Specifically, welcome to the Scuttlebutt traveling road show. Pull up a chair at the table here at the Gruner Brewery, I recommend the Stout, though they serve it too cold. Yes, I have my RV set up for the night at a brewery. Surprised? You don’t know me too well then.
Yesterday we were in Yellowstone, and the picture you see above is apparently the duty buffalo bull, whose job it is to stand and pose for pictures at Old Faithful, thus entertaining the tourists, while they wait for the eruption. A job he did admirably.
In short, I’m on the road for the next couple of weeks while going down to Texarkana to kill some pigs, then butcher the same, and make some sausages, hams, pork chops, and other such victuals. Hence this week’s post as well as next week and quite possibly the week after next will be short. They will also probably not be quite current in the current affairs piece, because I’m mostly out of contact.
That said, there’s one little thing I want to mention before it gets any staler. One last bit on the loss of the Bonhomme Richard.
If you haven’t heard, Seaman Recruit Ryan Mays, the kid that got charged with setting the fire that burned the Bonny Dick has been found innocent of all charges. Look I don’t have an inside line to the case on this… BUT, I do have people I follow who do. CDR Salamander, one of the finest bloggers in the world on Navy topics, covers it here. He doesn’t really have the full documentation either, but in his blog, he steers you to another blogger who does things in the judiciary area, and got the real skinny.
Leroy Jethroe Gibbs, these motherfuckers at NCIS San Diego Naval Station are NOT. In point of fact they wouldn’t make a wart on the ass of the worst agent in the TV shows. (not that this is anything new, TV show heroes are always better than the guys they portray… Take the Fearless Band of Idiots. PLEASE take them, far away from me!) Anyway, the short form is that it looks like the clowns at NCIS SD dropped the ball, screwed the pooch, pick your euphemism, they fucked up by the numbers. It looks like they just picked a guy that wasn’t particularly popular on the boat, maybe had a bit of a ‘tude, and decided to use him as a scapegoat. Further, they did a horrible job at it. Now I would like to say that such things never happen, but we all know that would be a lie.
I’ll tell you a little something that I was told when I wound up being part of the Navy Judicial System as the Work Programs Director at a Brig, and I found this to be true, both during my time at that detail, and as a cop. If you’re innocent, you want to be tried by the military. If you’re guilty, you want to be tried by civilians. The Judge and the Board at this kid’s trial not only released him, but they apparently hauled the agents involved over the coals, by their short hairs.
We may never know if this was actually arson, or if it was just straight-up incompetence in ship operations while maintenance is going on. At the very least that second one was a significant part of the loss of the vessel, and it looked like the NCIS guys wanted to provide cover for the Navy on this, by nailing a guy with a crime. It is not the first time NCIS has tried this. The USS Wisconsin accident comes immediately to mind. It didn’t work then either.
Do yourself a favor, go look at Sal’s stuff on this, and then go look at the blog he’ll send you to. Then ask yourself what the hell is going on in our Navy.
I know this is less than half of my usual goat gagger of a post, but hey, I’m on vacation, headed down to TX.
