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How a preventable disaster killed six marines

propublica.org

11–20 of 130 posts

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#11
Only tangential related, but has anyone else witnessed a middle-managment as a resource approach to this kind of situations lately. Basically, slopy procedure is encouraged, middle-management is hired and instructed to keep cost low and the wagon rolling and beeing new, settles right into this trap of a routine.

Once the mess blows up (which it always does), upper management first trys to deflect damage to the lower ranks (as in the article), then regardless of the outcome of this tactics, replaces the middle-management with new faces. In this scenario, even lower tier management who insisted on correct procedure, complained and requested additional resources, would be replaced to prevent a culture of responsibility from growing.

The cycle of sloppyness starts a new but not with any significant changes, its basically a attempt to create a synthetic amnesia in a cooperate culture.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#12
post #3

I'm not really into military doctrine, but why not just leave all the flying stuff to the Air Force or maybe specialized parts of the Navy? When you look up US air units/forces, there is a bunch of stuff left to the national guards, marines etc. and flying is obviously something to be taken seriously. And it looks like they are more likely to screw it up or take it less seriously.

The various forces do different things in the air. I'm not super knowledgeable about this, so someone might have more details. Air Force is general flight missions. They tend towards support and recon. Navy is focused on carrier support and sea missions. Marines are focused on CAS and both land and sea missions. Lot of helicopters as well. So each branch takes different responsibilities. I don't think this is an issu…

>Marines weren't being given the resources and training they needed, and were being ignored by the higher chain.

To me this says that the Marines high enough to make decisions do indeed not take things seriously enough.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#13
post #3

I'm not really into military doctrine, but why not just leave all the flying stuff to the Air Force or maybe specialized parts of the Navy? When you look up US air units/forces, there is a bunch of stuff left to the national guards, marines etc. and flying is obviously something to be taken seriously. And it looks like they are more likely to screw it up or take it less seriously.

> why not just leave all the flying stuff to the Air Force or maybe specialized parts of the Navy? The priorities aka politics of each military branch are different. Canonical example: At Guadalcanal in WW2, the Navy was supposed to land supplies and support the Marines, but when the Japanese Navy showed up, the US Navy weighed anchor and left - with most supplies still aboard. The Marines are still mad about that 75…

This is also one of the main reasons why the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) program ended up as such an expensive mess. The Marines insisted on getting their own VSTOL variant to provide CAS from amphibious ships so that they wouldn't have to rely on the Navy. And that forced the use of a huge single engine instead of smaller twin engines, making it less aerodynamic (shorter range) and less survivable for other missions. Designing and testing the VSTOL capabilities drove up development costs tremendously and delayed the entire program for years.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#14
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And your problem is here ? If the meeting attendees where not driving after the meeting, I don't see the problem with social drinking and bonding.

Cause that "social drinking and bonding" was always binge drinking.

What do you mean by Binge?

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cause that "social drinking and bonding" was always binge drinking.

What do you mean by Binge?

“Binge drinking” is a concept of its own, see for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binge_drinking

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cause that "social drinking and bonding" was always binge drinking.

What do you mean by Binge?

"The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. This typically happens when men consume 5 or more drinks or women consume 4 or more drinks in about 2 hours."

https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/binge-drinking.htm

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#17
post #3

I'm not really into military doctrine, but why not just leave all the flying stuff to the Air Force or maybe specialized parts of the Navy? When you look up US air units/forces, there is a bunch of stuff left to the national guards, marines etc. and flying is obviously something to be taken seriously. And it looks like they are more likely to screw it up or take it less seriously.

I saw a proposal a long time ago on TEDx or something on how the military should be split between people who fight wars and the people who support wars. The premise was that the supply and support mission should be handled by the department of state in times of peace and the department of war in war. Things like supply ships, bases, hospital ships, aircraft carriers, merchant marine, peace corps, etc all go to providing aid in peacetime and supporting the military in times of war.

Maybe I'm naive, but I always thought it was a nice way of approaching the rest of the world. In reality, the most effective militaries in history have been the ones where everyone can fight.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#18
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah my experience in the Marines resonates with this a lot. So many training meetings about how drinking and driving was bad, followed by a meetup at the bar. Even during the presentations the officers in charge would joke about it. None of it was ever taken seriously. The best example of double-talk I have in real life. Way they would talk about "partying in Okinawa" was always creepy when you consider the Marines'…

And your problem is here ? If the meeting attendees where not driving after the meeting, I don't see the problem with social drinking and bonding.

Well, the original post said they were flying aircraft while still impaired afterwards ...

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#19
post #17
post #3

I'm not really into military doctrine, but why not just leave all the flying stuff to the Air Force or maybe specialized parts of the Navy? When you look up US air units/forces, there is a bunch of stuff left to the national guards, marines etc. and flying is obviously something to be taken seriously. And it looks like they are more likely to screw it up or take it less seriously.

I saw a proposal a long time ago on TEDx or something on how the military should be split between people who fight wars and the people who support wars. The premise was that the supply and support mission should be handled by the department of state in times of peace and the department of war in war. Things like supply ships, bases, hospital ships, aircraft carriers, merchant marine, peace corps, etc all go to provid…

> how the military should be split between people who fight wars and the people who support wars.

Logistics win or lose wars. The support is the most important part. Arguably the people "fighting" wars (or at least vulnerable to incoming fire) should be reduced to as close to zero as possible, replaced by drones of various sorts.

Strategic bombing has never recognised this distinction, anyway. Both sides in WW2 spent extensive effort bombing each other's supply lines and factories. The 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, the notorious Benghazi incident, etc: does that count as "fighting"? Most of the US wars since WW2 have been lost during the occupation phase due to the difficulties of COIN. There's no glamour of "fighting" there, it consists of spending years going to work in an office but never forgetting to check under your car.

> Things like supply ships, bases, hospital ships, aircraft carriers, merchant marine, peace corps, etc all go to providing aid in peacetime and supporting the military in times of war.

There is no such thing as peacetime for the United States. https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-has-been-at-war-93-of-...

Edit: while I was writing this comment, protestors have stormed the US embassy in Baghdad. Do the embassy staff count as "fighting"?

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#20
post #19
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a proposal a long time ago on TEDx or something on how the military should be split between people who fight wars and the people who support wars. The premise was that the supply and support mission should be handled by the department of state in times of peace and the department of war in war. Things like supply ships, bases, hospital ships, aircraft carriers, merchant marine, peace corps, etc all go to provid…

> how the military should be split between people who fight wars and the people who support wars. Logistics win or lose wars. The support is the most important part. Arguably the people "fighting" wars (or at least vulnerable to incoming fire) should be reduced to as close to zero as possible, replaced by drones of various sorts. Strategic bombing has never recognised this distinction, anyway. Both sides in WW2 spent…

"should be reduced to as close to zero"

Isn't it already less than 10% for most militaries?

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