The US has nearly twenty nuclear subs, each of which spends about 65% of the year at sea. To give you an idea of the magnitude of distance their travels add up to, the US Department of Energy bragged last year that, since Hyman Rickover spearheaded nuclear power for naval uses — “naval reactors maintains an outstanding record of over 177 million miles safely steamed on nuclear power.” I think something like 75% of that has been submarines. Submariners are about as “top gun” as navy personnel get, and the mind-numbing circumstances they face — extremely stressful work, unbearably close quarters, submerged for weeks or even months at a stretch, and relying on extensive recycling of water and air — ensure that they’re among the most medically scrutinized and managed across all the US armed forces. Got it?
OK, so: How often have you ever heard about submarine personnel with a health emergency needing a medevac to a nearby port for treatment? Never. So has it never happened? Of course it has. So what’s the difference this time? Is it definitely and only that this happened on Trump’s watch — and that it happened to happen near Greenland? And is the definite and only reason we know about it the fact that Trump ‘truthed’ some bizarre fantasy involving sending an entire hospital ship to Greenland? So is the “real” explanation definitely and only that, faced with a trivially awkward international situation that could easily have been kept quiet — a single sick sailor — this matter rose to the level of the president’s office, amnd that it presented such him with such a dliemma that he felt compelled to actively disseminate a plainly ridiculous cover story for sending an entire hospital shit to pick up a sailor? One sailor? Even if it’s the CO (basically, the “captain”), there’s an entire hierarchy of senior staff rigorously trained to maintain clear, effective control under the most extreme circumstances.
Paint me skeptical. Even if you exaggerate every aspect that to account for Trump’s madness, Hegseth’s stupidity, Gabbard’s whatever (as DNI she’s head of the NSA, which plays several key roles in nuclear sub operations), and more, this story just doesn’t add up neatly. My guess: something much more serious happened on that submarine. If, as I think, the claim that it’s “really” just one sick sailor is itself a cover story, it doesn’t seem like it’d be covering for a systemic failure of the ship. Instead, the focus seems to involve the crew. 🧐 🤔 And I think Trump gave away the game at the beginning, as he always does: I think there may be many sick people — US sailors — in Greenland.
What kind of “sick” is anyone’s guess.