The Navy is the undisputed leader of the four Defense Department services when it comes to canning its top officers for cause.
Although it is the second smallest of those services, the Navy has relieved the most commanders — more than 100 now and counting — since 2005, an Associated Press analysis in late January found.
The removals totaled 83 for the Army, 41 for the Marines and 32 for the Air Force (with the Air Force providing data since 2008).
So what happens to Navy officers after they are relieved of duty?
Like old soldiers, do they simply fade away?
Maybe from the public glare, but a review of online resumes shows that some ride out Navy desk jobs for up to several years before they have to retire or leave, and then not surprisingly, use their considerable education and training to get private-sector jobs, often in defense contracting.
In 99 cases out of 100, the chances of a promotion within the Navy after a detachment for cause are "essentially zero," said retired submarine skipper Cmdr. Doug Sampson.
Sampson should know: He went through the process in 2009 when, as the commander of the USS La Jolla, based at Pearl Harbor, he was relieved of his post "due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command" while the 360-foot, 9,600-ton submarine was in the shipyard for maintenance.
Sampson failed to meet "high Navy standards" relating to issues of in-port planning, administration and crew leadership, the Navy said at the time.
With that determination went the nuclear engineer’s 25-year Navy career.
"You are not required to retire right away," Sampson said. "The Navy would have allowed me to go from one desk job to another."
But there would have been no promotion, he said. Sampson said he took a transfer to the mainland and spent about a year more in the Navy before retiring from the service.
"I could have stayed around for longer if I had chosen to, but to me, it didn’t make any sense," he said, adding that he wasn’t interested in a "dead-end" job.
Sampson, who went to work in early 2011 for JRC Integrated Systems Inc., a defense consulting and engineering firm, spoke candidly about the Navy’s firing standards (which he doesn’t totally disagree with), what he characterizes as poor Navy treatment of officers who have been relieved of command for cause (which he does disagree with), and the prospects of re-employment afterward.
"As a submariner, as a nuclear-trained engineer, I like to think, and there is some data to support this, that not only do I think I can go to lots of different kinds of jobs and lots of different kinds of industries, but it’s not hard to demonstrate that (capability) to employers," Sampson said. "Getting a job post-Navy-career was not a concern."
A check of resumes on LinkedIn, billed as the world’s largest professional network, shows the varying stages of career evolution that some past and present Navy commanders are in.
Cmdr. Jeff Cima, who commanded the submarine USS Chicago out of Pearl Harbor, was relieved in 2010 after he was found guilty of drunkenness and conduct unbecoming an officer during a visit to a Reserve Officers Training Corps program on the mainland, the Navy said.
Cima currently lists himself as operations executive officer for the U.S. mission to NATO in Belgium. He said on LinkedIn that he’s held the position since August 2010 — five months after he lost his job on the Chicago.
Slated to take command of the Pearl Harbor destroyer USS Chafee in 2009, Cmdr. Larry Gonzales, then executive officer, was instead removed from command that year after a command investigation and the often-used explanation that the Navy had "lost confidence" in Gonzales’ ability to command. No details were provided.
Gonzales, still a Navy commander, now is director of logistics for the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, the command said. He declined to be interviewed.
Capt. John Carroll, who was in charge of the cruiser USS Port Royal when it ran aground in shallow water off Honolulu Airport in February 2009 and remained stuck for four days, retired from the Navy on May 1, 2010. The Navy’s Personnel Command said Port Royal was Carroll’s last assignment.
Other fired Navy commanders indicated they are about to move on, or already have.
The former commander of the Japan-based cruiser USS Cowpens, Capt. Robert Marin, a married officer, admitted in 2012 to having an affair with a fellow captain’s wife, the Navy Times reported.
His LinkedIn page notes that he was subsequently assigned as a Military Sealift Command squadron project officer, but now is a "transitioning naval officer" with more than 20 years of executive and management leadership in the Navy.
"Retiring from the U.S. Navy — available for next career on 01 July 2013," Marin wrote.
Capt. Dave Dykhoff, the skipper of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, was fired in 2008 after a $70 million fire on the big ship that was probably caused by sailors sneaking a smoke as the carrier headed to Japan, the Virginian-Pilot newspaper reported.
According to his LinkedIn page, Dykhoff now is deputy director of modeling and simulation for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency.
The George Washington’s executive officer, Capt. David Dober, who also was relieved, according to reports, now lists his job as KC-10 tanker-cargo jet program director at the Chromalloy Gas Turbine Corp.
Sampson, the former La Jolla skipper, declined to discuss the issues that led to him being fired, saying only that he definitely disagreed with the decision.
He doesn’t necessarily disagree with the Navy’s practice of publicizing its commander firings. Often, the service sends out news releases announcing the removals. If anything, in some cases the wording can be needlessly harsh, he said.
"I think the Navy’s decision to be as public as they are when a (commanding officer) is fired is not unreasonable given the need for public assurance that their sons and daughters are being kept safe," Sampson said.
He remembers when Rear Adm. Joe Walsh was head of the Pacific Fleet Submarine Force at Pearl Harbor and the admonition he gave new sub captains.
"He said, ‘Hey, here’s the deal. If you are going to command, we require that you maintain certain standards, and as a result of that, if you run a ship aground, if you have a collision at sea, or if through your negligence a member of your crew is killed, I’ll relieve you, no questions asked,’" Sampson said.
That wasn’t always the case, though.
Sampson noted in January on a submarining blog that the three officers most directly involved in his relief — Capt. Stanley Robertson, Capt. Lindsay Hankins and Capt. Norman Moore — all had collisions at sea while in command, yet retained their commands.
"We’ve gone through some sort of ups and downs in that regard," Sampson said of the changing environment that at one time allowed some commanders to stay on despite a collision.
"We’re not in one of those environments (now)."
Lt. AJ Falvo, a spokesman for Pacific Fleet, said in a statement that the Navy "has a long and consistent history of holding commanding officers to the highest standards."
He added: "Almost all of our commanding officers meet and exceed the awesome responsibilities placed upon them, which also includes safeguarding the lives of our sailors. When standards are not met, the Navy has a fair process that ultimately holds commanding officers accountable. We stand by that process, which ensures we have full trust and confidence in these critical leadership positions."
Sampson does have a problem with the Navy’s treatment of those who are detached for cause, but are still in the Navy.
"It’s almost as though we essentially have nothing positive left to contribute" as officers are moved from one dead-end job to the next, he said.
Sampson now is director of engineering and training for JRC Integrated Systems, working out of Huntsville, Ala.
There are ramifications in the civilian world from the removal actions that are taken by the Navy, he noted.
He interviewed with Northrop Grumman "and they were upfront and said, ‘Hey, we’re not going to put you in a position where you are going to interface with the submarine force,’ so that does limit what your options are," he said.
Life has been "pretty good" since leaving the Navy, Sampson said.
"I miss the crew. I mean, to be perfectly honest, I don’t miss the (submarine squadron staff)," with whom he said he had a "tumultuous" relationship.
Sampson said he has what he terms "a very good job and second career."
"Certainly not what I had planned," he said. "You always plan for continued success in what you are doing, and when that didn’t come, (my family and I) had to adapt. But it’s not unlike what other folks in other parts of society go through."
