Chief Boatswain’s Mate Jeffery D. Butler pleads guilty in McCain collision
According to the Navy Times, Chief Boatswain’s Mate Jeffery D. Butler pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty in the USS McCain collision;
Chief Boatswain’s Mate Jeffery D. Butler pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge of dereliction of duty before a summary court-martial for his role in training and qualifying sailors who demonstrated that they were unable to perform basic ship-steering operations.
Butler, who reached his 20-year mark last November, was sentenced by Navy judge advocate Cmdr. William Weiland to a reduction in paygrade to E-6. The maximum sentence possible was a reduction in paygrade, 60 days restriction and a forfeiture of two-thirds of one month’s pay.
Just before sentencing, Butler stood to address the families of the fallen who were in attendance.
“I want to give my condolences and ask for your forgiveness,” he said, fighting back tears. “They were more than just my shipmates – they were family members.”
Butler claimed to the judge that he had never been trained in the new navigation system except for 30 minutes of training from a master helmsman. He took for granted that his subordinates were already trained in the navigation system. 20 years in the military and he just figured that folks were trained. AMF.
His commander’s court martial begins today.
Thanks to Bobo for the link.
Category: Navy
So we’ve got a SNCO who doesn’t have the cajones to admit he doesn’t know everything, doesn’t train his people, and pencil whips the training records to make his people (and more tellingly) and himself look better?
Reduction in grade is the only penalty? He clearly directly contributed to the death of sailors he was supposed to be educating, protecting, and mentoring. He got off way too easily.
Mason: he also received 2/3 loss of pay for a month, plus 2 mo restriction. And that 1 grade reduction is going to cost him bigtime.
Since he was reduced for cause, his retired pay will be calculated using E6 pay tables – NONE of his pay as an E7 will be used to calculate his high-3 average. After the high-3 fiasco with SMA McKinney and his court-martial reduction (where his high-3 average resulted in essentially zero impact on his retired pay), Congress changed Federal law to account for late-career reductions for cause.
E6/20 base pay is just over 85% of E7/20. He’ll doubtless be forced to retire immediately after finishing his restriction (unless the CMCA sets that part aside, at which point he may be forced out sooner) due to HYT. Assuming he’s around 40, that means he’ll see a roughly 15% reduction in lifetime retired pay. If he lives to be 80, that’s over $175k (in current-year dollars).
Enough punishment? Possibly not – but he also wasn’t the sole individual at fault here.
That’s the maximum penalty, according to the article he just got the reduction in grade.
I understand this will be a kick to his retirement, but he’ll still be allowed to retire. I realize he is probably a symptom of the systemic problems in an overworked, under funded military but I expect SNCOs to be leaders. Though I know that’s unrealistic given the political nature of the upper ranks. I know a couple people that retired out at E-6 in the USNR because they thought the chiefs mess was too political. Somebody somewhere has to lead the troops.
yea but hell claim disability get rated at around 75-80% so that’s around 2K month
Reduction in rate is bullshyt! The man already served his 20…let him retire as a chief!! imho
This is a symptom of a much larger problem in the Navy, and maybe across all the services, that has been growing for many years. That problem is a lack of discipline. All of our problems can be traced back to that issue. Eight years of Obama did the most damage to us than any other factor.
We saw this as early as the 1990s. Those of us that came in when the Soviet Union existed were essentially the last generation of Sailors subject to the old school standards of discipline and accountability. The folks that came after us, and more so those that came in during the mid 1990s, were essentially spoiled and not held to account as much as those before were held. The draw-down of the 1990s didn’t help either, as people were in the “fight” for “bodies”, so they required us to adjust to the new folk rather than require the new folk to adjust to the military. Old school discipline and accountability went out the window and, if you dare applied it to the new Sailors, you were vilified and accused of creating a hostile working environment. Boatswain’s Mate First Class Jeffery D. Butler entered the Navy in November, 1997, based on the linked article. He reached his 20 year mark last November. He was among the first wave that was fully immersed in this “touchy feely” treatment. These were among the first group of Sailors that were issued “stress cards” in basic. A common complaint, among those of us that came in earlier, is that failing to subject these guys to the standards that we were subjected to was going to cost the Navy — in blood. We were thinking in a force on force battle scenario… Before then, our training focused on open ocean warfare against the Soviet Navy. Mishaps like these, that cost lives, falls under that “gloom” forecast. Bottom line, folk progressing up the ranks, and having greater influence over operations, without properly having the stupid squeezed out of them… Or beat out of them as was the case when I came in… Was going to lead to irresponsibility making its way to the top. During my last sea tour, this irresponsibility ran havoc, it was epidemic. We had a situation to where the CO dictated that if Sailors didn’t have their dress uniform by the time we reached Fort Lauderdale, they weren’t going to be allowed off… Read more »
You said it better than I did. And you’re right. I enlisted in 1990, and that’s exactly how it was. I don’t care what anybody says. We will be screwed if we ever have to go to a real war.
Preach, brother.
I was around in the 80’s and 90’s, and saw the first order effects of the TQM/TQL Navy.
Couple that with the advancement numbers at the time, the immensely better quality of life, money, etc., and getting out when I did was a no-brainer.
I must agree with you. I went through Navy Boot Camp Jan-Mar 1995, the last of the Rifle Companies. After us, they were re-designated ‘Divisions’ and the training regimen began to change.
I was on my first sea tour aboard a submarine when we started hearing the stories coming out of Great Lakes about recruits wearing sneakers and carrying stress cards. Within a year we started seeing these recruits begin to reach the boats, and to say they were a bit lacking was an understatement. With few exceptions, most of these junior sailors were not what we would have expected in our ‘elite’ submarine force, and many had trouble fitting into crew cohesion.
Of that group, we had one that barely qualified (subs or watchstations), one who was given three opportunities to qualify submarines on three different boats and still failed, a deserter, and one arrested and eventually sent to military prison for theft and child porn. They were not exactly the cream of the crop.
While I like to think the submarine force adapted to better screen these individuals out, the surface navy – having no where else to send them – is probably still suffering from this failed experiment in political correctness.
I went to the Great Lakes Boot Camp in Oct. of 1963, class 475 and remember walking through the Dempster Dumpster because I did not shave off my “Peach Fuzz”, Company Commander telling me to go down and give me 20.(push ups), working off my demerits in the drill hall doing the “96” count manual of arms at night while my recruit mates were smoking and coking in the barrack’s lounge, The whole Company doing push ups on the outside grinder with their hands wrapped around their issued American made Enfield rifles, knuckles between the hard ground and wood stocks and disputes settled in the clothes drying room. Stress Cards??? WTF. As I mentioned in my earlier comments, I did a lot of screwing up and was able to take what ever they gave me while in Boot Camp or on board the OKIE 3 but in the end, I was asked to ship over and made MM3 even though it took 3 years. So that’s it and As I’ve said in the past, see you later Alligator, bop bop doowopp. Actually the song was considered Rockabilly.
“smoking and coking in the barrack’s lounge”
Slightly different meaning these days.
Don’t paint all of us with the same paintbrush who came into the Navy after you. I joined in 2001, and I sure as shit didn’t have a “stress card” in RTC. This is a training problem, or a lack of training. We as a service are more focused on diversity, fill in the blank heritage month, SAPR, suicide prevention, don’t rape people, pointless NKO courses, etc, etc, etc, instead of doing training on our actual jobs.
I went through Orlando boot in 68. I never heard of a time out. We solved personnel problems in-house, and turned around several substandard recruits. I made HM2 (E5) in 72 and HM1 in 75. (I may be off a year on advancement times due to issues with CRS.) I began noticing changes in attitude, commitment, etc. about 77. By the time I made HMC it was a changed Navy. Sailors reported with the expectation of being allowed to be slackers. No all, not even most, but enough for the change to be noticeable and troublesome. I had some genuinely outstanding Sailors. I also had those who felt they could wear civilian shoes with their uniform and haircuts were optional. No shit. Would I do it again? Yes, in a minute. I thoroughly enjoyed the hands-on, clinical aspects of my rating/NEC. One drawback, though, is that when I made Chief I became more of a paper pusher and desk jockey than a clinician. That was bothersome though not unexpected. I made do. Would really go back tomorrow if they would have me but I doubt a uniform can be found in my size. Maybe they could position me to cast shade for the troops working in the sun. LOL
I can actually have a little empathy for him, given the operational tempo of the FDNF. The problem here was there was never any time allotted for training due to operational commitments so training records were gundecked from the XO on down. This was a problem on multiple ships at Yoko and Sasebo due to the the constant deployments, shortened or deferred maintenance, and even worse shortened hull swaps – like three days for crews to trade ships (a new ship comes from the states, trades it with the old one in the FDNF). Please explain to me how three days could provide sufficient training to operate a new ships systems.
Isn’t take for granted the same as assumed and you know what happens when the word assumed is used. Point of interest is that My new latest 25th/2017 edition of the Blujackets manual mentions ZIP, NADA and ZERO about Navigation. My 16th/1962 edition and my 24th/2009 DOES have a chapter on it.
Don’t need to know about navigation. The satellites will always be in the sky. Ships will always have their navalized Garmin. /sarc
All the time and money that could have gone toward legitimate training thrown away via handouts to welfare flunkies and illegal aliens as well as kickbacks for bribes (*OOPS!*, campaign donations) going to outfits like Solyndra,… I’m sure a special place in hell awaits many a member of the previous Administration as well as their minions and lackeys in the bureaucracy.
Roger that. The old adage “there’s never enough time to do it right but there is always enough time to do it over.” The word ‘time’ and ‘money’ can be used interchangeably.
Plus, let’s not forget all the SJW & PC mandated bs that consumes time that could have been spent training people to actually perform the essential duties of their MOS’s or NEC’s. We are unfortunately doomed to have more people killed by incompetence in peacetime because of these D-rat progtards and the damage they have done to the country and our military over the past forty-five years. God help us if we ever have to fight a major war with a real military power.
“They were more than just my shipmates – they were family members.” Right. Sounds good. I’m sure he feels bad about the loss of 10 family members.
He was the right man at the right time for the job. How dare anyone suggest that he was a quota promo. Who suggested that? Me.
I doubt this is the end of this fiasco created by a slacker in a suit. I expect to see more of this kind of thing.
“His commander’s court martial begins today.”
I wonder what the outcome of that will be?
If I were the ship’s CO, XO, or Ops Chief (don’t know the proper Navy term for that on a ship), I’d be looking to cut a plea deal. Because I have the feeling someone in that group (or maybe all 3) will get hammered. Too many recent incidents, too much publicity, and too many deaths.
The OPS Chief was called the Operations Officer, or “OPS O”, when I was in. Joining your group, if they haven’t already been hammered in some way, should be the ship’s Navigator, or “Gator”, the Tactical Action Officer (TAO), and the CIC Watch Officer.
Others not mentioned here are also looking to get hammered.
When I was in the Navy, we had terms like “Conventional” for old school detecting and tracking (manual), and “automated” for automatic detecting and tracking. This was for the Operations Specialists. The Quartermasters and Boatswain’s Mates had a similar concept. The automated stuff was there, but was backed by conventional, or manual.
We ran manual parallel to automated, and manual took precedence when it came to conflicts in information, or manning needs while involved in restricted maneuvering, like what those ships were involved with. Enough manning was there for both systems.
A big question that I have is whether this manual stuff is still there, and if so, what were the issues with their manual operations that contributed to the collisions. Based on the information that I’ve read on both collisions, those straight out of A-School (Navy AIT), would’ve been able to spot the danger and raise the red flags regarding the danger.
Navy can’t even feign justice. What a shit show. Going through the motions just like all these people they are slapping on the wrist. So the gist here is that nobody actually did their job and used their rank to object to the bullshit going on. What great leaders they are making.
His photo shows an ESWS (Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist) pin on his uniform – he arrived on the McCain in August 2016 and should have started to re-qualify for his pin since the USS Germantown (previous command) is a different type of ship than the McCain. Someone should have looked into his ESWS training while on the McCain and see who signed off on his training.
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=55221
(Link is to a press release – the MCPON at the time was one that thought everyone should have a warfare pin).
Correct, and my bad. I misread the article excerpt Jonn quoted as saying he’d received the forfeiture and restriction also.