BHR Fire Out, Now Comes the Giant Fid

The fire is out. Crews are overhauling where the fires were burning, which is squid-speak for looking for hot spots.

In response to the fire, [CNO] Gilday ordered the heads of Fleet Forces Command, U.S. Pacific Fleet and Naval Forces Europe to solicit direct feedback from ships’ commanding officers to ensure they have the people and adequate training to protect ships in port from fire and flooding.

“What I had the fleet commanders do this week was to say: We need to make sure our equipment is ready, we need to make sure our people are trained and we need to make sure our procedures are rehearsed and sound so that we are able to handle flooding or fire.”

This is, frankly, somewhat foreseeable from the Navy's push to cut the size of the crews, one of the dumber ideas of the Rumsfeld era. The Navy needed somebody to speak truth to power, that cutting the size of the ships' crews would lead to deficiencies in maintenance, cleanliness (warships began looking like Third-World trash-haulers) and the ability to handle emergencies.

None of this shit is at the level of rocket science. But there was a progression of SecNavs who had less time at sea than a commuter on the Staten Island Ferry and they didn't know jack-point-shit about life at sea. So all they did was ram Rumsfeld's bad ideas down everyone's throats.

This is what I foresee: The size of the in-port damage control parties will be increased. That can't come from the sailors who are assigned to the in-port security teams. The option available will be to increase the number of sailors on board as part of a duty section, which means reducing the number of duty sections.

So, stand by for three-section duty year-round and,possibly, port-and-starboard during high leave times (holidays, post-deployments).

And you guys on the LCSs? You ain't never going home.

(What a Fid is)