photos? If you said the SNCOIC of the Data Platoon, you would be correct. So Hack went to the Master Sergeant of the Detachment, gave him the scoop, and asked what was he going to do about it. He said that he would talk to said SNCOIC. Hack Stone said the PFC did 30 days in the brig, and it just doesn’t seem right that this SNCO will skate. Skate he did. No negative impact on his career.
The ringleader lost one stripe. Some other chiefs got their wrists slapped.
C’mon man…
Ship’s security be damned cuz she’s got to keep up with her stories.
“Not even EMCON will keep me from my Facebook page.”
I haven’t had a chance to read the full article, but where were the commissioned officers during all this?
In their own separate mess, where the Navy likes to keep them
Pretty much. Sounds like the CO and XO heard rumors, but trusted the command chief when she denied it. After repeated rumors, they searched the ship, but apparently didn’t look outside.
XO was relieved for unrelated reasons prior to this incident’s discovery. So I don’t think the skipper will be getting eagles or stars. Talk about a loose ship.
Given the convict’s demographic, and the surplus of “chubby chasers” one finds in the military, I can’t help but think that “nalgas” were also involved.
Being on the Marine side, and having only spent maybe a WEEK in my 20 years on ship: did NO ONE see this thing strapped to the deck and start asking questions?
Apparently someone did!
As is tradition though, it was the junior sailors who noticed it. They were only upset that it was just the chiefs with access to it. 😀
Anyone with cellphone/laptop that can search for WiFi… and complain about locked the STINKY signal to which they can’t connect.
Rules for thee, but not me.
Sounds like all involved got off extremely light. Based on the risk they put the ship and crew at, seems like they should be making big rocks into little ones, not losing a stripe or two..
E8 to E7 is a pretty big titty slap, I doubt she will ever see it again. I do wonder if it is enough as she put her ship at risk for selfish reasons. In addition she provides a piss poor example of leadership and drug the whole unit down.
I wonder if she will need to replace her gold stripes with red back on her uniform.
Apparently not anymore. Once you hit 12 they go gold, regardless.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/03/26/new-rules-for-gold-crows/
Warm-body award.
Good question, but how about taking off the chief uniform entirely? And the same rest of the Chief’s Mess who are lacking in testicular fortitude. I don’t a rats ass who you are, you know something is wrong and fail to report it? What a recipe for a disaster. You start with a Little Crappy Ship, Staff it with DEI selectees and pretend they’re as qualified as the LCS. So glad to be retired, now hopefully I can get my BP down.
Yea no longer the case it no linger means anything. But I loved if you saw a Chief or higher in red you knew they either kick ass or kicked an ass and got busted but kept the faith to stay. Later were very fun to work for.
My uncle retired as SCPO/E8 at 20 with red rank. Concur.
This would never happen in a Signal unit.
AMEN! We know how to hide things better in among all the other commo gear. Or use existing gear outside its bandwidth.
Ah, those were the days. Multichannel radio systems that allowed you to monitor phone traffic (aka “testing call quality”), Class A Autovon / DSN lines in every satellite shelter, tapping into commercial phone pedestals with a butt set, unregulated internet with no filter. It’s all gone, gentlemen. My personal favorite was the superbowl in 1990, in the field in Korea. An awesome satellite controller at Camp Roberts plugged in the live radio feed into the engineering channel. We ran it into the LS-147 bitch box and hot looped it through the entire site.
Signal. We do shit that you don’t know about and wouldn’t understand.
And we do it all around the world.
“We don’t communicate, and you can’t make us”
“TACSAT. Shooting comms all over the place.”
During one very dull OSUT “radio watch”, rigged a better antenna rig from scrap commo wire for my PRC-77 and pulled in a local TV broadcast of football, to the glee of a Drill Sergeant. For some reason….
(Grin)
https://paratusradio.com/2020/07/building-the-jungle-antenna/
Neat.
Mine was a long wire strung horizontally, aimed by experiment then hidden in suitable trees. Added a ground and I had decent TV audio between scheduled checks and random “what else can I find with this other wire thatway…”
Definitely Amateur Hour, but we never missed a check, we got kudos for being up and on the ball, and I think my Drill Sergeant won some significant moolah off other platoon DSs from my timely intel. (Grin)
With a good FM receiver and antenna, you can usually snag TV Channel 6 (VHF) audio near the bottom of the band. 87.75 MHz I think.
We turn people off.
To all DATs, CDATs, and Tread Heads, “Without us, all you have is a 60 ton rolling paperweight.”
Way back before internet. When I use to call home to the states on MARS. I would lie to the operator and say my call was Priority One. As long as I didn’t say any thing like “Dad or Mom” it worked, had to keep it short though. The operator would just disconnect you if he figured out what was up (Over). I guarded the 6th airport terminal on occasion. Things have changed so much since then. Now your location is tracked just carrying a phone or driving a car. You’re on camera from some angle. I can see why OPSEC is so critical to military operations now. These clowns should have gotten a little jail time for good measure. And they definitely need more training on OPSEC.
They needed that WiFi link in order to complete their mandatory Diversity Equity and Inclusion training.
No Internet…the horror.
I retired in 2003 at the end of a 3 year shore tour so my last time at sea was sometime circa the turn of the century.
On my last couple of cruises, we actually had networked computers on the ship, and we theoretically had email access, but it was: write an e-mail and send it to the queue…wait for the ship to connect (usually a couple or three times a week) and transmit all the emails in the queue…wait a few more days for the next connect to get a reply, so basically 5 or 6 days round trip.
That was revolutionary at the time as prior to that we were relegated to snail mail service which involved a round trip of a couple of weeks at best.
I used to have my wife put numbers on the outside of the envelope when she mailed me letters so if I got them out of order, I’d know there was something I’d missed and wouldn’t freak out when I got one that said something like “as we feared, the car got repossessed and the electricity was shut off last week” before getting the one saying “My friend Carla lost her job and has been having financial troubles lately…”
On one particular 10 week counter drug operations cruise on a frigate in the Caribbean, we bounced around and changed schedules so much, our mail never caught up to us. We ended up getting all the letters our loved ones had sent us in one big batch after we’d pulled back in at home.
That was one of the advantages of being on a long cruise in a carrier or amphibious battle group: Mail was always pretty regular and consistent unless we were actively engaged in an operation. On the short cruises logistics wasn’t so diligent about it so it was pretty hit or miss.
Does it strike anyone else that the Senior Chief in question is a Hispanic Woman? Does it make me a bad person to assume that she was a “DEI Hire”?
The question of capability and expected performance over social experiments- exactly the poison DEI inflicts.
She’s fat, too.
Probably a perpetual member of the “fat girl/fat boy” weight loss program.
Providing shade for a select few. Kinda like their internet service.
I remember the early days of networked shipboard computers. On the 3-4 month interdiction hops, email was a real morale booster, because as you pointed out, snail mail was slow to catch up to the FFG’s.
Try finding the various medics for mail in a brigade sized NTC FTX.
Which I did. (Grin)
Try being on a deployed submarine. Boomers and fast boats (in theory) got 5-50 “Familygrams” per patrol/deployment.
–About 10 people saw them before you.
–Only if space/broadcast allowed.
Same with “real news”. We’d get a 1-page headlines/summary/sports scores every blue moon. We didn’t even know Saddam had rolled into Kuwait until almost a week after the fact. The CO/XO might have known before, but that’s about it.
Yea, my cousin was a bubblehead and a good friend of mine from church retired as COB of a fast attack.
Not my cup of tea.
She just did what was necessary in order to give her CPO’s a competitive edge when pursuing the highly coveted and rarely awarded First Post on This Ain’t Hell Weekend Open Thread crown.
Almost checked to see how late I was for that until I realized it’s only Wednesday.
All of this could have been avoided if the Chiefs just stuck with getting their porn via semaphores.
We got ours via HF RTTY with a R390 back in 68.
Took a while but hey, paper was cheap back then.
I understand it can be done via AN/UXC-7 as well. Or so I’ve heard.
Lose a stripe? F**k that noise.
All 15 of them should be keelhauled.
I’m sure the Navy has something similar:
“I know my Soldiers and I will always place their needs above my own”.
Bust them as low as possible and send them packing.
“Today’s Navy sailors are likely familiar with the jarring loss of internet connectivity that can come with a ship’s deployment.”
In that case, here’s a number to call, 1-800-WAA-AAAH.
When I deployed on skimmers, unless you went through the rigamarole of setting up a MARS phone call, you had no contact with home.
The bubbleheads had it better. They would get a “Famgram”. A 3″x1″ piece of yellow paper with a couple of sentences from home…if you’re lucky.
One time I got a Famgram and it was from a co-worker and not my wife. Huh? Turns out that they called said wife and she refused to send one cause she was so pissed that I deployed so close to PCS.
Anyway, back to the original reason for this rant. Suck it up, buttercup. If you don’t like it, don’t reenlist.
MARSgrams. We had a few Comm guys fapped to the MARS shack on Schwab. Never met anyone whoever sent or received one.
When a bunch of crew conspire to disobey and defy the Captain’s orders, does that not rise to Mutiny?
Not without a bottle of Rum….
Yo ho ho.
Or the lash…
Another example of reality versus imagination….so many people imagine they would be the one to speak out against a wrong by the group, but the reality almost no one ever does most simply quietly go along hoping to avoid consequences…
I saw it in the military, I see it still today in the private sector, and I’ve seen it in the police forces in my communities….
The “good” guys never point out the “bad” guys….there’s a legal term for covering for shit bags doing illegal shit…I’m pretty sure it’s “co-conspirator”…but the justification exists in the military, amongst law enforcement, and the civilian sector.
We as a society though, we love our illusions…”it’s only a few bad apples” don’t blame everyone…well unfortunately when the good apples sit alongside the bad ones it’s not always easy to tell them apart and when then good ones conspire to cover up the bad ones by remaining silent the word “good” is not one that comes to mind for me regardless of what the propaganda would like us to believe.
The price for pointing the finger tends to be high, that is why people tend to avoid it.
Goodies for me, but not for thee….
News on another Navy f up.
Did anyone get a good look at this guy?
Before, exposed online with a backwards scope?
Or recently, relieved of command of the USS John McCain?
Gotta be more to it than a bad PR photo.
That and the fact this happened 5 months ago.
But if that’s all it takes to get shitcanned these days, glad I have my 214 blanket to keep me warm and cozy at night.
NHSparky,
Obviously.
However, a long history of Navy leaders and commanders getting publicly
shitcanned with the tired old “loss of confidence” boilerplate, and more often than not, no real details about the real reasons.The surprise here, is that he was pulled off the boat
while it’s in the Gulf of Oman, off the coast of Iran.
Somethin’s up with that.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-navy-john-mccain-warship-instagram-dismissal-oman-1948205
We need a new category titled “Lost Trust & Confidence”. It could be a place for military leaders to request if anyone has found the trust and confidence that they lost. They probably put it on the rod of the car in the morning as they were getting ready for work, completely forgot about, and it landed in the road leading to the main gate.
I second this idea!
It works across all services and would provide some insight as to who is waving Hagoonee.
Is there a third?
We are so screwed if we ever go up against someone who wants to harm us.
But we’ll have high-speed Internet and Netfilx! /sarc
On the plus side… we now know that Starlink will operate from a moving platform.
Two things stand out to me:
One, the comparative slap on the wrist for Marrero. Demotion for idiocy, sure, if said idiocy is immediately fessed up to. But continued lying about it? That should have ended in a BCD. We are not serious military force if we tolerate lying.
Two. I’m an Army NCO. The only Navy ships I’ve ever been on are landmarks. All I can tell you about the Navy is they like rum, sodomy, and the lash.
But even my ground-pounding ass could hazard a wild ass guess that there’s probably somebody with some machine onboard each and every Navy thing that’s out to sea that scans around for various electronic emissions…..like fucking Wifi.
If the fucking senior enlisted Sailors on the ship didn’t think detection of as juicy and obvious a target as unauthorized wifi was a possibility, what does that say about the rest of the systems and processes knowledge aboard that ship? How dumb are they about, idk, putting fires out? Or keeping water from coming in. That sort of thing.
Makes you wonder what agent of the CCP whispered “Starlink” in the ear of that stupid cow.
Yes. I mean it.
That’s probably why the relatively light punishment. She gave up someone juicy.
During my time before computers, social media, and satelites floating around in space, we had the ships radio playing news and music while in port and at sea, we had movie night, an onboard library and card playing in the berthing compartments after completing ships work. With the BLT onboard we had smokers in the hangerbay and Force Recon giving us Squids self defence lessons on the hangerbay if we wanted.
Maybe she will leave and join the Army?
A few recycles added and I see a diversity Ranger.
They will have to raise the bar in her case. Cause she’s to fat to crawl under it.
I retired 33 years ago in 1991 after 27 years’ service and I’m very surprised that a reduction in rank was by one grade was the extent of this. She installed a system clandestinely that was a major security risk and she knew it, she lied to the commanding officer multiple times as well as others, and she altered/falsified documentation to try and cover up misconduct. Special court-martial and just a reduction of one grade and no mention of fines? Things have changed since I was in.
Of course, the Navy is now testing this to provide sailors Internet access at sea– fat person here just did it unauthorized and lied.
https://www.wired.com/story/us-navy-starlink-sea2/
It goes without saying they are testing it to try and find a secure way of providing that service. Marrero spearheaded the purchase of an off-the-shelf system knowing it was a security risk to both her ship and the crew and who knows what else. Her arrogance in abusing her position on the ship was such that IMO, she shouldn’t even be a CPO, and I don’t think that is harsh at all.
One more reason I’m glad I went out as an honest First then a sadsack backstabbing unhinging their jaw like the snake they are to suck the biggest dick chief who couldn’t lead starving wolves to meat but oh they had perfect PRT scores
The E4 Mafia is real! They’ll sneak up on you!! They gravitate towards the leadership that fuel their existence.
What a clusterfuck. She got off very lucky.Heck, all those chiefs got off lucky.
And just how friggin’ ignorant are those officers who “searched” the interior of the ship for a frigging antenna? And nobody noticed an extra piece of unknown equipment cluttering up the deck? An extra electrical cable?
This LCS is indeed a “Little Crappy Ship” and it also has a little crappy crew.
I ain’t saying nothing but….
So that’s what eventually happens to the new thicc E3 Latina, in the shop?!?!
Preparation 🥹🫣🤣