Command Senior Chief Grisel Marrero
How Navy chiefs conspired to get themselves illegal warship Wi-Fi
By Diana Stancy | Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Today’s Navy sailors are likely familiar with the jarring loss of internet connectivity that can come with a ship’s deployment.
For a variety of reasons, including operational security, a crew’s internet access is regularly restricted while underway, to preserve bandwidth for the mission and to keep their ship safe from nefarious online attacks.
But the senior enlisted leaders among the littoral combat ship Manchester’s gold crew knew no such privation last year, when they installed and secretly used their very own Wi-Fi network during a deployment, according to a scathing internal investigation obtained by Navy Times.
As the ship prepared for a West Pacific deployment in April 2023, the enlisted leader onboard conspired with the ship’s chiefs to install the secret, unauthorized network aboard the ship, for use exclusively by them.
So while rank-and-file sailors lived without the level of internet connectivity they enjoyed ashore, the chiefs installed a Starlink satellite internet dish on the top of the ship and used a Wi-Fi network they dubbed “STINKY” to check sports scores, text home and stream movies.
There’s more at the Navy Times original, about how then-Command Senior Chief Grisel Marrero arranged for the purchase of the Starlink system, got it covertly installed, and distributed the system among the ‘chief’s mess,’ the grouping of the chief petty officers on a ship.
I first saw this story, from another source, while I was in France, and thought about how stupid it was, but then I got more on it Wednesday evening, and I marveled at the utter stupidity of it all. Chief Marrero was the Chief of the Boat on the USS Manchester (LCS-14), the senior enlisted person on the ship, and is expected to advise the commanding officer and executive officer on all subjects.
That’s the part which really caught my eye: the COB simply can’t be stupid, but Chief Marrero apparently is, as are all of the other chief petty officers aboard the Manchester. All of the chiefs knew of the wifi system, and attempted to keep it a secret, but, as is the case in any small and closed community, the secret didn’t stay secret. Rumors started floating around, the CO called in the COB to question her about it, and Chief Marrero did what so many do when caught with their hand in the cookie jar: she lied through her scummy teeth!
You can read the sordid details in the Navy Times original, and I’ve no reason to repeat them here. The COB and her fellow conspirators conspired to keep the secret once they heard of rumors about it, when the real thing to do, if they’d had any sense at all — that is: assuming some sense other than installing the stupid thing in the first place — would have been to toss any evidence of it overboard. But no, they changed the name of the system to that of a wireless printer to try to conceal it, but kept the thing running. What a great way to get yourself caught!
In the end, Chief Marrero was court martialed, while the other chiefs underwent administrative punishment via a Commodore’s Mast. Chief Marrero? She was sentenced to a reduction in rank, all the way down to E-7, just one grade lower.
She’s still a chief petty officer!
The news stories about this don’t tell us much about what happened to the other chiefs who were in on the deal, but non-judicial punishment is still a limited thing. Chief Marrero loses the rocker above the chevrons, but a top enlisted person, charged with advising her CO and XO, will still be a top non-commissioned officer, and entrusted with duties requiring trust and good judgement. To me, this calls into question not just the intelligence of Chief Marrero and her fellows in the chiefs’ mess aboard the Manchester, but that of the Navy brass, who were tolerant enough to allow her to stay in the Navy, and retain a responsible position. If the Navy brass are that stupid, how can we ever expect them to carry out their duties the way we expect if they ever find themselves in a war again?
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Actually, COB is specific to submarines. On surface vessels and aviation commands, the senior enlisted person is typically the Command Master Chief (CMC). It’s a similar position, but there are differences in responsibilities based on the differences between the surface and subsurface communities.
Apparently either the Manchester’s crew was small enough that they didn’t have a Master Chief, of there was a manpower shortage resulting in the Command Master Chief billet being filled by a Senior Chief…therefore she would be correctly called the Command Senior Chief or CSC.
To the story…I believe that she was treated so leniently because of the current focus of the US Military on woke ideology including DEI. She obviously checked at least two of the three DEI checkboxes; the article didn’t specify but if she’s a member of the LGBTQEIEIO mafia, her trifecta is complete.
Even without that third credential, as such an intersectional being, she was not subject to the full wrath of “privileged white male” and therefore was let off lightly.
She (and the rest of the Chief’s mess under her purview) explicitly endangered the entire ship and crew, and then lied about it repeatedly to the COs face.
That would have never flown in the Navy of my day.
To be honest, the current state of both our military and our country in general often make me feel a bit queasy: I spent the best 21 years of my life defending THIS? What a waste.
Just another reason I long ago stopped recommending the military as a viable career choice for young people. Do yourself a favor, learn a trade. Good welders are in high demand.
Sailor Curt wrote:
Both of my daughters have served in the United States Army Reserve, and my older daughter is still in; she’s going for her twenty. And both of their civilian careers are based upon the skills that they first learned in the Army, a surveyor and an IT-communications professional.
Hope you didn’t take offense at my comment. It wasn’t directed at individual military members, but at the woke leadership and environment in general. I know for a fact that there are still good people in the military, struggling mightily to be effective and maintain combat readiness in the face of huge obstacles.
No offense taken. It was simply a statement that the military is a viable career choice, and a place in which you can learn a skill useful in the civilian market.