Commander of USS Cole fails to make Captain

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

Originally Posted by August

To be really fair it should be noted that their citation wasn't for shooting down an airliner, but you're right about the competition for higher ranks.

Technically yes (if somewhat tautological since they can't exactly give a citation for "heorically engaging a civvie airliner"), but one of the citations for Lustig was for "quickly and precisely completing the firing procedure", thus suggesting an endorsement of one of the most important parts of the firing procedure - identification. He was also praised with "ability to maintain his poise and confidence under fire", when apparently he can't even read his screen correctly and see that the plane is ascending.

I'd say that when your ship is involved in an accident like this, it is undiplomatic to say the least to give medals for anything remotely related. Not to mention the IAF 655 engagement wasn't even handled all that well, even leaving out the part where they misidentified the airliner. Jabbing the wrong buttons continuously is not the sign of a well handled engagement.

Originally Posted by DoD Report

(o) (S U) (b)(6), (b)(7)(C) (AAWC) pushed “Engage” button in response to system tutorial message to “Select Weapon” and received another “Select Weapon” message. (IO Exhibit 91).
(p) (S U) (b)(6), (b)(7)(C) (MSS) again pushed “Request Radiation Assign” button. Authorization sequence was still not completed by AAWC. (IO Exhibit 91).
(q) (S U) (b)(6), (b)(7)(C) (AAWC) pushed “Assign” button in response to “Select Weapon” message. Again he received a “Select Weapon” message. He then pushed “Engage” and got a “Select Weapon” message. (IO Exhibit 91)

From: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/...od-report.html

[August]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

I'd say that when your ship is involved in an accident like this, it is undiplomatic to say the least to give medals for anything remotely related. Not to mention the IAF 655 engagement wasn't even handled all that well, even leaving out the part where they misidentified the airliner. Jabbing the wrong buttons continuously is not the sign of a well handled engagement.

I was under the impression that the Vincennes citation was related to it's emergency deployment to the Gulf in order to protect the mine damaged Samuel B. Roberts.