Well, USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN-73) is back in the news and I have some questions based on this new (mis)information. I'm sure all of us not directly connected to GW have heard by now that the fire, which turned out to be quite a bit bigger than originally stated, was started by a stray butt in a reboiler space in intimate contact with some waste oil containers. Apparently the fire took hours to get under control and affected over 80 spaces (any GW folks, please set the record straight for those of us who haven't heard any messages in the past several months). This brings up a few questions for me.
1)As nukes do we own reboiler spaces? Specifically: I am an ELT. Will I own reboiler chemistry?
2)While we all know our Hero Adm. Rickover said responsibility is:
"…a unique concept: It can only reside in a single individual. You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you. You may disclaim it, but you cannot divest yourself of it. Even if you do not recognize it or admit its presence, you cannot escape it. If the responsibility is rightly yours, no evasion, or ignorance, or passing the blame can shift the burden to someone else. Unless you can point the finger at the man who is responsible when something goes wrong, then you have never had anyone really responsible."
COULD the Commanding Officer of GW have possibly prevented this mishap, or did he just fall under this responsibility statement? It seems to me that a carrier is just too damn big for the CO to police the spaces by himself. While we saw the CO just about every day on the boat, he didn't have hundreds of spaces and thousands of people to keep after.