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Sailors punished for using notes during test

Thirteen sailors were punished in connection with a cheating incident on a nuclear propulsion test aboard the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman in early May, according to a spokesman. This is the second cheating scandal involving a carrier in a year and the third to involve the nuclear-powered force since September 2007.

None of the sailors was ranked above E-6, and none was identified by the office of Naval Nuclear Propulsion.

All were punished with disciplinary or administrative action. Eight of the 13 sailors lost their nuclear Navy enlisted classifications and were kicked off the ship, said Lukas McMichael, a spokesman for Adm. Kirkland Donald, director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion. He said five sailors were permitted to stay aboard and keep their nuclear qualifications following captain’s mast.

McMichael did not detail the sailors’ involvement, but the event unfolded when a proctor caught two sailors with notes during a “continuous training examination,” also called a “level of knowledge” test.

After the incident, the roughly 300 remaining nuclear-qualified members of the ship’s reactor department retook the test.

Truman, a Norfolk, Va.-based carrier, is scheduled to begin an eight-month deployment early next year. The ship was at sea at the time of the incident.

McMichael said there was no harm to the ship, reactor or crew.

Donald revealed the incident Oct. 28 at the annual meeting of the Naval Submarine League in McLean, Va. The theme for the 2009 gathering was “getting back to basics” of operating safely and effectively in the submarine force.

During opening remarks for the two-day event, Donald said integrity violations by crew members of the attack submarine Hampton in 2007 and more recently aboard Truman were “unacceptable” shortfalls, and each “damages our reputation.”

He said the nuclear community is undertaking efforts to “raise the understanding and relevancy of integrity in our younger folks, and to reinforce the practical fluency of integrity among our deck-plate leaders.”

Donald did not mention a major cheating scandal in the reactor department of the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower while underway in late 2008, which was similar to the incident aboard Truman. In the Ike incident, 17 chiefs and one junior officer were found to have been involved in cheating on an exam.

The violation was particularly egregious because it involved leaders and it happened when the ultra-demanding Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board was inspecting the performance of the ship’s reactor operators.

Eleven of the khakis were stripped of their nuclear qualifications and either kicked off the ship or transferred elsewhere onboard. The remaining seven were handled administratively, including use of letters of reprimand. It was unclear how many actually cheated.

Ripping out that many deck-plate leaders left the ship in a tight spot, since 30 of the department’s 350 or so members are E-7 and above. Ike was about to deploy and had to scour the waterfront for replacement operators to man the ship, an active-duty source familiar with the event told Navy Times.

In the Hampton incident, the commanding officer was fired and three officers and seven sailors were disciplined to varying degrees after nuke sailors were found to have falsified logs, cheated on exams and recorded false test grades. The transgressions occurred when the ship was returning to San Diego from a deployment in September 2007.

Integrity issues

As Donald emphasized during his presentation, such breaches of integrity are treated with the utmost seriousness in the nuclear Navy because of the high standards for compliance and detail needed to operate a reactor plant safely, either on a submarine or a carrier.

Retired Capt. Jim Colgary said he could not agree more. He spent 28 years as a submarine officer, and commanded the attack sub Augusta, before retiring in 2007. He is the director for state outreach at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry policy group in Washington, D.C.

“Trust is the fundamental bedrock of going to sea on these ships,” he said. “If an individual is dishonest enough to cheat on an exam, you can’t trust them to stand watch or take logs on systems associated with nuclear reactors.”

Colgary and another retired nuclear-trained officer who asked not to be named said the “nukes” are generally good people who aren’t working against the system but can sometimes be pushed too hard by it.

“We try to find the root cause of problems instead of treating symptoms of the problem,” Colgary said. “Typically it comes down to personalities. You can get overwhelmed sometimes with maintenance, preparing for getting underway, preparing for deployment. And oh, by the way, you have to balance your life at home.”

That doesn’t excuse a lack of integrity in the nuclear Navy’s zero-defect mentality.

“You have to trust every watchstander on the ship,” Colgary said. “God help you if you’re in a time of war and these things are amplified even more.”

Colgary said the exam proctor who stopped the cheaters should be commended. “It would be just as easy for that proctor to turn his back and let it go,” he said.

For the eight sailors who were kicked off Truman, their Navy careers might already be over. McMichael said sailors who are stripped of their nuclear NECs essentially lose their rating. They must then try to transfer to another rating, if there is room for them. If the alternative ratings are fully manned, the sailor may have no place to go and be administratively separated from the Navy.

Getting caught cheating also made them significantly poorer very quickly. Nukes are eligible for retention bonuses up to $125,000, depending on their rates and qualifications.