[hopelessromantic69]

The commanding officer of the USS Fitzgerald was relieved of command due to failures under his watch. 9 sailors died because our protocols failed them! As a retired Operations Specialist, I worked in the combat information center of the ship. While on watch we are the ones that keep our shipmates safe! We are the ones that track contacts and plot avoiding courses. It makes me sad and angry that my fellow OS's standing watch that morning failed their shipmates. It boggles my mind how this even happened. How so many layers of protocols failed those sailors. They died horrible deaths and the Commanding officer down to the first OS that tracked that merchant ship has to live with that!

You see, our berthings (where we sleep) are below the waterline so when General quarters is sounded we have only minutes to seal all the hatches below decks. Those sailors had to be locked down in that berthing to keep flooding from compromising the ship. It's the risk that we keep in the back of our mind..those recesses of our mind that we hide away our fears.

So angry right now! One of my guys fell a sleep on watch while I was watch supervisor, I would throw shit at the back of their head. Shaking head...I just don't get it.