Navy fires Navy Commander Eric Rasch
According to the LA Times, Commander Eric Rasch, the executive officer of the 10 folks who were captured by the Iranians in the Persian Gulf and held for several hours back in January;
In a statement Thursday, the Navy said it had lost confidence in Cmdr. Eric Rasch…A Navy official said Rasch failed to provide effective leadership, leading to a lack of oversight, complacency and failure to maintain standards in the unit…Although this is the first firing by the Navy regarding the incident, several other sailors received administrative reprimands. The investigation is expected to be finished by the end of the month, and others are likely to be disciplined.
The article says that Rasch was made commander of the unit in April, but, you know, the Navy lost confidence in him in the last few weeks, I guess.
From CNN;
According to the preliminary report, the sailors originally set out from Kuwait for Bahrain but quickly — and unknowingly — went off course and headed almost directly for Iran’s Farsi Island in the middle of the Persian Gulf.
The report found that several factors may have contributed to the failure:
• The sailors had never made the trip before.
• They had been up most of the night before conducting maintenance on one of the boats that had broken down.
• They had to “cannibalize” parts from a third boat in order to have two working vessels.
• They then experienced problems with their satellite communications gear.
All of this led them to leaving port later than planned.
Well, I’ve lost confidence in the Navy’s ability to investigate this incident. Fire the whole lot.
Category: Navy
If he’s the commander of the unit, then he has to be the CO and not the XO.
I really want to find out what happens to the LT OIC of the boats.
If the sailors involved are still assigned to the unit, the article is correct.
Rasch was XO at the time of the incident. However, he was appointed CO of that same unit last month – apparently while the incident was still under investigation. He was apparently relieved after the incident investigation was completed and reviewed by his higher HQ and/or higher echelons in DoN.
I suspect the OIC of the boat either was one of those who have already received reprimands or is waiting for the axe to fall. I believe additional disciplinary action is expected.
Yup. Its normal in the Navy that the XO moves to the CO position, then a new XO comes in. Doesnt happen in every command, but it is a typical transition.
Shame they didn’t have good old fashioned map and compass skills. Budget cuts?
Not sure that would have helped. Boats tend to drift with the currents when they lose power, and local currents can be a bit unpredictable. Land doesn’t continue to move (well, not much – the earth does rotate) when you stop walking or driving.
Or Mark I eyeballs. “Keep land in sight on your starboard side!”
Have they never heard of the 30 Fathom line? GPS has done more to erode navigational skills than anything I can think of. Small boat navigation is never easy, and even harder if you don’t know how to do it. Did all of their NAV gear fail on both boats? Or did they follow a piss poor navigator because he was an officer?
They do have those skills for land. They were fucked when they left as one boat was yellow and the mission should have never SP’d.
Someone screwed up and I am glad they are holding an officer accountable. It is usually the EM that gets screwed. This incident should never have happened for a multitude of reasons.
They should have fired the Commander. In Chief…
Word.
This.
YES….
All of the reasons given don’t explain to me how the sailors could have been inside Iran’s territorial waters. Don’t they have access to Google Earth or Mapquest?
Navionics is a great little iPhone or Android app that lets you plot courses, track current and if you give it a start and endpoint will actually plot the course for you….
Up here in Long Island Sound it’s good enough to use instead of your regular Garmin chart plotter…but apparently not good enough for the Navy….every guy with a phone in the Navy could have this app on their phone because it’s free, you only pay for the chart regions you need and they don’t cost more than $40 or $50 bucks for worldwide charting….
“In a quarter mile, turn left at the buoy.”
“In 500 feet, turn left at the buoy.”
“Turn left at the buoy!”
“recalculating….”
Turn port at the buoy.
It’s down by the old Simpson Barn, you know the one that burned down about 5 years ago !!! Just hang a left there and you’ll be fine !!!
Turn to starboard at the first dolphin. Then to port at the second school of carp. Nailed it.
This was a goatfuck from the getgo.
But, but, VOV, the equipment needs to be MILSPEC!
Many moons ago, I deployed TAD to many ships. Most of them had millions of dollars of gear for doing our job. And a lot of it frankly sucked or you needed a PhD in electrical engineering to run it.
Some DivOff got the truly bright idea to go to Radio Shack and buy a radio receiver for $300. Worked like a charm. Easier to use and higher quality output…but not MILSPEC. Guess which gear we used.
Also heard that, though can’t confirm, that specwar guys stopped using the MILSPEC GPS units and just started buying Garmin (or some such) units. More durable and reliable.
Ouch…your story is more depressing than you know. I was half tongue in cheek, but yes that app or a dozen others just like it work as well or better than a standard chart plotter…and Garmin has an app that uploads your data directly to a Garmin Chartplotter…so you can sit home plot your route from say Westbrook CT to Martha’s Vineyard, hop on your boat and upload the data to your chart plotter and away you go…the average boater today has no excuse for hitting anything from sand bars to rocks because your little chart plotter/GPS or your phone has so much data and real time information there’s no excuse other than failure to pay attention to run into an issue.
Helping them dock, well that’s a whole other issue, but the basic point A to point B is so easy now it’s unfreaking believable…
That specwar would resort to Garmin doesn’t speak very well to our current acquisition systems….
Doing PSD OIF II I used that brick known as a PLGR and a 1:50000 grid map to plot our location – BN CDR used a Garmin with Northern Iraq maps loaded. Best part was carrying around a box of huge batteries for when it died.
We did same thing as we advanced up during the invasion we had PLGRS’S but some of us had our own GPS and the lead Navigator had both but never used the PLGR to put us on point except when we called Check points. They told us before we went in that they turned off the SAT and we would not be able to use the Civilian GP’s and that was COC Bull shit. The one time we used it we ended up in a dead end village and could have went bad real quick, but the LT let us use the GPS for direction correction looking for a bridge site and link up with Marines.
Numba one son went to Iraq, he was the company commander’s driver in a hummer – it had a plugger. Before second deployment, he bought a Garmin etrex. Many of the foot patrol units also bought their own squad radios – Icoms were popular.
Does that app require cell service? I expect the cell service in the middle of the Gulf may be a bit spotty.
Maybe the Commodore of whatever squadron they belong to needs to be relieved for not providing the correct budget that would keep a forward deployed unit fully mission capable. You know, so they don’t have to rob Peter to pay Paul in order to get their boats running.
Oh, yeah, the Navy is being eviscerated, but why stop at the Commodore? We need to go straight to the top. Dear Leader has a lot to answer for.
I’m sure Dearest Leader will show his concern by stopping in Tehran in August to apologize to the Ayatollahs after completing his apology to the Japanese for Hiroshima…
Now WHY do that? After all he and his minions ARE doing all they can to hand as much as they can as fast as they can to every welfare flunkie, illegal alien and jizzlamic “refugee” while telling us to jump through hoops and wait for what we earned.
Cannibalizing equipment is normal ops for anything mechanical-ground vehicles, aircraft, small boats, etc., throughout the military. The Commodore has little to say about it, as the budget comes from above, and s/he’s got very little say in what funds go where.
As much as i agree with that statement, believe me I had my share of cannibalization MAF’s in my squadron.
If your unit is so broke-dick that it cannot get two boats running properly without cannibalizing a third…then there are more issues at stake.
When I performed such acts, it was because a part wouldn’t be there for a particular aircraft in time to make sortie. We didn’t have to intentionally down one aircraft in order to get another one up and FMC.
In this case, not only did they rob parts from a boat to get one ready for a mission, they had to provide parts for TWO boats…and even then the damn things wouldn’t run proper.
So yeah…this IS a leadership and budgetary issue.
I think y’all missed the boat here (pun intended). Given the maintenance and delay circumstances, what was the prevailing need to make the trip without full crew rest and operating equipment? Boat crews should be no different than air crews. Heck, even in the CG Auxiliary we had duty time limitations. Does anyone know what the mission was?
That’s a good point, what the hell were they doing in a sensitive area with suspect equipment in what sounds like a small boat? This thing has stunk to me from day one, coincidentally on the day of SOU address routing his “deal” with number one state sponsor of terrorism.
Exactly, I worked in this community (NECC) and know some people that are still in and senior type leaders. This is all I will say, These units are trained in HVT/Prison Escort and can insert SOF units into the shoreline. There is more to the story and why do you think punishment stopped at operational unit level not the GRP level i.e.Coastal REVRON GRP 1…. A group is like a Regiment Command..
I can only hope that he LT who was actually in charge of the movement and made the decision to leave knowing the risks got, at least, a Flag letter of reprimand for it. He’s the first one who I would have lost confidence in.
He and the chief got punished and will never advance.
Crazy.. Nothing like a lost lieutenant ?
No kidding. I had a 2d LT who got lost on an FTX because he wouldn’t listen to me and insisted on finding his way by reading a map.(He couldn’t even orient a map).
A 1 hour trip turned into a 9 hour adventure. Fortunately, we were headed away from the IGB, so I just let him make an ass of himself.
“Fortunately, we were headed away from the IGB, so I just let him make an ass of himself.”
ALWAYS the best training opportunities. I sincerely hope the LT painfully learned his lesson and started flying straight.
Hopefully the Damn…. LT learned in important lesson always listen to your NCOs and let’s not forget the high speed E-4 Mafia’s out there… Because when they don’t shit always goes to hell
This LT showed up that morning wearing Corcoran jump boots. Spit-shined Corcoran jump boots!! And asked the platoon sergeant who his assigned orderly was. He was quickly disabused of that idea. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get out of being his driver.
All true. Few things more dangerous than a 2LT with a map. I knew that about myself when I was a 2LT, and I was able to compensate for it when I was a 1LT and company commander.
However, once I survived my 2LT years, every serious ass chewing I every got started either with a Specialist saying ‘we’ve always done it this way’ or an NCO saying ‘Don’t worry, sir, I got this’…
In this case it is the equivalent to a Captain (USA/USMC)…unless he was a Lieutenant Junior Grade (1st Lieutenant)
Navy always get me with the rank and then the Air Force Lol…
It was always a blast to go to Kuwait and watch every one salute them. The Marines and the other Navy guys would LOL… Like there was no tomorrow
Oops forgot to type in funny
My bad
Or one who wants to get YOU lost. Had a platoon leader order me to set up a night ambush with my squad on a trail that ran along a rice paddy dike that we could see in the distance from our mountaintop position.
The LT had the site circled on his map. I eyeballed the site, oriented the map, shot a couple of azimuths with my compass and told the LT that his circled location was off by almost 500 meters. He told me to just follow his orders and I refused knowing mortar support wouldn’t even be close if we needed it. He and the platoon sergeant reoriented their maps, reshot azimuths and grudgingly admitted their young buck sergeant was right.
The night turned out to be uneventful but it could have been a real cluster fuck, just like the one we’re talking about here, if a VC platoon or larger unit had walked into our ambush and we needed those mortars.
All because of sloppy map reading by a junior officer.
Hey Poetrooper… one of these days… if I can remember I’m going to send some copies of Docs and newspapers to Jonn.. Iand have him forward to you. from one of my uncles that was over their. absolutely amazing, crazy stuff he went through all over a LT 🙁 almost didn’t make it home, he ended up staying in until he retired in the 90s I have the honor of holding his docs and one of my other uncles.. and something from WW1 from my great great grandfather on my moms side I’ve been trying to get Fort H down here to take it and put it on display. and keep it
but they don’t want to LMAO….
Thex article makes it easy for the uninformed to confuse the Naval rank of commander with the position of commander.
That said, this officer was an incompetent exec- he failed to properly train and equip the crews- which means he is probably an incompetent CO. The group commander, based on this information alone, has the authority to fire him. Easy.
The question of incompetence of the other sailors involved will be decided based on the investigation. if they were untrained and using non mission capable equipment, there may be some special considerations.
However, the LT may be the reason they were untrained and unprepared. If so, he should be fired.
All those problems cited by the Navy can be traced back to insufficient funding. But they’ll dump trainloads of cash into the blast furnace for the F-35 that can’t fly, the oversized Zumwalt-class destroyer that can’t fight, and the would-be-funny-if-it-wasn’t-so-depressing LCS that can’t do anything except dissolve in saltwater.
Don’t forget the ever changing uniforms…fucking aquaflage.
Makes you wander how much was spent to refit submarines to accommodate female officers…
Apparently not enough to close it off to video cameras in the head.
Now they don’t have to refit. In the age of the trannie everyone can use the same head.
Will officers & enlisted be able to commingle in the head?
I’ve been wondering for a while if this ‘mistake’ was the same kind of thing that sent a Navy patrol boat into a coral reef in the Phillippine Sea about 18 months ago.
If the equipment is so lousy that it doesn’t work properly and the boats go off-course as a result, then what are we paying for? Junk.
Article says they didn’t conduct standard operational brief (opord) prior to getting underway. From the outside looking in it seems this operation was doomed from the start. Routine operations can sometimes lead to short cuts that results in mission failure. Jumping from an aircraft was routine for me but I’d never do it without maco, manifest and sustained airborne training etc. By the book may have prevented this debacle.
Yep never get complacent. We did our briefs all the time no matter what and drills. That’s why you should always do training, we run drills all the time on down convoy time and this helped keep the guys on track. They get some basic principles form us and it looks like there small unit leader ship sucked.
Believe it looks like there 3M program sucks also and we hated that shit when big Navy gave it to us but it works and why a unity with primary fleet type personal would neglect this maintenance program. The other thing I don’t get is they just got on deployment like 2 months in, I don’t get it they should be locked on rocked on.
When they formed these units they wanted to put more of us in these units because of field tactical experience but, big Navy and our community said no because we were bogged down with two wars and other war on terror missions and Harts and mind stuff.
Compliancy kills we had signs posted everywhere.
I have always wondered why the boat that didn’t break down didn’t run a tow to the other? How many engines do these boats have; my impression was they all had two. So did all four engines shoot craps? Or were they authorized to sail close to hazardous waters with engines deadlined? Lot of questions…
Some of the above reminds me of when we had the really clumsy radios of the ’70s and were trying to knob-scan the spectrum…and a Radio Shack Bearcat scanner could do the same thing automatically in seconds for $75
This still leaves unanswered the question of the public apology and who ordered it. If orders came down from higher, that should be publicized. Otherwise, the LT/OinC of the mission should be disciplined for it.
Also interesting that no family member of the crew has spoken out about this as have no crew members. Wonder if they had to sign non-disclosure agreements.
Agreed.
In fact, there are quite a few questions relating to the Code of Conduct that are still floating out there unanswered.
The photo makes me throw up a little in my mouth. What would have been the appropriate actions for these sailors according to todays SOP?
I agree. I really hate that picture, and I hope whoever took it gets bitch-slapped by Karma.
Just wanted to share that they are trained and can lay shit down when the command lets them do their real mission.
Just sayin’
Code of Conduct for
Members of the United States Armed Forces
I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.
I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.
They had a SAT phone with them so they had contact with higher Just putting that out there…
Last night I watched a video from Utube called, “Submarine Disaster ~ Kursk”. It really brought to mind the situation we are finding ourselves in with our high tech military right this minute. Don’t know if the Russkies were pissing away their treasure on their idea of an F-35, but they sure didn’t have the budget to make their best stuff work. Just today Fox reported on the problems our AF is having keeping their hardware working, and it’s a big deal. Anyway, if you have the time and inclination, watching that Kursk flick is very interesting and, yeah, this is related to the problems encountered by our navy guys back in January, by Iran, in that we’re similarly farked.
Garmin, Furuno, Raymarine and Lawrence all make radars that run around $1,000 that could have shown where those boats actually were.
It is easy to see where you are with a radar and paper chart, all you do is match what you see on the radar display to what is printed on the chart and disregard what the GPS shows you.
The radar and chart shows you your actual location, the GPS shows where it thinks you are.
Those $1,000 radars have roughly a 36 mile range too.
This is going to be bad when it hits the news if ever, probably after the election..
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/16/congressman-classified-details-irans-treatment-us-sailors-will-shock-nation.html
This will be ugly. Very ugly.
Yep I said that from the beginning and some folks I know still active said there is more to the story. They are trained to do more than just float around on open waters.
The Navy would not just send a message in 24 hours for a start EX without having any type of warning order or FRAGO to be prepared to execute an Exercise. There is to much more risk management involved in open water way execution, need more prep to conduct an exercise.
If they were in react status (QRF for you Army Types) they would have already identified the equipment issues.