As someone who spent 24 years in the U.S. Navy, qualifying as a naval flight officer navigator and tactical coordinator, and as officer of the deck, I am heartbroken and concerned about what may have caused the recent crashes of naval ships in the Pacific.
I am heartbroken because a total of 17 enlisted sailors who had volunteered to defend the nation were were killed, and for no good reason, the result of a June crash involving the USS Fitzgerald destroyer and a Philippine flagged container ship in the busy approaches to Tokyo Bay, and an August collision of the USS John McCain destroyer and a Liberian flagged tanker near the heavily traveled Strait of Malacca.
The above excerpt was originally published in The American Conservative.
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