HMCS Preserver 2012 Hijinks in Florida=desertion charge?

[Journeyman]

There's a lot more to this story than you're aware of.

But don't let the absence of facts stop a good e-lynching by the barrack-room lawyers.  op:

 

[The_Falcon]

Yeah, because its not like there were ever any problem with folks when we were doing the 72 hr R&R leave centers in the Balkans, in Guam after APOLLO 0 and currently in Cyprus.  Heck, they were so well behaved they didn't even put any MP on staff there...oh, wait a minute...

The Roto that did the work up training in Ft Bliss Texas in 2008, when they got there respite after training.......if even half the stories I was told were true, how THAT didn't make the news.....(heck even the CDS commented on it when we were in Irwin for Roto 9 workup, saying they learned from '08, and hoped to hell we didn't break Las Vegas).

 

[Colin Parkinson]

If you missed your ship and contacted the navy, ship or even embassy and awaited instructions, then you will still face charges but likely not desertion. If you missed your ship, said screw it and went back into the sack with Bonita, then you have a problem.

 

[Stoker]

Actually I was very surprised at the shift in attitude toward drinking in foregin ports, it doesn't help that Key West is a major area for bars and partying. When you have a ship come into their first port after so many days at sea with a bunch of sailors who are fatigued, people are going to blow their heads off.  I would rather have it happen on the ship (in a controlled manner) than ashore where they can get hurt. Over the years we  had a few sailors ashore that died while drunk.  Is the answer to ban booze off the ship, perhaps but as the Americans have found pers will turn to other means like drugs. Perhaps what we need when a ship arrives in port, the ship's organizes other activities such as tours of local attractions and stuff like that.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The Chaplin service on major US warships have/had a volunteer program, where groups in the port of call can request assistance of the crew. I managed to wrangle 30 seaman off of a USN aircraft carrier (Ranger I think) to help scrap the bottom of our Museum's 50' Seiner. Made sure all the young single girls working at the Museum's came down to help out as well. The sailors weren't expect women to be there, so that made the work go quickly so they could spend time chatting up the girls. Everyone went away happy that day.

 

[medicineman]

I disagree.  Making his way back to his shore based home unit would show that he did not intend to desert, and was using a reasonable means to return to his unit.

Desertion would be more in line with: if (s)he decided to disappear and intend not to return to CAF service at all.

Kind of like the dude who's room I packed up as a private - there were his ID cards and ID discs on his desk with a big "Frig The Army" letter explaining his not being at work anymore...

MM

 

[DAA]

Kind of like the dude who's room I packed up as a private - there were his ID cards and ID discs on his desk with a big "Frig The Army" letter explaining his not being at work anymore...
MM

Saw something similar, many years ago.

3 guys were going up on charge and the ultimate outcome was "detention", hands down.  But rather than proceeding with the charges, the unit decided to wait because we were deploying for RV 87, so they would do this in Wainwright and thus save TD money to get the individuals/escorts to and from the DB in Edmonton.  First two guys go up and get 30 days.  The last guys time comes and he is no where to be found.  His ID Card and Dogtags are laying on his cot/sleeping bag.  So he gets reported as AWOL.

Unit redeploys back to Base and admin procedures go into effect.  10 days prior to the date that we could have "administratively" released him, he turns himself in to the DB in Edmonton.  DB says send someone out to escort him back, unit replies that they are not going to do this, gives the DB a fin code and tells them to buy him a plane ticket from Edm to Ott and then he can take a bus back to Pet and turn himself in again.

So the DB does as told.  Guy gets on the plane, flies from Edm to Ott but doesn't show up in Pet.......

At the end of the day, he was an admin release 12 months later.  But at least his trip back home was paid for!    :rofl:

 

[Pusser]

An that's a fair statement - being human and making mistakes and getting a grip.  Unfortunately, the way the senior leadership might choose to 'get a grip' might be to do away wih booze on ships.  Will it stop these kind of incidents?  No.  But at least the ship won't be contributing to it.  A LOT of sailors fail to realize that there is a building movement underway to do away wih booze.  Because it is a relatively easy way to mitigate some of this stuff.  EVERYTIME something like this happens, the argument gains more ligitimacy.  There is simply very, very little tolerance among the Canadian public for this kind of stuff from CAF members.

The biggest problem here would be a spineless leadership that would actually make it sound that our sailors were somehow being abnormal.  Getting drunk at a hot tourist spot in Florida!  Heck, no one ever does that so there is obviously something wrong in the Royal Canadian Navy that its sailors might indulge a bit! 

Removing booze from ships would be the worst thing they could do.  You don't have to look too far to see the problems the USN has in its "dry" ships (booze and drugs smuggled on board and far worse problems with debauchery ashore when they get alongside than we've ever had to deal with).  We studied this years ago and I remember talking to the crusty old chiefs who were quick to point out that we had more trouble with booze in the Navy BEFORE we had bars on board for the sailors (NB: prior to stopping the tot, only the Wardroom had a bar - everyone else got their daily tot).  There was widespread hoarding of tots and smuggling of booze on board.  When you try to ban something, you drive it underground and  that only makes the problem worse (look at Prohibition for another bad American example).  Keeping bars on board the ships enables us to control it, which is good, because we'll never be able to stop it.

 

[MARS]

The biggest problem here would be a spineless leadership that would actually make it sound that our sailors were somehow being abnormal.  Getting drunk at a hot tourist spot in Florida!  Heck, no one ever does that so there is obviously something wrong in the Royal Canadian Navy that its sailors might indulge a bit! 

Removing booze from ships would be the worst thing they could do.  You don't have to look too far to see the problems the USN has in its "dry" ships (booze and drugs smuggled on board and far worse problems with debauchery ashore when they get alongside than we've ever had to deal with).  We studied this years ago and I remember talking to the crusty old chiefs who were quick to point out that we had more trouble with booze in the Navy BEFORE we had bars on board for the sailors (NB: prior to stopping the tot, only the Wardroom had a bar - everyone else got their daily tot).  There was widespread hoarding of tots and smuggling of booze on board.  When you try to ban something, you drive it underground and  that only makes the problem worse (look at Prohibition for another bad American example).  Keeping bars on board the ships enables us to control it, which is good, because we'll never be able to stop it.

I agree with everything you have said.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Quote from: Pusser on Today at 18:00:35

The biggest problem here would be a spineless leadership that would actually make it sound that our sailors were somehow being abnormal.  Getting drunk at a hot tourist spot in Florida!  Heck, no one ever does that so there is obviously something wrong in the Royal Canadian Navy that its sailors might indulge a bit! 

Removing booze from ships would be the worst thing they could do.  You don't have to look too far to see the problems the USN has in its "dry" ships (booze and drugs smuggled on board and far worse problems with debauchery ashore when they get alongside than we've ever had to deal with).  We studied this years ago and I remember talking to the crusty old chiefs who were quick to point out that we had more trouble with booze in the Navy BEFORE we had bars on board for the sailors (NB: prior to stopping the tot, only the Wardroom had a bar - everyone else got their daily tot).  There was widespread hoarding of tots and smuggling of booze on board.  When you try to ban something, you drive it underground and  that only makes the problem worse (look at Prohibition for another bad American example).  Keeping bars on board the ships enables us to control it, which is good, because we'll never be able to stop it.

I agree with everything you have said.

:ditto:

Things will go off the rails; sailors, soldiers and air force members will find ways to get into trouble; when (not if) they do then punish the guilty ~ quickly and publicly ~ not the large, responsible, innocent majority.

That senior officers are more worried about image than in treating adults like adults suggests that the wrong messages are being sent from the very, very top.

 

[Journeyman]

Perhaps what we need when a ship arrives in port, the ship's organizes other activities such as tours of local attractions and stuff like that.

  :rofl:




....oh, you were serious....   :-[

 

[George Wallace]

Wasn't it the visits to "local attractions" that got these guys into kaka in the first place?

 

[Occam]

Perhaps what we need when a ship arrives in port, the ship's organizes other activities such as tours of local attractions and stuff like that.

They've done that for years.  First organized tour I ever had in a foreign port was in 1986 - of the Tuborg Brewery in Copenhagen.  ;D

 

[Stoker]

They've done that for years.  First organized tour I ever had in a foreign port was in 1986 - of the Tuborg Brewery in Copenhagen.  ;D

So did I, but later in life I wish I actually toured a little more than drank my face off all the time. Like it or not the guys are going to drink, I just think we need alternatives than drinking your face off.  Tuboug the beer of Danish Kings :nod: