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Illegal WiFi on a US Warship
a year ago
How Navy chiefs conspired to get themselves illegal Wi-Fi on a Warship.
Part of me is absolutely incredulous that this happened.
A Senior Chief Information Systems Technician with 22 years of service, a top-secret SCI clearance and extensive training in network operations, not just doing this, but LYING to her commanding officer! All after the XO was relieved for misconduct!!!
(On a side note, SURFPAC has deleted her biography page. Literally as I was writing this. I did a refresh, and boom, 404 error. Too bad that archive.org exists, dipshits. Also, FurAffinity can't parse a doubleURL, so here it is in it's entirety: https://web.archive.org/web/2024090.....grisel-marrero )
This isn't stupid sailor shit. This is straight up sabotage and treason. This is not hyperbole.
Starlink is COMPROMISED!
The company is infested by the GRU for fuck sake! The only way to make it safe to use, is to cover it with military encryption systems. I don't want to think about how many backdoors China has in there. But I still can't figure out WHY they would DO this! Then I learned that the ship is an LCS. An Independence Class Littoral Combat Ship.
And suddenly it all makes perfect sense.
My ship was the USS Reuben James, FFG-57. 453 feet, 4100 tons, and a crew of 235 enlisted and officers. 201 enlisted. 201 bodies to do all the work of keeping the ship in tip-top shape. 201 schleppers to chip paint, swab, dust, clean, perform maintenance, do additional maintenance, accomplish more maintenance, plan maintenance, ensure maintenance was completed, coordinate maintenance with dock facilities, coordinate maintenance with foreign ports, coordinate parts and supplies for maintenance at home and abroad, and then of course, squeezing in a bit of time for training, schooling, exercise, eating, pooping, sleeping, watchstanding and maybe, just maybe, sneaking in a bit of time for a movie, reading a book, or snagging some HOLY FUCKING JESUS CHRIST OH SO PRECIOUS time on a ship's computer to send an email home via INMARSAT.
201 souls to squeeze all that crap into a mere 24 hours, and coordinate all of it through 34 chiefs and officers who are tasked with making the shit happen behind the scenes, where we enlisted pukes dared not tread.
Now then.
Take all of that crap. All that work. All that effort. All that exhaustion. All that behind the scenes bullshit. Stick it into the same size ship. Now make the ship 10 times more complicated, finicky, temperamental and prone to breaking down unless maintenance is performed perfectly every time, on time, without fail or delay.
And do it all with just 40 people.
That's not a typo.
40 core crew.
32 enlisted, 8 officers. When deployed, you get an air wing of 35, but they have their own shit to deal with. And the navy KNOWS this is fucked up beyond belief. They have two separate crews! They get so fucking burned out that the navy has to break them up in gold and blue teams, each one 40 souls, neither of which will ever be able to keep up with the demands of the ship, let alone the needs of their careers, personal lives and families!
. . .
*huff*
. . .
*sigh*
Like I said.
The moment I learned this is an LCS, I understood.
I get it.
That doesn't excuse it, not by a long-shot. This is still something that should get her and every single chief on that boat dishonorably discharged.
But I get it. And when I think about for a little while, I think the officers in charge of the court martial get it too. Which is why all of them got busted down instead of kicked out.
For Marrero, she went from Senior Chief down to chief. E8 to E7. That's bad, make no mistake, and by God it stings. But any of them who were just chiefs, or E7, that means they lost their chief status and dropped down to E6. And if any of them had just recently been promoted to chief, but had not yet been frocked? Meaning they were entitled to wear the khakis and fouled anchor insignia, but were still technically an E6, drawing E6 pay? That means they would get busted down FROM E6. Meaning they lose the rank of chief, AND first-class petty officer, going all the way down to E5. That's just as much of a career killer as a dishonorable discharge.
So yeah. I think the admirals at the court martial might feel the same.
*heavy sigh*
I didn't serve on an LCS. I don't have to in order to understand the shit that goes on both in front and behind the scenes, and just how exhausting it is. It's a ship. And ship shit is fucking universal. No matter what navy you serve in, the same things exist for all of us. You serve on one ship, you learn that it's the same for everyone.
The United States Military is an all-volunteer force.
It's that way for a reason.
We want the best.
And we get the best.
So it's about fucking time we start treating and paying our Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, Coast Guard and Space Force like they are the best.
Because shit like this will keep happening if we don't give our people the support they need and fucking deserve.
/ so fucking done.
Part of me is absolutely incredulous that this happened.
A Senior Chief Information Systems Technician with 22 years of service, a top-secret SCI clearance and extensive training in network operations, not just doing this, but LYING to her commanding officer! All after the XO was relieved for misconduct!!!
(On a side note, SURFPAC has deleted her biography page. Literally as I was writing this. I did a refresh, and boom, 404 error. Too bad that archive.org exists, dipshits. Also, FurAffinity can't parse a doubleURL, so here it is in it's entirety: https://web.archive.org/web/2024090.....grisel-marrero )
This isn't stupid sailor shit. This is straight up sabotage and treason. This is not hyperbole.
Starlink is COMPROMISED!
The company is infested by the GRU for fuck sake! The only way to make it safe to use, is to cover it with military encryption systems. I don't want to think about how many backdoors China has in there. But I still can't figure out WHY they would DO this! Then I learned that the ship is an LCS. An Independence Class Littoral Combat Ship.
And suddenly it all makes perfect sense.
My ship was the USS Reuben James, FFG-57. 453 feet, 4100 tons, and a crew of 235 enlisted and officers. 201 enlisted. 201 bodies to do all the work of keeping the ship in tip-top shape. 201 schleppers to chip paint, swab, dust, clean, perform maintenance, do additional maintenance, accomplish more maintenance, plan maintenance, ensure maintenance was completed, coordinate maintenance with dock facilities, coordinate maintenance with foreign ports, coordinate parts and supplies for maintenance at home and abroad, and then of course, squeezing in a bit of time for training, schooling, exercise, eating, pooping, sleeping, watchstanding and maybe, just maybe, sneaking in a bit of time for a movie, reading a book, or snagging some HOLY FUCKING JESUS CHRIST OH SO PRECIOUS time on a ship's computer to send an email home via INMARSAT.
201 souls to squeeze all that crap into a mere 24 hours, and coordinate all of it through 34 chiefs and officers who are tasked with making the shit happen behind the scenes, where we enlisted pukes dared not tread.
Now then.
Take all of that crap. All that work. All that effort. All that exhaustion. All that behind the scenes bullshit. Stick it into the same size ship. Now make the ship 10 times more complicated, finicky, temperamental and prone to breaking down unless maintenance is performed perfectly every time, on time, without fail or delay.
And do it all with just 40 people.
That's not a typo.
40 core crew.
32 enlisted, 8 officers. When deployed, you get an air wing of 35, but they have their own shit to deal with. And the navy KNOWS this is fucked up beyond belief. They have two separate crews! They get so fucking burned out that the navy has to break them up in gold and blue teams, each one 40 souls, neither of which will ever be able to keep up with the demands of the ship, let alone the needs of their careers, personal lives and families!
. . .
*huff*
. . .
*sigh*
Like I said.
The moment I learned this is an LCS, I understood.
I get it.
That doesn't excuse it, not by a long-shot. This is still something that should get her and every single chief on that boat dishonorably discharged.
But I get it. And when I think about for a little while, I think the officers in charge of the court martial get it too. Which is why all of them got busted down instead of kicked out.
For Marrero, she went from Senior Chief down to chief. E8 to E7. That's bad, make no mistake, and by God it stings. But any of them who were just chiefs, or E7, that means they lost their chief status and dropped down to E6. And if any of them had just recently been promoted to chief, but had not yet been frocked? Meaning they were entitled to wear the khakis and fouled anchor insignia, but were still technically an E6, drawing E6 pay? That means they would get busted down FROM E6. Meaning they lose the rank of chief, AND first-class petty officer, going all the way down to E5. That's just as much of a career killer as a dishonorable discharge.
So yeah. I think the admirals at the court martial might feel the same.
*heavy sigh*
I didn't serve on an LCS. I don't have to in order to understand the shit that goes on both in front and behind the scenes, and just how exhausting it is. It's a ship. And ship shit is fucking universal. No matter what navy you serve in, the same things exist for all of us. You serve on one ship, you learn that it's the same for everyone.
The United States Military is an all-volunteer force.
It's that way for a reason.
We want the best.
And we get the best.
So it's about fucking time we start treating and paying our Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, Coast Guard and Space Force like they are the best.
Because shit like this will keep happening if we don't give our people the support they need and fucking deserve.
/ so fucking done.
I think there may be several factors at play, here.
1. Rank Hath It's Privileges.
2. I'm the Command Senior Chief: who's going to tell me "No."?
3. I have been in this Navy for twenty fucking years, putting up with all of this shit, all of this racism, all of this sexism, fighting my way up through the ranks, fighting for respect, putting my ass on the line, and THIS FUCKING SHITHOLE ASSIGNMENT is how you fucking THANK ME?!? To fucking work me to DEATH?! Just so some fucking bean counters in DC can point to my incinerated corpse and say, "Duh-hur, lookee here, admiral? This proves we can cut our crews by 80%, a-hyuck!" Well FUCK! YOU! I'm going to make this fucking shithole somewhat tolerable for me and my chiefs, because we did NOT come this fucking far to get buttfucked and simply take it.
Like I said? 20 years of sterling, shining service. That salad bar on her chest isn't bullshit, Sik.
Her personal awards include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (three awards), Army Commendation Medal, Joint Service Achievement Medal (four awards), Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (four awards), Army Achievement Medal, Navy Good Conduct Medal (six awards), Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, and various other unit and campaign awards.She put in the time, the effort, the blood, sweat and tears. She should have been sent to the Pentagon, or a teaching billet. And if it was her turn to go to sea, then she should have been sent to a carrier or DDG.
But instead she got sent to Hell.
Now, I could be completely wrong! She might have requested duty on an LCS! It's a horrible billet, and everyone knows it. You know that you're going to get burned to a crisp and sucked dry like a bug in a spider web. And if that's the case, and she did all this fucked up shit, then fuck her! Kick her the fuck out.
But if she got dumped there because some shitty detailer in Millington gets a stiffy when they screw over female sailors, then I totally understand why this happened.
She was wrong! Dead wrong! So very dead wrong.
But again, you can't beat a loyal companion like that without expecting some kind of bad behavior as a result.
And this complicates the issue nicely. The misogyny and discrimination in the US military is an obvious and long term issue. I can also see how this might incline her to feel justified in doing what she's done.
My overall feelings towards the military machine here are rather negative.
I grew up during the US war on Vietnam. I saw that on TV every night. And we've been on the wrong side of SO many conflicts since then. The sheer amount of treasure and lives wasted is hard to even get your head around.
Since I was ten I grew up protesting that war, and I've protested every war since. I was within three years of potentially being drafted when Vietnam ended. I was seriously thinking about whether I'd go to jail, try for a medical deferment, or flee the country, because there was NO FUCKING WAY I was going to support that war.
I believe that we could and should radically cut our military budget. Outspending the next ten countries combined on this is sheer insanity, particularly considering the positive things we could be doing with the over a trillion bucks we spend on this insanity every single year, and this spending only continues to go up.
Even just considering the obvious waste and overspending, a huge amount could be saved. And then there's garbage like Space Force, which shouldn't even exist... -Don't even get me started.
There's nothing wrong with her that can't be fixed by adding 60 personnel to the core crew of 40. And if you added 80, for a total of 155 with the air wing, they would be able to drop the Gold and Blue bullshit.
They are burning out the kids, man. They can't get trained, they don't learn anything, they get scorched, and they don't wanna stay. And then the chief's mess, which has always been a scant hair's breadth from being a fucking mafia, feels justified in doing stupid shit like this.
As for the problems, that doesn't surprise me. All ships have them.
But if the crew is too small, then all problems become big ones down the road, and the ship will be in trouble. With more personnel, they should be able to keep up with the little things.
But when you've got problems that can't be dealt with by the crew? Yeah, that's a whole different ballgame. Especially when the crew knows about the problems, and can't do anything about them, or those problems exacerbate the little ones they're already unable to deal with.
Which again, brings me to understanding why the goat locker felt entitled to be a bunch of idiots. Not excusing! Understanding.
Other then that just watching the US military industrial complex and its issues and then seeing how things are being done in Ukraine, especially how the US funds that are pouring into the war over there are how funneled back into US Arms manufacturers in the country, I as a Hungarian I find it outrageous that you can just print money out of thin air and tax your citizens and steal their savings just because you have the right to issue money. Those times are now finally coming to a violent end at least, no nation will be able to rob its citizens of their savings if they won't hand over their money.
I'm against all war, but supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do here. Russia's invasion was and is an unjustifiable violation of international law, and they're committing war crimes. This started with their first invasion in '14, and has only gotten more egregious since '22.
Sadly, some far right Republicans here are becoming victims of Russian propaganda and supporting Russia in this now.