Saturday, September 20, 2014

USS COWPENS - more trouble


Commander Armando Ramirez, Executive Officer of USS COWPENS (CG-63) was relieved of his duties on September 18 by the Commanding Officer, Captain Scott Sciretta, due to an alcohol-related incident.  He was found guilty at Admiral's Mast of Article 111, drunken or reckless operation of a vehicle, and Article 133, conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.

Commander. Justin Harts has assumed duties as Executive Officer. Commander Ramirez has departed the ship and is on shore duty.

According to Navy Times, when the XO returned to the ship, the CMC suspected the XO was drunk and a breathalyzer was administered. Things went downhill from there.

7 comments:

Captain Steve said...

Uh. XO comes back to ship after having imbibed alcohol and the CMC administers a breathalyzer to him and puts him on report?

What am I missing here?

Today's Curry County View said...

What kind of Political BS is this???
I have poured 4 stripers into bed and a breathalyzer on a ship...
With it's storied history Cowpens appears to be a Jinx Ship.. Retired BMC

Anonymous said...

Total Crap. Would love to see the evidence at Mast. Unless they performed a BAC from a blood draw, this seems like a Witch Hunt on a haunted ship!

Anonymous said...

One rule for all.
It was an everlasting stupid rule
but none of us are going to be bound by it.
We saw the darkness coming and wish the zealots
Every success as they do what they do and screw it up for all.

It started out as zero tolerance for E6 and up
Morphed to zero tolerance for all
Fetched up on the rocky shore
That says we don't need your kind round here no more.

Losers don't deserve any strikes
or any balls.
Screw up once and off you go.

They have better men then you by scores
hiding their dim lights under bushels
Until the lid is lifted and they can shine
Like the admirals and captains who insisted
that no one so means as a dog gets more than a single error at being

a sailor in command.

They reap the whirlwind. It puts me in mind of the common complaint after the outbreak of the shooting war in 1940. We stopped selecting men to command for what they knew and based our choice on who they .

Do you ever see a single war fighter relieved because he or she failed to make war on time, on schedule and as ordered in the Navy?

Nah, thought not.

By my measure those putrid admirals started and finished with Tail Hook when they were there but saw nothing and never stood trial or suffered torment or were put to the question while all the others who were there and all of us who weren't were goaded and tortured for a year or more.

They finished with Honors and we figured the score. Why go for 30 when 20 would see you out the door.

Kind of pathetic how we reached a low where every LCDR sees before him nothing but burning bridges. We've seen it before. You know the solution of the DoD and Congress will be to slide retirement eligibility to the right so officers must be FORCED to take command before they can retire.

Does that not sound like a grand futile catastrophe?

I am often wrong in my prognostications.

I blame it on Bush!

Anonymous said...

@David Sullivan

Political BS? How about leading by example.

If a white hat came back in that condition, you can be sure he would go to Mast. I saw my CMC carried aboard numerous times because he was too drunk to even walk. All that was tweny years ago. Sounds like they are finally starting to apply the standards to everyone

Anonymous said...

In my time if anybody came back to the ship drunk and in the arms of his shipmates, we put him to bed and posted a watch to make sure he didn't aspirate his own vomit. If his shipmates carried him aboard before liberty expired there was no harm and no foul. Shore patrol brought back the ones that got rowdy or passed out without shipmates to bring them home. The only ones that went to Mast were the ones that failed to return by the expiration of liberty.

How does it work now in the Navy? A chief goes up to a Commander and tells him to blow into a tube. In my navy the Commander orders the chief to vanish. If he fails to vanish, it would have been a failure to obey a direct order.

It looks to me like no ship is ever further away from the ISIC than one can successfully blow a smoke ring with a Swisher Sweet.

Why would anybody stoop to command? I really don't think I like this navy.

Mike, you'd tell me if my anonymous comments were pissing you off wouldn't you?

Captain Steve said...

Anon:

You've got it absolutely right. If CMC putting the XO on report for drinking ashore is the new Navy--it ain't a Navy as I understand the term.