November 15, 2004
Associated Press

YOKOSUKA, Japan (Kyodo) — Nineteen sailors from the cruiser Vincennes have either been imprisoned or dishonorably discharged from the service for drug offenses since June, Navy and other sources said Saturday.
Navy investigators started a probe based on a tip received around June that some sailors from the warship were abusing drugs, and found that the 19 were using designer drugs such as MDMA, commonly known as Ecstasy, as well as cocaine, the sources said.

Although they were not court-martialed, two were jailed for using drugs and trading them with other crew members, and 17 others were dishonorably discharged and sent home, the sources said.

The 9,407-ton Vincennes is home-ported at Yokosuka Naval Fleet Activities, Japan.

That is so sad. I don't understand why someone would do that and mess up their career and the Navy's name... or reputation, or THEIR name for that matter!!

I've never been on a Navy cruise, and I won't be going on one in the future. . .but from what I understand those cruises can be pretty long. I was wondering what exactly there is to do on a ship? Maybe at their young age they are "kinda passing the time."

I dont know, just throwing something out there. If someone is in the Navy on the forum I would like to know what kind of recreation, or free time the Navy gives you on extended cruises. Thanks.

Joe As I was in the army, I do not know what the squids do while at sea duty but there is no excuse for a service member to ever do illegal drugs and they should have gotten the full punishment that the military could give them. Drugs and the military do not go well together.

Question, didn't this ship have something else happen to it a few years ago?

I agree with you Coachman. When something like this happens one can't help to think what was going through their heads. . . so we can prevent it from happening in the future.

Now more than ever the military doesn't need to have this kind of crap getting in the way of the mission; there is too much at risk. We are now publicly at war 24/7, and this kind of publicity is not what the military needs.

There's not much to do on navy ships, except your job. The better skippers keep their sailors busy, even if it's busy work. Usually, there is a breakdown in command somewhere for this to happen on such a scale. Obviously these sailors were taking this stuff onto the ship, which should never happen. There should be random searches of personal, general, and work areas. (A smart sailor would not store the stuff in his or her personal effects.) The big problem is liberty ports, where sailors can get into A WHOLE LOTTA TROUBLE with whores, drug dealers and others in the clubs outside of the bases. Japan is more restrictive, but anything goes in Thailand, the Philippines, and if you have the money, in Hong Kong. Random searches boarding ships, random searches aboard ships, and random drug tests are the solutions.

The USS Vincennes is infamous for shooting down an Iranian airliner in 1988.

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/vince.html

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Originally posted by TOW Gunner:
(A smart sailor would not store the stuff in his or her personal effects.)

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A SMART sailor would not use or have that stuff period!!!!! They don't already do random searches and drug tests on the ships??

Thanks TOW for throwin that out there. It is sad that an incident such as this will ultimately fall on the commander(most likely). If I were in charge I would try to come up with a way to increase moral, or what have you, in order to decrease the chances of this happening. Drugs, alchohol, etc are what most teens do when they are bored, and have no superivsion. They really oughta get more involved so this doesn't happen. I just hate to see somebody wanting to serve their country resorting to drugs, and then getting kicked out b/c of their stupidity.

You're right, a smart sailor wouldn't use the stuff. But from my experience as a Marine living aboard a navy ship, a search of a common area might turn up something illegal, such as the time steroids and needles were found. Everyone had their suspicions about who it belonged to (one guy looked like the Incredible Hulk), but no one could prove anything.

On a related note about the Vincennes (and this touches on another topic in the forums about where terrorists could strike next in America) the wife of the skipper of the Vincennes was targeted. The skipper, Will Rogers, was exonerated by the Navy but vilified by Iran for shooting down the commerncial airliner with, I believe, around 260 Iranians aboard. After the accident, a bomb blew up the back of Mrs. Rogers van as she was driving in or near San Diego. Supposedly, terrorist Iranians had found her and tracked her daily movements, and planted a remote bomb. An FBI investigation later found that the bomb could have been from an American, but not sure what came of it. Nevertheless, the Roger's daughter (or son, I can't remember) was kicked out of their private school in San Diego County because the administrators of the school thought that they would be a terrorist target if the Roger's child kept attending. This happened in 1989 and goes to show that the Iranians were the forerunners of terror tactics we are seeing today in Iraq.

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Originally posted by SGreen84:
That is so sad. I don't understand why someone would do that and mess up their career and the Navy's name... or reputation, or THEIR name for that matter!!

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Well, they don't just do it in the Navy. I was 6 months short (in my Army days) when a company call (All Hands) came down one morning. Everyone was sitting in the day room and the CO walks in and states if your name is called head to the class room. The classroom was adjacent to the day room. He called 19 names...must be something about that number...after which he told everyone else to wait in the day room. Once the group was in the room 6 cars pulled up to our barracks. CID. The investigators walked in, went to the classroom, and arrested all of them. The charges ranged from use & possession of cocaine to possession with intent.

18 were court marshalled. The 19th (simple possession resulting from wrong place wrong time) testified against the others. She, #19, got 8 months at the retraining brigade, Ft. Riley, KS, lost her rank, was reclassified and returned to active duty. The other 18 all got sentenced to hard labor at Leavenworth ranging from 5 to 20 years. The Sgt. who got 20 will be released next month...fell Dec. 1984.

Now for the catch...this was an MP unit. It's sad to say but it can happen anywhere.

I though I had read something about that ship, and your right TOW a smart sailor does not need to have that junk.

Joe, you seem like a nice guy, but there's a lot you don't understand. Let's clear a few things up, here:

- Keeping morale high onboard a ship has little to do with drug use. Ditto for boring deployments at sea.

- This will probably not come down to haunt the Captain, as he is not the personal babysitter for the crew. These dirtbags were old enough to know what they were doing.

- Their stupidity doesn't stem from getting caught, it stems from taking drugs in the first place. Kinda hard to hide from urinalysis.

Now, about the VINCENNES incident. In my not-so-humble opinion the Skipper was at fault. I have served with two men who were in CIC on the day of the incident (including the guy who actually sent the order to launch the birds), and I received CAPT Rogers' dog-and-pony show briefing. If we want to have a separate thread discussing things I'm more than willing to share the unclassified parts of what I know.

Why wasn't Rogers cashiered when CDR Bridel, CO of USS STARK, was? Simple: court-marshalling Rogers would have admitted liability to the Iranians. Rogers mistake was one of being to aggressive; Brindel's mistake was one of being too passive.

On a final note, the bomb planted in Mrs. Rogers' mini-van was not put there by a terrorist. It was planted by CAPT Rogers' mistress of many years, who saw a chance to kill the wife and blame terrorists for it.

Thankyou SD for the response. Let me say first I agree that their stupidity was from taking the drugs, and not from getting caught. I hope I didn't lead you to thinking everything is alright untill you get caught.

I do have a couple questions, b/c I can learn from this incident as a future commander. If this happens again will it start to affect the skippers record? Would you also agree that teens relate to drugs when they have nothing better to do to pass the time? If so is there anything that a commander could do to medicine the problem before it occurs? How often does morale, if ever, slip on board of a ship? Why? Thanks for your time. JOE

I have to disagree with you SD on the cpt. is not the baby sitter, as a commander he is responsible for every thing under his command good and bad. This is one of those times that we can agree to disagree. When I was stationed at Ft. Hood, Tx in the 1st Cav as an E-7 Platoon sgt one of my good soldiers was caught on the piss test, and the commander explained to him that altho he(soldier) had not been smoking (2nd hand smoke) that every thing that happens in the unit he (Cdr) was responsible then asked me if I could guarantee that he would never be around drugs or the people using, I said that though I am responsible for the actions of my soldiers, I could not do that. I felt then as I do now, if your in a command position then you are in fact responsible for the actions of your troops.

I thought I would just throw this out there someone made the statement about nothing to do onboard ship. Underway has daily work station of 0800-1600 daily then when you finish you just might have 1600-2000 underway watch normal underway watch for E-6 and below is 4 on and 8 off.But don't forget you usualy have Fire & Damage Control Drills daily and also General Quarters 2 or three times a week don't forget when these Ships are underway they are on patrol or on plane guard for other ships or have US Marines on operations.Oh I forgot they usualy give you half a day off on Sat.if you don't have the watch and all day sun.if you don't have the watch by the way drills can happen anytime usualy not during chow. By the way drugs is what ran me out of the USN I had to inspect my Engineroom every morning while we were in the Med. esp. around Turkey and some of the other Ports where Drugs were readly available.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sully,

So are drugs a reoccuring problem in the Navy? I guess I didn't understand that last part. Thanks.

Sure has been since late 50's esp. drugs which are easly hidden before middle or late 60's they had no drug testing. I am not sure when it started.I think it was not used much until after Vietnam started I think it was noticed on front line. People don't want to admit it but it was a big problem.

The incident that brought the drug problem to the fore in the Navy was the loss of an EA6B Prowler, her aircrew and several of the deck crew on the Nimitz in 1980.

Bad JuJu from a joint......

Can't 'Call the Ball' when you ain't on the ball....if you know what I mean..