Island Voices
Let's stop the blame game of sub's crew

By Linda Johnson
Wife of a submariner

The accident involving the USS Greeneville and the Ehime Maru was just that: an accident. It was a horrific, tragic, terrible accident, but an accident nonetheless.

But there can be no blame. Cmdr. Scott Waddle, the CO, and his crew are among the finest sailors in the Navy. They did everything by the book. But the accidental collision with the fishing vessel happened anyway.

If blame is to be found, then both vessels must share it equally. The submarine was acting in a known submarine activity area. Did anyone piloting the Ehime Maru understand the charts?

Was training being conducted prior to the collision, resulting in sporadic engine speeds, reversing the course, or starting and stopping? All of these factors would have further impeded the Greeneville’s ability to detect the Ehime Maru in already difficult conditions.

Why haven’t there been any speculations about the activities of the Ehime Maru?

Ludicrous point of view? Perhaps. But no more ludicrous than the ridiculous accusations and gossip being thrown about in the media. The Navy spends millions of dollars in training its submariners, and submarine skippers are not chosen randomly. The media and the public are not being correctly informed of this highly skilled "Silent Service" and, as such, look foolish when making grandiose statements about what was or wasn’t done.

A ballistic submarine has a much larger deck surface than does a fast-attack sub. On-scene videos prove there was no way the captain could have allowed anyone from the Greeneville to assist in survivor recovery. Any novice can see the waves washing over the surface. The crew did all they could physically do to assist; Coast Guardsmen got there as fast as they could and did the best job they could.

The American government is wasting taxpayer dollars pursuing the "punishment" of the Greeneville crew. There is no blame. There are no scapegoats. No careers should be sacrificed for foreign relations, or the almighty dollar, for that matter.

Cmdr. Waddle is among the best of the best, a true sailor’s sailor, and if he is sacrificed to appease the Japanese anguish, then we Americans are wrong.

Despite the current attempts to tarnish the U.S. submarine force, I proudly remain a submarine wife, because I know better.

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