Why 4 sailors jumped

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Since 10-23-02

Cruiser’s command can’t explain overboards, but some in crew cite unrelenting operations

By William Cole
Special to Navy Times
23 October 2002


Four sailors on the Pearl Harbor, Hawaii-based cruiser Port Royal jumped overboard during a nine-month period, an unusually high number the ship’s command finds hard to explain. “I can’t give you an explanation because I don’t know what goes on in the minds of every one of those sailors on a daily basis,” said Lt. Cmdr. Brian Fort, executive officer of the Port Royal.

“I can tell you that for each one of them, there were some issues that those sailors were working through in their lives.” According to a crew member, one sailor jumped from the guided missile cruiser’s bridge wing, falling 60 feet.

 Another sailor suffered cuts on his feet and thighs from the propeller of a rescue boat searching for him at night. All were quickly rescued.Some of the Port Royal’s 390 crew members said an overbearing command turned the ship into a pressure cooker. The ship’s command concedes the crew worked hard during a recent combat deployment but said the atmosphere aboard the ship had nothing to do with the four overboard incidents.

“Certainly those sailors had their reasonings of why they wanted to do what they did,” Fort said. “I can tell you none of the sailors had any comments at all citing Port Royal or anything on the command as reasons.

”As the war against terrorism proceeds and the threat of war with Iraq looms, all the military forces are facing more pressure, longer deployments and intensified training. But the Port Royal overboards raise questions about an issue even the Navy has difficulty tracking:

Although officials said they can’t talk about details because of privacy regulations, the Navy believes the Port Royal overboards encompassed both motives.

At least one was an attempted suicide, Fort acknowledged. But in the others, “we can pretty well say that this may have been a case where someone [was attempting] to get out of the Navy by jumping over the side of the ship.

”In two of the four overboards, the chaplain on board was involved in personal counseling before and after they jumped, the Pacific Fleet said.

Three of the four Port Royal sailors, all in their first six-year enlistment, were “administratively separated” with honorable or general discharges following psychological evaluations, the Navy said.

The fourth sailor is undergoing an evaluation following convalescent leave. A judge advocate general’s administrative report was filed in one Port Royal case, while incident reports for all four cases were provided to the battle group commander, Fort said. The overboard problem does not seem to be universal, but the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk, Va. — which collects data and provides safety training, education and mishap prevention programs — tracks only those sailors killed or lost at sea in an accidental overboard, or are injured and miss five or more workdays, making it difficult to get a complete picture.

A spokesman for the Navy’s Office of Information in Washington, who did not want to be identified, said the number of intentional overboards is small Navywide, but he acknowledged there is a reporting gap.“Statistically, I would imagine even if you would factor in the ones that don’t meet the safety center criteria, it’s still a very, very, very small percentage,” he said.

“You are talking about 385,000-plus sailors.”Pacific Fleet said the only overboards it was aware of for Hawaii-based surface ships since January 2001 were the four intentional Port Royal cases and a sailor reported missing from the destroyer Russell on Nov. 27, 2001.

The San Diego-based carrier Stennis had three overboards from September 2001 to January 2002 — only one intentional.

The first overboard on the Port Royal occurred Nov. 6, 2001, while the cruiser was operating 50 miles south of Oahu.

The next two came during deployment.

The last overboard occurred July 13 about 40 miles southwest of the island of Hawaii.

After the second overboard, on March 27, and the third, on April 5 — both in the Arabian Sea — Capt. Lee Geanuleas initiated a “command climate survey” among his crew. The survey, which did not include sailors’ names, was given to 379 crew members and completed by 245.

 Portions of the report were obtained for this story. Some survey respondents described Geanuleas as “talented and disciplined,” a man with “very high standards and expectations.” But concerns about an unrelenting pace, piled on work and low morale aboard the cruiser also were common.

“In the two years that I have been on board we have been going full throttle, 110 percent. I feel that everyone is being burnt out and a lot of aggression is setting in,” said one sailor.

“If the tempo stays like this, I don’t even want to think of re-enlisting. ”An overwhelming majority of the 245 respondents said they were satisfied in terms of job fulfillment on the Port Royal, and a majority said they were satisfied with the ship’s disciplinary system and support from the chain of command.

But an overwhelming majority also said they were dissatisfied with the consistency of leadership and management, and a majority said they were dissatisfied with the amount of respect from superiors.

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for members of the Navy and Marine Corps. Between fiscal 1995 and 1999 there were 355 suicides. The leading cause was motor vehicle accidents, which led to 631 deaths.

William Cole is the military affairs reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser.
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Submitted,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(Ret)