Another Buttigieg Failure: Merchant Marine Manpower Deficit Sidelines 17 Support Ships For Wartime 

The winds of war are blustering around the globe. While our leadership is concerned about “wokeness” our Merchant Marine crews are at such a low level, 17 support ships for our Navy are no longer operational. Add this to Buttigieg’s long line of failures including the EV charging stations that we spent billions on, only to have 8 at last count. Earlier we posted about Pete’s focus: Last yearL

Transportation Buttigieg: Roads Kill More Blacks, Racism Built Into Our Highways

He might just want to check on our supply chain issues, especially now with the new regs in California that has taken out many independent truckers.  Container ships are backing up waiting to be unloaded.

Here we go with the latest:

The list of failures is quickly growing with Buttigieg, and this time, it’s more serious than ever, as maritime news website USNI News reported:

“Military Sealift Command has drafted a plan to remove the crews from 17 Navy support ships due to a lack of qualified mariners to operate the vessels across the Navy.” 

USNI provided more color on the labor shortage affecting Merchant Marines: 

The MSC “force generation reset” identified two Lewis and Clark replenishment ships, one fleet oiler, a dozen Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transports (EPF) and two forward-deployed Navy expeditionary sea bases that would enter an “extended maintenance” period and have their crews retasked to other ships in the fleet, three people familiar with the plan told USNI News Thursday.

Based on the crew requirements on the platforms, sideling all the ships could reduce the civilian mariner demand for MSC by as many as 700 billets.

The support ships are part of the Merchant Marines fleet, overseen by the Maritime Administration, an agency of the Department of Transportation, which makes this Buttigieg’s responsibility at the end of the day.

Fox News Digital spoke with Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, stated that the Merchant Marines don’t have enough manpower to keep the 17 support ships operational. These include replenishment vessels, tankers, and other crucial ships needed to deliver military personnel and weapons worldwide. 

Under Buttigieg’s watch, this has morphed into a crisis of war preparedness, as the Biden-Harris team seems to be mishandling conflicts around the world, which has stoked, as Trump said, nuclear war risks. 

This is not a new problem. This is from five years ago.

This video details why a strong, U.S.-flagged merchant marine is critical to our national security.

For the full story, read Zero Hedge