The Navy has relieved 12 commanding officers up to now in 2024 — together with three firings that haven’t beforehand been made public, based on info supplied to Army.com by the service.
Along with the 9 publicly introduced firings, Capt. Alex Dutko, supervisor of the Direct and Time Delicate Strike program; Capt. Michael Meno, commander of Naval Development Group 1; and Capt. David Wilson, commander of Naval Assist Exercise South Potomac, have been additionally relieved of their instructions previously six months, a Navy spokesman stated.
When requested concerning the three firings and why they weren’t made public, the Navy spokesman stated that the ocean service doesn’t publicly announce reliefs that aren’t the results of a lack of the belief and confidence within the officers’ skill to command.
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Lack of confidence is a boilerplate purpose supplied by the Navy that may embody something from points with the way in which the commander is treating their crew to non-public actions like drunken driving. Nonetheless, commanders will also be relieved for medical causes or ask to be relieved themselves, the Navy spokesman famous.
Navy officers have beforehand stated the ocean service relieved 15 commanding officers in 2023. There are at the moment round 1,600 commanding officers within the active-duty Navy throughout all communities.
Because the begin of the yr, the Navy has fired three commanders — two submarine skippers and one SEAL commodore — for drunk driving incidents.
Capt. Kurt Balagna, who commanded the USS Ohio sub’s gold crew, was arrested March 5 by Washington state police for driving with a blood alcohol content material of round 0.24% in a state with a authorized restrict of 0.08%.
Equally, Capt. Richard Zaszewski, previously commodore of Navy Particular Warfare Group Eight, was arrested Jan. 19 for driving with a blood alcohol content material between 0.15% and 0.2%.
Lastly, additionally in January, the Navy fired the commander of the USS Georgia’s blue crew — Capt. Geoffry Patterson — after he was arrested within the early hours of Jan. 9 on costs together with driving underneath the affect and improper lane change.
Two of the 12 fired Navy commanders have been chaplains assigned to the Coast Guard.
Capt. Daniel Mode, the Coast Guard’s prime chaplain who had served in that place since 2022, was fired in April after he did not take motion when he was made conscious of sexual misconduct by one other chaplain.
In Could, the Coast Guard additionally fired Navy Cmdr. Cristiano DeSousa, the Seventh District Chaplain in Miami, Florida, with no clarification outdoors of the standard “lack of confidence in his talents to meet the expectations of his place.”
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