Navy Cmdr. Michael P. Ward II has ended his career as the captain of a nuclear submarine with something of a crash dive. Ward reportedly first had an affair in violation of Navy rules and then tried to end his affair by sending a fake email from a friend informing the mistress that Ward, 43, had died. When the woman went to his house to give her condolences, she learned that he had moved with his family to Connecticut to assume control over the USS Pittsburgh.
Ward lasted only a week as captain of the nuclear submarine when he was relieved of his duties.
For the misconduct, Ward received a letter of reprimand for adultery and other military violations, and he is being mustered out of the Navy. There is no clear crime in these actions since he did not commit fraud to gain any financial or economic benefit. Indeed, this is the opposite of the usual military pick line — he is lying to end a relationship.
Ward had previously worked for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, but appears to have passed all testing (and presumably a lie detector) to assume control of a billion dollar nuclear submarine. He reportedly met the woman on a dating site and he had learned that the twenty-something woman was pregnant. She later lost the baby due to complications.
It would be interesting to see if the mistress wanted to pursue a lawsuit for emotional distress due to the claimed fatality.
Source: Ny Daily News
Matt Johnson 1, September 20, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Dredd 1, September 20, 2012 at 5:24 pm
How would this work with gays in the military … there is no adultery unless there is a marriage.
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Don’t ask, don’t tell. Don’t show up at the Enlisted club with your mistress.
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I don’t think DADT is the law in the military anymore.
C’mon folks, this sounds like Church Chat or Church Lady gossip unless there is something adult about this process.
It is also quite duplicitous for religious law (adultery) to be the operative core of this discussion, otherwise it is much ado about The Virgin MOMCOM.
Don’t show up at the enlisted club at all. It is outrageous, that is a form of pulling rank. Yee gods.
I am not a snobbish former officer. You can’t command in the day, and drink beer as buddies in the evenings. To expect them to be pally and the say yes sir is stuoud.
How about single servicemant doing a married civilian woman. Who is/are the adulterer(s) there?
I found the manual for doing a required preliminary informal investigation, which includes investigations for adultery.
It requires a certain form to be signed by the suspect, which reads like a Maranda warning:
(INVESTIGATING OFFICER’S GUIDE FOR AR 15-6 INFORMAL INVESTIGATIONS). One would expect those formalities to be consistent across the branches, seeing as how “uniform” is used in the UCMJ.
Otherwise, could there be a constitutional challenge concerning the 14th Amendment (equal application of laws)?
Dredd 1, September 20, 2012 at 5:24 pm
How would this work with gays in the military … there is no adultery unless there is a marriage.
================
Don’t ask, don’t tell. Don’t show up at the Enlisted club with your mistress.
How would this work with gays in the military … there is no adultery unless there is a marriage.
“For the misconduct, Ward received a letter of reprimand for adultery and other military violations …”
There is no Uniform Code of Military Justice provision directly against adultery:
(Adultery In The Military, emphasis added). So, it must come as an executive order from a Commander In Chief, a President of the United States.
One would wonder which president did the said order, and whether or not that president was or was not an adulterer, since we are talking about morality, and someone once said “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”
Additionally, evidently one Commander In Chief was Priestly enough to say he was competent to issue such an Executive Order on the order of a Papal Bull, and therefore issued the elements of proof:
(Article 134, paragraph 62). I did not read in JT’s post where there was a charge and a Court’s Martial against Captain Ward.
I felt compelled to ponder:
What sayest thou?
Henman,
You are much younger than I. We only could make noises and push them around the bathtub by hand.
And I who can’t even make my pancakes rise with baking soda.
Old sailors never die, they just lose their……!
The Navy ship I was on had three Captains while I was there. The first one and the third one were extremely responsible. The middle one, who was married, had a girlfriend much younger. He would come to the Enlisted club and drink beer with the guys with his girlfriend in tow. But that didn’t happen in Alameda.
He also liked to fish for sharks from the Captains chair out in the middle of the ocean. When he had to give up command we all mustered and he gave a speech. He cried.
idealist 707-
The “nuclear” submarine is a ruse to fool the Russki’s into wasting billions of rubles on expensive propulsion systems. Our submarines actually run on baking soda, which is produced locally and is amazingly cheap.
I know how well baking soda powered submarines work, because I once had a plastic baking soda submarine that I got in a box of Kellogg’s Pep.
Tony C, I would add a fourth: “And he’s so damn dumb!”
bettykatn,
Tony C is consistently clear in his reasoning and gives us the respect of excellent prose construction.
Tony C. does it again. The clearest and most complete comment. Nothing left to say but “I agree”.
Blouise,
A guy with that little foresight should not have a command or even a commission. He can’t control himself. I can just see him in a tough situation. He would pee on himself in stress, and pull the big switch.
Can anybody here check if he had had any submarine or other command position?
idealist707 1, September 20, 2012 at 11:42 am
Dredd,
How do you know when it is autumn in Sweden?
When folks stop talking to each other, start frowning, and start flapping their arms when ducks fly by southward.
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You know what kills most helicopter pilots up in Arctic Alaska?
Horny male mosquitoes who think the helicopter is a female mosquito.
The great flick, Das Boot, made me NEVER want to be in a submarine.
Dredd,
How do you know when it is autumn in Sweden?
When folks stop talking to each other, start frowning, and start flapping their arms when ducks fly by southward.
Feemeister,
You have no private life in either the CIA or the military. You are married to your job. Love it or get the heck out.
You may dick your wife, but don’t phuck your job.
Commanding a nuke sub and he tried to run away from responsibility? Would you put the nuke decision in his hands.
Feemeister, remind me never to put a rudder in your hand.
I had a “nuclear” security clearance in the military too. Sometimes life really is simple, it is not religion or morality that the military is worried about. It is that men that are cheating on their spouses have three things that make them unfit for duty.
First, they have demonstrated a lack of self-control and an ability to resist temptation. Although that is sexual temptation, that lack of self control really does translate into other areas of their lives as well.
Second, they have exposed themselves to third party blackmail threats.
Third, they have exposed themselves to sexual manipulation by a lover, and foreign agents have no difficulty recruiting Mata Haris trained for seduction and exploitation.
It is not a religious stance, it is that some behaviors (like gambling or drug addiction) make somebody in a position of power with access to secrets vulnerable, and are correlated with an impulsive lack of control. Even something innocuous, like where his sub is going, could be used to evade detection for an infiltration.