For the crew of officers and crew of the star-crossed cruiser Cowpens, the cake and drinks must have tasted delicious especially good at Capt. Scott Sciretta's Sept. 25 change of command ceremony.
The ceremony capped Sciretta's year-long command of the ship that just one year ago was in such poor shape a year ago that the Navy was considereding taking it out of service. All eyes were on After the previous command triad was fired, Sciretta was brought in to rally the crew and right the troubled cruiser, where three of the ship's last five skippers had been fired. see if he could be the man that could rally a run-down crew and bring new life into a cruiser that some in the fleet were ready to give up on.
And On a bright Friday in San Diego, Sciretta and his crew celebrated their comeback, including acing the surface Navy's toughest inspection. the peaceful transfer of command to Lt. Cmdr. Horst Sollfrank, who will oversee a stripped-down crew during a complete overhaul of the ship, was itself remarkable because three of the ship's last five skippers had been fired.
"Your reward was capped off when we completed the Board of Inspection and Survey," Sciretta told his crew at the ceremonyin his remarks. "I sat there and listened to what the inspectors said: Inspection ready crew; culture of ownership; pride and professionalism; procedural compliance; couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a khaki; sailors engaged in making sure the inspectors knew that it was their ship."
Looking back at his crew from behind the lectern on the pier, Sciretta pointed at the hull: "Your blood; your sweat; your tears: I ... I can't thank you enough."
Sciretta transferred reins of the 24-year-old ship to Lt. Cmdr. Horst Sollfrank, who will oversee a stripped-down crew during a complete overhaul of the ship.
The ship is headed into a four-year modernization period where the ship will be completely overhauled and outfitted with some of the most advanced sensors and systems in the fleet today.
At the ceremony the outgoing CO credit his crew with the resurrection of Cowpens, consummated by a successful INSURV inspection in late summer.
The INSURV inspectors' description of the Cowpens crew was a far cry from how the ship was described in the wake of their fraught 2013-2014 deployment.
When safety inspectors walked through the ship in the spring of 2014RIGHT YEAR?, they found spaces the crew didn't even know existed with major safety lapses. They discovered a flight deck that was in such poor condition that it needed to be decertified and found that sailors were being qualified for watch stations by sailors whose own quals were lapsed or non-existent, a problem described as persisting "throughout the ship," according to an email between senior Navy leaders obtained by Navy Times.
Compounding the issues was the ship's enigmatic skipperCO, Capt. Greg Gombert, who essentially holed up in his in-port cabin disappeared from the ship's daily life in the middle of a Western Pacific deployment, largely ceding his authority to a female department head junior lieutenant commander with whom he is alleged to have carried on an affair. "unduly familiar relationship."
Cowpens was beset with mechanical problems that had caused the ship to break down mid-deployment. The issues were so deep Navy leaders were considering decommissioning the ship instead of fixing it.
And in a final, cruel twist, just one weeks into Sciretta's command, his new executive officer was fired for alleged drunken driving, a drama that played out on the ship in front of the in-port duty section.
All these issues and scandals played out in the public eye, as details of the Cowpens' troubles prompted national headlines and caused some to question whether the ship's trials were indicative of larger leadership and maintenance issues in the surface fleet.
A month after that, the surface boss went to visited the ship to address the crew, donning a cowboy hat as an homage to the ship's nickname, "The Mighty Moo."
Cruiser Cowpens returned from a 7-month deployment in April 2014, after which its commanding officer, acting executive officer and command master chief were fired when investigators uncovered evidence of a highly unusual cruise, where the CO largely holed up in his cabin and allegedly had an "unduly familiar" relationship with the acting XO.
Photo Credit: MC3 Will Gaskill/Navy
"Obviously they had been through a rough time," Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, the head of Naval Surface Forces, said in a Sept. 30 phone interview. "It's a rough time any time you have to relieve a commanding officer, and they had to endure that. But I encouraged them to put that as rapidly and as far in their wake as they possibly could, and press on with the business at hand. … Standing around looking at our wake doesn't accomplish anything and there was important business at hand."
Top SWO Rowden credits Sciretta, along with his executive officer Cmdr. Justin Harts and Command Master Chief Richard Putnam, for the turnaround.
"I saw the transformation of that crew," Rowden said. "One of the things I love about the youth that joins the youth of the United States Navy is their ability to recognize goodness. And I think that certainly they were challenged under the previous leadership of the Cowpens, but I think that Capt. Sciretta, Cmdr. Harts and Master Chief Putnam came on board, they saw just how good it could be.
"I think our young people respond well to good leadership and they respond superbly to superb leadership."
To Rowden, the transformation of Cowpens was visible inside and out.
"As I approached the ship the day of [change-of-command], I was taken aback at just what a fantastic job the crew of that ship had done to prepare that ship for entering into phased modernization," he said. "She looked absolutely phenomenal."
Sciretta is in the middle of a split command tour. He will go on to command another troubled cruiser that's seen recent tumult, the Lake Erie, which is also based in San Diego. The CO of the Lake Erie was fired in April for command climate issues.
Officials said Sciretta was in training and not available for an interview by press time.
Rowden said Sciretta's ability to fix command climate issues was only part of the calculus in dispatching him to the putting him on Lake Erie.
"Certainly the ability to motivate as Capt. Sciretta is so capable of doing, but more importantly the tactical and professional expertise that he will bring to Lake Erie as she exits her maintenance availability and starts working up for that next deployment," he said.
David B. Larter was the naval warfare reporter for Defense News.
