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Navy vessels stage drag-race, probe shows
Topic Started: Mar 5 2010, 11:53 AM (36 Views)
xray
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Navy vessels stage drag-race, probe shows

By PAULINE JELINEK (AP) – 7 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A Navy captain was demoted because she berated and assaulted her crew, not because she led her guided missile cruiser on a drag-race with another U.S. warship in the Pacific, an investigation shows.

Capt. Holly Graf was relieved of her command of the cruiser USS Cowpens after an investigation substantiated crew allegations that she was abusive and used her position for personal gain, naval officials said Thursday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

Graf did not immediately answer an e-mail. A message on her phone said the number had been changed, disconnected or was not in service.

A Navy inspector general report said investigators had substantiated that Graf assaulted subordinates (pushing one, grabbing another and once throwing wadded up paper at another sailor) and that she regularly verbally abused subordinates by publicly berating them, belittling them and using profane language.

The allegations were called in to a Navy hotline and covered March 2008 to July 2009. The report was issued in December, she was relieved of her command on Jan. 19 and on Thursday was awaiting new orders, one official said.

Graf once ordered a subordinate to stand in a "timeout" in a corner in front of the full watch team, which he complained to investigators was demeaning to him, according to the report.

The report also found she used her office for personal gain — that is, asked junior officers to play piano at her private Christmas party and to walk her dogs.

Among allegations not substantiated was one that she endangered the ship while allowing a drag-race between the Cowpens and the destroyer USS John S. McCain in February 2009.

Four witnesses described the 2009 race off of Okinawa, but they differed on how close the two vessels came to each other before the race was halted.

One sailor said that during the race, aimed at boosting morale, the McCain got ahead of the Cowpens and began drifting to the left into the path of the Cowpens. Though the report did not question that the race took place, it said the allegation of "hazarding a vessel" was unsubstantiated.

"In order to show that (she) improperly hazarded the USS Cowpens, the evidence must show that an actual event occurred in which the ship was lost or damaged, or that there was a situation in which the ship was placed in imminent danger of loss or serious damage" and that she did it willfully, the inspector general said.

One of the officials, who has many years of sea duty, said races on the open seas are not uncommon and are done to bolster morale or as a kind of maneuver drill.
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This reminds me (sort of) of the Caine Mutiny with Humprey Bogert, and I was surprised to see this sort of thing in the news. I thought the Navy would want to look after their dirty linen in private? Then again, is there anything these days that is private?

I don't believe the subject officer was 'demoted', but was just relieved of her command. I mean, she didn't lose one of her stripes. Still, her career is now in the crapper (or should that be 'Head').
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Bruce
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xray
Mar 5 2010, 11:53 AM
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Navy vessels stage drag-race, probe shows

By PAULINE JELINEK (AP) – 7 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A Navy captain was demoted because she berated and assaulted her crew, not because she led her guided missile cruiser on a drag-race with another U.S. warship in the Pacific, an investigation shows.

Capt. Holly Graf was relieved of her command of the cruiser USS Cowpens after an investigation substantiated crew allegations that she was abusive and used her position for personal gain, naval officials said Thursday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

Graf did not immediately answer an e-mail. A message on her phone said the number had been changed, disconnected or was not in service.

A Navy inspector general report said investigators had substantiated that Graf assaulted subordinates (pushing one, grabbing another and once throwing wadded up paper at another sailor) and that she regularly verbally abused subordinates by publicly berating them, belittling them and using profane language.

The allegations were called in to a Navy hotline and covered March 2008 to July 2009. The report was issued in December, she was relieved of her command on Jan. 19 and on Thursday was awaiting new orders, one official said.

Graf once ordered a subordinate to stand in a "timeout" in a corner in front of the full watch team, which he complained to investigators was demeaning to him, according to the report.

The report also found she used her office for personal gain — that is, asked junior officers to play piano at her private Christmas party and to walk her dogs.

Among allegations not substantiated was one that she endangered the ship while allowing a drag-race between the Cowpens and the destroyer USS John S. McCain in February 2009.

Four witnesses described the 2009 race off of Okinawa, but they differed on how close the two vessels came to each other before the race was halted.

One sailor said that during the race, aimed at boosting morale, the McCain got ahead of the Cowpens and began drifting to the left into the path of the Cowpens. Though the report did not question that the race took place, it said the allegation of "hazarding a vessel" was unsubstantiated.

"In order to show that (she) improperly hazarded the USS Cowpens, the evidence must show that an actual event occurred in which the ship was lost or damaged, or that there was a situation in which the ship was placed in imminent danger of loss or serious damage" and that she did it willfully, the inspector general said.

One of the officials, who has many years of sea duty, said races on the open seas are not uncommon and are done to bolster morale or as a kind of maneuver drill.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This reminds me (sort of) of the Caine Mutiny with Humprey Bogert, and I was surprised to see this sort of thing in the news. I thought the Navy would want to look after their dirty linen in private? Then again, is there anything these days that is private?

I don't believe the subject officer was 'demoted', but was just relieved of her command. I mean, she didn't lose one of her stripes. Still, her career is now in the crapper (or should that be 'Head').
Wow, I can't believe a navy officer would use profane language.....

Sounds like the crew wanted a captain with a longer pecker then she had...but this is the new military and discipline doesn't mean much any more.
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xray
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Here's a follow up to the story.
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Saturday, Mar. 06, 2010

Complaints About Female 'Captain Bligh' Began Early, Says a Navy Chaplain

By Mark Thompson / Washington
Time

Navy Cmdr. Maurice "Mo" Kaprow was stunned to watch then-Cmdr. Holly Graf in action. He saw her for the first time after arriving aboard her ship, the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, in Italy just before the Iraq war began in 2003. A Jewish rabbi and a Navy chaplain, he'd been sent to the Churchill on temporary assignment as the vessel readied for war. Usually pulling out of port is a methodical and precise process. "But I never in my life saw such chaos as there was on that bridge — Holly Graf began yelling and screaming rudder orders, engine orders, insulting people," Kaprow recalled Friday. "I'd never seen anything like this."

It got more bizarre as the ship pulled out of Sicily's Augusta harbor. "Just after clearing the breakwater the ship began to rumble and shake — now she's screaming even louder because nobody knows what's happening," Kaprow recalls. "I begin to hear young sailors' voices from the fantail and they're singing, `Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead.'" Kaprow remembers being perplexed at the sudden song. "Then someone came up to me and said, `We've ran aground. She's finished" — assuming the accident would mean the end of their commander's career. "They were jumping for joy and singing on the fantail." Actually, one of the ship's props had broken, but the crew's reaction still amazes Kaprow. "I was flabbergasted." (See the top 10 crime stories of 2009.)

Kaprow left the Navy last month after a 20-year career and visits to some 200 ships. Morale aboard the Churchill was the worst he says he ever saw — even on the eve of war with Saddam Hussein, where the Churchill launched Tomahawk missiles from the eastern Mediterranean toward Iraq. "I think the lady is mentally unbalanced," Kaprow says. "I don't believe she ever should have had command." (See more about the rise and fall of Holly Graf.)

The Navy removed Graf from command of the guided missile cruiser USS Cowpens in January for "cruelty and maltreatment" of her crew. But Kaprow's account makes clear that such conduct also occurred on the first ship Graf commanded. His tale is noteworthy because, unlike most others who witnessed Graf in command, Kaprow was an independent Navy outsider not subject to Graf's orders. Questions continue to swirl about how Graf not only retained her command, but kept getting promoted despite reports from eyewitnesses like Kaprow. Graf has declined interview requests, and there has been scant support offered for Graf by Navy colleagues on naval blogs or elsewhere. One admiral expressed concern Friday over what he called a "lynch mob" mentality about the case, as even conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh weighed in: "This woman sounds like a real Cruella de Vil."

The man known as the "combat rabbi" aboard the Churchill found the environment aboard the ship to be "weird, absolutely weird." Graf would talk to some of her officers but not to others. She would show up at the daily morning intelligence briefing in apparel Kaprow had never seen on a Navy warship before. "She'd be wearing black slippers," he says, "with one fuzzy ball on each one." Then there were the tirades. "She would argue with the briefers, belittling them," Kaprow says. "Just absolute vile stuff that I had never heard from a C.O. before." (See pictures of crime in Middle America.)

After about 10 days aboard the Churchill, concerned about poor morale on the eve of war, Kaprow visited Graf in her stateroom. "I told her, `I'm getting some vibes — you're a nice lady and you have a hard job' — I'm telling her some of the junior officers are concerned and are really upset," Kaprow recalls. "I'm giving her the spiel and she just goes bonkers and cuts me off. She said she didn't want to talk about it." (See the best pictures of 2009.)

For the rest of his time aboard, they didn't speak to each other. "I became a pariah and she just refused to talk to me," Kaprow says. "When she saw me eating in the wardroom she'd come in and grab her food and run away — she would not talk to me." Kaprow can't explain how Graf continued to rise up the Navy command ladder. "Certain people in the Navy are preselected for command, and no matter what happens the Navy will make sure that it happens," he says.

After more than a month on Graf's ship, Kaprow left for the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt to tell Graf's superior what he had witnessed. He was the second senior officer from the ship to complain to superiors about Graf. "I told all of this to the commodore," Kaprow says, "but I don't know what happened to it from there." Back on the Churchill, officers — who knew that Kaprow was meeting with the commodore — waited anxiously for a change in the Churchill's command climate. It never came.
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> "Certain people in the Navy are preselected for command, and no matter what happens the Navy will make sure that it happens," he says.

It's looking like this story is going to be a real embarrassment for the Navy. Rightly so!
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