Fort Lewis: Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy?

A sergeant at Fort Lewis has made the news. It was for allegedly committing a crime.

Pierce County prosecutors have charged a Fort Lewis soldier with promoting prostitution, alleging he directed two teenage girls to trade sex for money.

The girls involved in the case are 16 and 17 years old.

Stories about crimes that occur near a military base that involve military members frequently make it into the local newspapers. In some cases, the stories appear to be written in a manner that are trying to put the military in a bad light. Fort Lewis has certainly been in the news over the last few years. Not for little crimes. For big, bad crimes. I don't think the newspapers are picking on Fort Lewis, either. McChord AFB is the next door neighbor to Fort Lewis. A search for news stories about McChord yields results like "Air Show" or "Fireworks" or "USO Hugs and Kisses", but no stories about criminal behavior.

A sampling of some crimes committed or allegedly committed by Fort Lewis soldiers:

Olympia Police Arrest 2 Fort Lewis Soldiers:

Police have arrested two Fort Lewis soldiers following the weekend stabbing of a 24-year-old man outside an Olympia, Wash., bar.

Army Files Charges Against Soldier in Death of Teen at Fort Lewis:

Pvt. Timothy E. Bennitt, 19, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of Leah King. He was also charged with wrongful use and distribution of controlled substances and conspiracy to use controlled substances.

Soldier Sought in Abductions, Fires:

A Fort Lewis Stryker Brigade soldier accused of abducting and torturing two women is being sought on a warrant that charges kidnapping, rape and arson.

Fort Lewis Soldiers Charged in University District Holdups:

Three Fort Lewis soldiers accused of robbing University of Washington students at gunpoint last month were charged with robbery Friday in King County Superior Court.

Fort Lewis Officer Among Soldiers Accused of Skimming Reconstruction Money:

In a federal indictment in March, prosecutors alleged that Nguyen skimmed more than $690,000 in cash while acting as the civil-affairs officer responsible for overseeing millions of dollars intended for reconstruction projects and payments to private Iraqi security forces northeast of Baghdad.

Nguyen, 28, a West Point Military Academy graduate, is accused of packing stacks of cash into boxes and mailing them to his family's home.

Former Army Ranger Gets 24 Years in Prison for Bank Robbery:

According to documents filed in the case, Sommer was an Army Ranger stationed at Fort Lewis when he recruited two other Rangers, Chad Palmer and Alex Blum, and Canadian nationals Tigra Robertson and Nathan Dunmall to participate in the Aug. 7, 2006, robbery of a Bank of America branch on South Tacoma Way. The robbers, some armed with AK-47s and wearing body armor, made off with $54,011.

Admittedly, the embezzlement crime happened in Iraq, but I felt justified in including it in the list because the money was spent at or near Fort Lewis. Other than the bank robbery, which occurred in 2006, these crimes were all committed in the last six months.

What is the U.S. Army doing about this? These are serious crimes that pose a big risk to the local community. They are robbing community banks, robbing local college students at gunpoint, being very involved in the death due to drug overdose of a local girl, and pimping out local girls.

I certainly don't want to indict all of the soldiers at Fort Lewis. In fact, the soldiers that were robbing college kids were turned in by a fellow soldier after bragging about pistol-whipping one of the students. Still, these are a lot of serious crimes happening in a pretty short period of time. I have commented on these stories in the past, defending the soldiers. It is getting kind of tough to continue to comment that most of the soldiers at Fort Lewis are good people. I think that the time has come that the Commanding Officers of the base and the various units take action to protect the community. These thugs may represent only a small percentage of the soldiers at Fort Lewis, but they pose a substantial risk to the members of the surrounding communities.

I think it is time some officers at Fort Lewis get fired. I am not talking about the O-1's and O-2's. I mean guys that have scrambled eggs on their hats. They are failing in their duties and have squandered their chances to stop this crime wave emanating from Fort Lewis.

Accelerating My Life...Not Today

I picked up the mail last night and there was an official looking letter sitting on top of the pile. Actually, the letter looked like many others that I have received, except the return address was D.O.N. That made it official enough for me.

I was hoping that the letter wouldn't be something that I didn't want to see, so it was with a little trepidation that I unsealed the letter. Turns out, it was an advertisement from the Navy.

The letter started off telling me that It takes more than a scholarship to turn a college experience into a remarkable success. (Their bold lettering, not mine)

The next bold lettering told me Plus potentially over $155,000 while you pursue your studies. It's the Navy Baccalaureate Degree Completion Program. (They really like bold lettering)

A generous military salary, food allowance, and housing allowance could total from $2,376 to $4,300 a month all paid to me, to spend how I want!!! With no military obligation until you graduate.

I had to laugh. I wasn't even laughing at the fact that they were pitching the position of an Ensign in the Navy to a retired enlisted dude. Well, maybe I was laughing at that part a little bit, but I know there are a lot of college students out there and that they don't check the background of everyone before they send out letters.

What really made me laugh is that I will graduate in five weeks. I imagine that the Navy saves a lot of money by only offering to pay for the last five weeks of a student's college education. While I don't expect them to know my background, it seems pretty foolish not to check that I am graduating this year. This part, I would expect them to check.

Anyway, the letter finished up telling me that I should shift my career into high gear and accelerate my life. Sorry, Navy. I think I am going to shift into neutral and coast for a few weeks, then start working at a more sedate pace, but thanks for the offer.

New SecNav??

I just came across this AP article that says an ex-Mississippi governor will be nominated for Secretary of the Navy.

President Barack Obama will nominate former Mississippi Gov. Ray Mabus to be secretary of the Navy, a person familiar with the discussions told The Associated Press on Friday.

I have not personally heard of Gov. Mabus before. Guess I will be doing a little homework.

US Navy Ship Harrassed by Chinese

Update: 3/9/2009 3:48 pm: Here is another article with more details.

A United States ship operating in international waters in the South China Sea was harassed by several Chinese ships on Sunday. In this article, the United States ship is identified as the USS Impeccable. There is an article in Wikipedia about the USNS Impeccable which is an ocean surveillance ship. I suppose this is the ship they are referring to in the article.

The Pentagon says that the Chinese ships approached within 25 feet and that when the Impeccable asked them to clear a path so that they could leave the area, two of the Chinese vessels got directly in front of them and littered the path with pieces of wood. The article says that the Pentagon identified the Chinese vessels as a Navy intelligence ship, a bureau of maritime fisheries patrol vessel, a state oceanographic administration patrol vessel, and two small Chinese-flagged trawlers.

I did get one laugh out of the article. When the crewmen of the Impeccable turned fire hoses on one of the Chinese vessels, the Chinese responded by stripping down to their underwear.

Fallout for December Marine Jet Crash

You may remember the Marine jet that crashed into a house in San Diego last December. At the time, I had assumed that there was probably some sort of prohibition against flying a crippled aircraft over a highly populated area and that whatever happened to the jet happened while the pilot was already over this area.

Well, you know what they say about assuming things. Turns out that there was an alternative. Air control at North Island announced three times that the plane could land at North Island approaching over water rather than over a densely populated area. Several Marines were punished for this tragic error in judgment that resulted in four deaths when the jet crashed into the house.

Four officers at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego have been relieved of duty for directing the F/A-18D Hornet to fly over the residential area, the officials said. Nine other military personnel received lesser reprimands.

With his jet having engine problems, the pilot should have been told to fly over San Diego Bay and land at another base that sits on the tip of a peninsula, the officials said.

Link to AP Story

This incident was a terrible tragedy, costing a husband his wife, children, and mother-in-law. It is all the more tragic for having been preventable.

Dead Teenage Girl Found at Fort Lewis

Unfortunately, a sixteen year old girl was found dead in some barracks at Fort Lewis near Tacoma, Washington yesterday. Not much information has come out yet, except that the investigation is being handled by the Army Criminal Investigative Division. There are already suggestions out there about our big, bad military people and how they need to be controlled because they are a bunch of thugs. Mind you, there is not yet evidence of any criminal activity. I kind of wonder, if in the interest of smoothing things over with the local government, there will be restrictions placed on the soldiers at Fort Lewis.

The last time I was in Yokosuka, the base was imposing liberty restrictions stemming from the murder of a Japanese woman, but they weren't particularly bad. Basically, we just had to be out of the bars by midnight and back on base by 1 a.m. That is probably not exactly what the restrictions were, but it was something along those lines. I had to ask what time we would be allowed out the next day.

Apparently, the boat was given guidance about what time to have us back on base, but not on what time we would be unleashed in the morning. Since we had to be back on base at 1 a.m., I suggested that we should be allowed to go back out in town at 1 a.m. That didn't happen. Instead, a time was thrown out there like 8 a.m., which caused a group of people that like to run in the morning to protest. I think in the end, we had to be back on base at 1 a.m. and were released at 5 a.m.

I don't think liberty restrictions were ever placed on us when we were in our own home port, but I wonder if something like that will be coming for Fort Lewis. I read a story in the Seattle Times this morning that took advantage of this incident to dredge up some serious criminal activity by a few, very few, of the soldiers stationed at Fort Lewis. This is somewhat premature since no criminal activity has yet been alleged. Still, we know that there are a lot of people that will use this incident to indict every military post in the area, which includes Fort Lewis, McChord Air Force Base, Bangor, and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, along with several smaller military bases.

Some of the incidents that have been brought up are some recent robberies of University of Washington students and a 2006 bank robbery masterminded by an Army Ranger. By and large, the military is full of great people, but their image is being tarnished by a few high profile incidents. This incident is not even proven to be related to criminal activity, and it is already being used to discredit the Army.

Here is the story from the Seattle Times.

USS Port Royal Initial Damage Assessment

Update 2/20/2009: A link to a photo of the USS Port Royal in drydock can be found in this posting.

The Port Royal has a cracked sonar dome and both screws have had some blade tips sheared off. They are going to go into drydock on Friday to do a more thorough damage assessment. This story from Navy times also includes a short video summarizing what has happened up to now.

From the Navy Times

USS Port Royal Captain Relieved

Not much of a surprise here. The CO of the USS Port Royal was "temporarily relieved of command" shortly after the ship was freed from its grounding incident earlier today. I know that this is standard operating procedure in these sorts of cases and I doubt that he will return to command the ship.

Navy Times Article

I know that the CO is responsible for everything, but Captain John Carroll was in a difficult situation. Of course, CO's have to be constantly prepared for difficult situations. This was his first day out at sea with his crew and he probably didn't have much of an opportunity to observe his navigation team in action. Still, he should have been especially vigilant while the ship was operating near shallow water after dark while performing a personnel transfer. If he saw things going bad, he should have stopped the evolution and made sure the ship was returned to a safe condition.

Ultimate Responsibility is a term that everyone on a navy ship understands and everyone knows who it is that has Ultimate Responsibility. I wish that some of the civilian company CEO's felt the same sense of responsibility that our military commanders live with every day that they are in command. What do you think of the concept of Ultimate Responsibility?

Pacific Beacon: Better Single Sailor Housing

A new housing complex for sailors in San Diego opened last December. This may be old news for some of you, but I had not heard about this until I stumbled across a story about it and found the website for the development. It is called Pacific Beacon and it looks like a fantastic place for single sailors to live.

Poor housing was always one of the biggest drawbacks to being a single sailor. Barrack rooms were typically depressing places. They were poorly lit, noisy, and cheaply furnished. Furthermore, the people that worked at the barracks often seemed to be on some sort of a power trip. From the moment you checked in until you checked out, the people working there seemed determined to remove any sort of pleasure you might derive from living there and generally treated the residents like they were inmates in some sort of prison. Even these poor conditions were better than the poor sailors on surface ships that were not even given a room in the barracks. They had to live aboard their ship.

The navy had done a pretty good job in recent years of improving housing for single sailors and Pacific Beacon looks like a giant leap forward for improving the quality of life for single sailors. It is basically a large condominium set in several towers in San Diego and it is directed at sailors that are E-4 and above. It is privately run and the rent is currently below the 2008 Basic Allowance for Housing for an E-4. It sounds like the rent is removed from the sailors pay in the form of an allotment, so they don't even have to remember to drop off a rent check. The rent includes all utilities with the exception of phone and internet service. There is a rooftop swimming pool, a large "Front Lawn" with barbecue pits, a large fitness center, optional maid service, and dry cleaning drop-off and pick-up.

It was designed for sailors and they keep that in mind. When deploying, a sailor can either keep their room or move out. There is indoor storage for excess items. Some of the apartments are furnished, and judging by the pictures, the furniture actually looks like it is high enough quality that someone might keep it in their real house, instead of the cheap particle board lowest-bidder stuff that was always put in the barracks on base. Every apartment has two master bedroom setups and each bedroom has its own private bathroom with a full sized bathtub.

Even better, since it is not a facility operated by the navy, the command and the navy do not do room inspections. Since the rental agreement is subject to California rental regulations, the management is not allowed to enter your rooms without 24 hour advance notice or in the case of an emergency such as a fire or a water leak . I think I read in their FAQ's that you can have an overnight guest for up to 14 days.

I sure hope that the sailors enjoy their new housing. I also hope that they don't tear it up and make the navy rethink their decision to arrange for adequate housing for their single sailors.

Here is a link to their website. They have a lot of information here. Looks like a great place to live.

Pacific Beacon Website

Here is a story about the project at Navy.mil. In this story, it says that they have already signed contracts for similar projects in Jacksonville, FL and Norfolk, VA and that they would like to expand it to include overseas locations. This is a long overdue change, in my opinion.

USS Port Royal Grounding

Update 2/20/2009: A link to a photo of the USS Port Royal in drydock can be found in this posting.

The USS Port Royal is stuck on a reef near Honolulu International Airport. They tried unsuccessfully to nudge it free with some tugs early yesterday. Here is the story from the Honolulu Advertiser.

Here is a link to a news video about the story: Video from KITV

They have a few pretty interesting shots of the ship in the video. The news station was told by family members of the crew that the ship has no air conditioning or electricity. Looks like a pretty miserable situation.

Update: 5 p.m.: The navy is going to lighten the ship by offloading fuel, water, and people and then they will try to free it again. If you have any first hand knowledge about the Port Royal, or just like to talk, feel free to leave a comment.

AP Update

Update: 2/8/09 1 p.m.: After offloading some fuel, water, and people and using more towing power than they used before, the third attempt to free the USS Port Royal was unsuccessful. The navy is assessing options. I think it will be a while before they get the ship off the rocks.

From U.S. Navy Public Affairs on KGMB 9

Update: 2/9/09 9:10 a.m.: Looks like the fourth time was a charm. I just read that the USS Port Royal was freed this morning. I guess there will be some damage assessment and probably another drydock period in the immediate future.

From AP

Update 2/9/09 12:00 p.m.: I just read that the ship is now back in Pearl harbor. It took a total of seven tugs, a salvage ship, and a motor vessel to free it. I didn't know what the heck a motor vessel was until I saw it referenced as the Motor Vessel "Dove" which is used to move the sea based X-band radar platform. For those of you who have seen it, it is the giant white ball that you can occasionally glimpse from Pearl Harbor and the surrounding area. It looks kind of like a giant white Epcot Center. This is a picture of the radar being moved into Pearl Harbor. (This is not the Motor Vessel "Dove" in the picture, though. I couldn't find a good picture of that, but I am guessing it has some pretty serious towing power)

Credit for this Photo: Missile Defense Agency

Credit for this Photo: Missile Defense Agency

Civilian Contrators

I frequently go to the Stripes website and read the Letters to the Editor section just to get a feel for what sort of things our troops are thinking and talking about. A few weeks ago, some of the people serving in Iraq started writing about the visits that celebrities make in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mostly, they were complaining that the contractors that are working there with them get in the front of the line to receive "goodies" that the celebrities bring along with them. For example, a pro baseball player might bring along some ball caps from his team. The chief complaint was that these should be reserved for the troops. In any case, there are almost daily letters in the pages of Stripes from our troops and from the contractors. Most, but not all, of the letters from the troops complain about civilian contractors. On the flip side, most, but not all, of the letters from the contractors point out the valuable services they provide for the troops.

Reading this has reminded me of a few of the experiences that I have had working alongside civilians while I was in the navy. Most of the people that I worked with on the waterfront were pretty good people, particularly while I was at Trident Refit Facility, Bangor (prior to the conversion to NRMD).

In fact, the only really bad experiences that I had were with civilians working in Personnel Support. When I transferred to Bangor, I had only 18 months or so remaining on my enlistment contract. My experience on my first boat had turned me against the navy and I was definitely looking forward to getting out of the club. Although my experiences on my second boat later changed my mind about the navy, my first day on Bangor only served to reinforce the anti-navy feelings that had been nurtured in me during my first sea tour.

The first person on the base that I talked to was a civilian at PSD. I sat down at his desk and he handed me a pile of paperwork and a pen and pointed to a table across the room for me to sit at and fill it out. Not a "Hello" or "Welcome Aboard", just a stack of papers, a pen, and a finger extended across the room. While I was filling out paperwork, I came across one that was a voluntary extension of service. I did not fill this out. I finished all of the other papers and took them back to him. He thumbed through them and noticed that I had not willingly signed away another 6 months of my life.

He put the voluntary extension in front of me and told me that I needed to fill this out. Those were the first words that he spoke to me. I refused. He said I can't refuse because I had accepted orders that required a 24 month commitment. I said I won't do it. He said I had to. I said that he wanted me to fill out a voluntary extension and that if I HAD to fill it out, it was INVOLUNTARY.

Next, he threatened to send me back to my previous command. I told him to go ahead and do that if he wanted to. Of course, I knew at the time that I had been one of the last five people to leave my last boat after we decommissioned it. I didn't think he would be successful in sending me back. I was right. He contacted me a few weeks later and told me that he would send me to another fast attack. I told him to go ahead and do that if he wanted to. In the end, I was assigned to the Trident submarine that I was supposed to be assigned to and no mention of an extension of service came up until more than a year later, when I decided to reenlist.

This left me with a pretty bad feeling about civilians working in support roles. Another bad one that happened at Bangor was actually just a few weeks before the one that I just described. I was on the crew that accompanied the boat that we had decommissioned from Mare Island Naval Shipyard to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. No facilities were available for us to sleep that evening so we were taken out to Bangor to get put up in the barracks there.

We got there at about 11 p.m. with strict orders to be checked out of the room and waiting for the COB at 5 a.m. to take us to PSNS in the morning. I went to my room, put the sheets on the bed and slept until about 4 a.m. Then I got up, took a shower, shaved, got dressed and went to check out of the room. The room that I had been put up in was occupied by a sailor that was permanently stationed at Bangor and it was pretty dirty. Toilet and shower were filthy, junk laying all over the room, big dust-bunnies lurking in the corners, and generally dirty. When I went to check out, they took my information and asked me to have a seat, along with all of the other sailors from my boat. They came back in a few minutes with a large list of items that we needed to complete before we could check out. My list included scrubbing the toilet, scrubbing the shower, sweeping and waxing the deck, cleaning up all the junk the other guy left in the room, making his rack with clean sheets, and other stuff to bring the room up to satisfactory conditions. All of the guys from my boat were given similar lists.

We wasted about two hours that morning arguing with the clerks working at the desk. Our thoughts were that we had spent less than six hours in the rooms and they could kiss our collective asses if they thought we were going to do their cleaning for them. Our COB came in and gave us some support, but it was not enough to release us. After we were about two hours late to the boat at PSNS, the Captain came in, found out what was going on, and extricated us from the situation.

Several years later, I found the support to be much better. When I checked into a boat at Pearl Harbor, a civilian clerk was fantastic. Minimal paperwork, friendly attitude, calls to the barracks to ensure that I was put up in the barracks, information about the area and off-base housing, and no pay problems. I don't know if I was just unlucky the first time, if the difference between me being an E-5 and E-6 was that big (I doubt it as E-6 is nothing special), or just that customer service was being taken much more seriously.

In the end, I am generally supportive of civilian in support positions. I just want them to remember that a civilian doesn't outrank a military member, no matter how low on the totem pole that enlisted guy is. I want them to treat military members with respect and would expect the military members to reciprocate.

Marine Jet Crashes in San Diego

Update: Link to new post March 3, 2009

An F-18 jet crashed in a San Diego neighborhood a few hours ago. Apparently the pilot ejected before the crash, but it looks like the jet hit a house.

Story at MSNBC

The article says that the neighborhood is densely populated. Take a look at the video. LOTS of houses there. I don't know how bad it was for people on the ground, but it looks like it could have been a lot worse.

Video

Disclaimer: I found the video while I was sitting in the tutoring lab at school. I didn't listen to it because I didn't want to disturb the other people around, so I don't really know anything that they talk about during the video. I just thought that it looked pretty scary.

UPDATE: 12/8/08 6:00 p.m. : Unfortunately, there were three deaths with a fourth person still unaccounted for in one of the houses destroyed by the crash. Two or three homes were destroyed.

I found this L.A. Times article that refers to the aircraft as being crippled. I assume there is probably some sort of standard operating procedure that prohibits flying a damaged aircraft over a heavily populated area, so I guess that whatever happened to it must have happened too late for the pilot to avoid the neighborhood.

From the L.A. Times:

Marine officials told The Times the pilot was part of a training squadron and that he was trying to aim the plane at a deserted canyon to avoid slamming into homes or nearby Interstate 805. He had taken off from the carrier Abraham Lincoln several miles off the coast. His destination was the air station. Marine Col. Chris O'Connor pledged an in-depth investigation and to see "that the neighborhood is cleaned up as quickly as possible."

Jason Widmer, who was working in the neighborhood, talked to the pilot after he ejected and landed.

"He was pretty shook up," Widmer said. "And pretty concerned if he had killed anyone. He had seen his bird go into a house."

This is certainly a tragic situation for all involved. It appears that the pilot was taking action to avoid hurting anyone on the ground, but wasn't able to do it. Very sad.

Religious Discrimination in the Military

I guess that I just don't understand some people. I read the bible at home, but I don't particularly care for church services because of the political bent to many church services. I don't really understand the various groups and organizations that intend to suppress all mention of any sort of religion out of all aspects of public life.

One or two years ago, there was a bit of a fuss at SeaTac International Airport. A rabbi, seeing a large Christmas tree at the airport complained. He wasn't complaining about the presence of the tree, rather he thought that a Jewish symbol to celebrate Hanukkah should be displayed along with the tree. This seemed to be a pretty legitimate point of view. The Port of Seattle responded by removing the Christmas tree. The rabbi felt bad about it and said that this was not his intention and that they should put the tree back up. I think the rabbi was being very reasonable in his request, but the hyper-sensitivity to this sort of complaint caused a huge overreaction.

I don't understand how come people feel repressed because a courthouse chooses to display the Ten Commandments or because their child has to utter the word God when they say the pledge of allegiance. I always write these attitudes off to people that go out of their way to be offended by something. For me, if something offends me, I tend to ignore it.

When I was in the navy, I never felt particularly threatened by people that attended services on the boat. When I was stationed on a sub tender, they used to have an evening prayer. Many ceremonies had an invocation prayer. I don't know of anyone that was offended by it. I certainly never felt that there was any sort of overt effort to pressure me into joining in something that I didn't believe in. The tender even had Wiccan services. I thought that the people that participated were a little goofy, but to each his own.

Apparently, not all military members share my point of view and they see a more malevolent side to religion in the military. There is an article in Stripes about a group protesting against the huge amount of religious discrimination in the military. I would guess that if anyone in the military were to be discriminated against on a religious basis, it would be Muslims. I was wrong, though. The biggest targets are atheists, at least according to this group.

"When they say 'there are no atheists in foxholes' it's slanderous," said Wayne Adkins, a former Army first lieutenant who served in Iraq in 2004 and 2005. "To deny their existence is to deny that they serve."

Read the story in Stripes

If a person considers the phrase "There are no athiests in a foxhole" offensive, they must be the same sort of people that go out of there way to feel offended. I also think that they are completely missing the point of the phrase. I sure don't think that this phrase was ever intended to deny the existence of athiests.

Anyway, maybe I was just blind for 20 years. Did anyone else feel that they are (or have been) discriminated against for religious reasons while they were in the military?