NAVY’S GROWING SHORTFALLS ON SHIP READINESS FRUSTRATE THE MARINE CORPS:
The Navy‘s troubles with keeping ships maintained and at sea have only worsened in the last several years, resulting in a less-ready force when the service is looked to as the first line of defense against China, the Government Accountability Office reported this week.
The service’s inability to keep ships running is also having serious effects on the operations of the Marine Corps, which relies on Navy ships to transport and position them near mission areas, to the frustration of officials in that branch.
Overall, the watchdog agency report released Tuesday found that while the Army and Marines have managed to keep up or increase the readiness of their troops, the Navy’s sea forces have been on the decline — with some areas worsening for more than a decade.
“We found in January 2023 that sustainment challenges worsened from fiscal year 2011 through 2021 for 10 ship classes we reviewed,” according to the GAO report.
The challenges included growing maintenance delays, an increase in the number of platforms being raided for spare parts, and more and more ships reporting serious breakdowns and failures.
To be fair, the Navy has much more fabulous priorities these days instead of dealing with all of that tedious readiness malarkey: Is the US Navy the new Bud Light?
He read that the US Navy has appointed a nonbinary drag queen, “Harpy Daniels” as a “digital ambassador” charged with recruiting new members to the military. Cockburn’s brief time in Navy Yard means that he knows sailors have unorthodox tastes, but come on.
Surely, this must be the handiwork of some rogue underling with access to the Navy’s TikTok password — although isn’t TikTok banned on official military devices? In the wake of the Dylan Mulvaney backlash, which has seen Bud Light stock plummet 17 percent since partnering with the trans activist, could this really have been an edict from the Navy’s top brass?
Yet apparently, Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, known on stage as “Harpy Daniels” (not to be confused with Stormy), has indeed been a digital ambassador for the Navy since November 2022. A Navy spokesman told the Mail Online that “the digital ambassador program was a pilot that ended in March 2023.” In the time since, Daniels has been, appropriately enough, cosplaying as Sailor Moon (not an official rank within the US Navy).
Or as America’s Newspaper of Record notes: In Major Effort To Attract New Recruits, Navy Offering Unlimited Bud Light.