thesustainers

Bill Mayton, Simmons Professor Emeritus at Emory Law School.  Prior to Emory I flew for the Navy from 1963-69, and then attended Columbia Law School, was an attorney on the Watergate Committee, and entered teaching, where I taught and wrote about the Constitution.

My postings are about the citizen, about “sustainers” as first identified at Athens and then found among us, in early 1600’s at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, in 1776 and the Declaration of Independence, in the 1787 Constitution, in 1868 in the Fourteenth Amendment, and now today.   Odd items are included, as in this post of an immediate interest.

                                              Dont Give Up the Ship

It’s a Navy’s theme, “Dont Give Up the Ship”, taken (with apostrophe omitted) from the dying words of a ship commander in the War of 1812.  Flying in the Navy I had an engine problem and landed at the nearest airport, a civilian one; mechanics there could fix the problem.  In the meantime I was going off base to eat.  But then I heard from my squadron, my XO saying “don’t leave the plane”.  You have to stay with the plane no matter where or what; it’s all part of a bigger deal.  Right now, though, that deal, “Dont Give Up the Ship” seems disrespected.  Here’s how.

Two Navy boats (“riverine command boats”) on Jan. 12 departed Kuwait.  At about 2:00 p.m. they were to be refueled a cutter.  At 2:10 GMT, though, the Navy received a report that the boats were held by Iranians.  As Iran then showed, the boats and crew had been captured.  Sailors were kneeling down, all under Iranian guns.  The boat commander then apologized to the Iranians.

All of this took place on the day of President Obama’s “State of the Union” message.  The next day the crews were released. Just a few days ago, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei awarded medals to Revolution Guard members involved in the capture. (As a matter of course, Iran probably used the boats and hostages as tender for the US advancing that nation 1.5 billion dollars, which is another story.)

Right now, the problem is how so quickly we slipped by “Dont Give UP the Ship”. How did the Revolutionary Guard capture the boat?  Why did the boat commander so quickly apologize? The answer, as said by our administration, is diplomacy.  –Maybe in political circles but not for the military.  The military view is offered by Capt. Tuma, retired, in a Jan. 25 article in the Navy Times.  His script is Defense Department Instruction 1300.21.  From that text he asked:

“Did Navy commanders adequately prepare their personnel for operations in a hostile environment, the Persian Gulf?  a. Were personnel briefed on the intentions and capabilities of hostile forces in the area? b. Were personnel briefed on authorized actions in the event they were confronted by hostile forces? c. What force were personnel permitted to use to avoid capture?”

And “Did the commanders . . . carry out their duties?”   Until those questions are answered, the Naval Academy store should suspend its sales of Dont Give Up the Ship tee shirts.