What happened to ordinary competence? 

When I was in the Army, in the last years of the Cold War, we were all constantly admonished to be, at all times, technically and tactically proficient. That meant being able to use the tools we were assigned to use and to carry out the tasks we were assigned to carry out; to further the Army's ultimate purpose of closing with and destroying the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect. Much of this, of course, meant proficiency with our issue weapon, which for me at various times was either the M16A1 rifle or the 1911 or M9 pistols. Every time I drew my weapon from the armory for a field problem or a day at the range, the first thing I did — like everyone else — was to inspect it to make sure it was in working order.

This is something that U.S. Navy Commander Cameron Yast of the USS John S. McCain clearly failed to do during a recent live-fire exercise.

The commander of a US Navy warship is apparently a not-so-sharpshooter.

A commanding officer of the USS John S. McCain, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, was mocked online after he was photographed holding an assault weapon with its scope mounted backward as he took aim at a target known as a “killer tomato.”

Cmdr. Cameron Yast “observes the live-fire exercise event. The ship is in U.S. 7th Fleet conducting routine operations,” read a caption posted by Defense Visual Information Distribution Service alongside an image of him holding up the weapon with the Trijicon VCOG installed backward while pointed at a large target balloon.

Have a look:

US Navy just killing it on Instagram 😂🥴 pic.twitter.com/v49QH6uIqO

— BKactual (@BravoKiloActual) April 9, 2024

Note that there is brass in the air. Commander Yast is actually firing the weapon while looking through an optical sight that is, embarrassingly, mounted backward. This begs the question: Has he ever even seen this sight before?

Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the use of a sight like this — no, strike that, anyone who is even remotely familiar with any kind of optical device at all — would immediately notice something is wrong here. But Commander Yast was either painfully unfamiliar with the U.S. Military's primary service rifle, or he realized something was wrong but proceeded anyway, to the embarrassment of himself, his ship, and the United States Navy.

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In 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor, a ship's cook on the USS West Virginia, Doris Miller, was below decks in the ship's laundry when bombs started dropping. As the Navy at that time only employed black men as cooks and laundry attendants, he was not trained with any weapons, and yet when the attack came, he ran onto the deck, hauled ammo, and moved wounded sailors to cover until the ship's Captain was killed. Miller then, with no training, manned a .50 caliber Browning anti-aircraft gun and returned fire until he was ordered to abandon ship. Miller became the first black sailor to be awarded the Navy Cross for his work that day.

Now compare that act of heroism to an officer, a U.S. Navy Commander, being photographed for a U.S. Navy promotional photo with a sight mounted backward. This is not the sign of a serviceman who is technically and tactically proficient. Frankly, it's embarrassing.

Add this to the growling list of indicators that our military leadership needs a serious overhaul and that the services need to focus once more on their core mission: to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect.