The Navy Times has an interesting read about the Navy’s 2017 Hide and Seek champion on the USS Shiloh:
Peter Mims was a troubled sailor who wanted out of the Navy.
He had financial problems, his marriage had fallen apart and his chain of command was riding him about qualifications. He’d sought mental health counseling, but was not treated when he needed it most.
Before he disappeared from the cruiser Shiloh on June 8, Mims was known for making crazy-yet-sincere claims. Shipmates recalled him saying he had been to space, and that he could shoot fireballs out of his hands.
After he went missing and sparked a massive, 5,500 square-mile man overboard search across the Philippine Sea, the ship’s crew continued a hopeful and fruitless search for him inside the claustrophobic catacombs of the ship’s engineering spaces.
A week after he disappeared — and after his family was notified of his presumed death — a search crew found him hiding in an escape passage leading out of a sweltering engine room.
He was covered in urine and feces, and had a camelback, a multi-tool, Peeps candy and an empty peanut butter jar with him.
Mims could have been apprehended prior to his discovery when another sailor spotted him in the middle of the night, days earlier. But that sailor just went back to sleep instead of sounding the alarm.
The details behind the curious case of Peter Mims involve a struggling sailor and a crew having to scour the dark, filthy parts of a ship where most shipmates never go. [Navy Times]
You can read the whole thing at the link, but this guy clearly had some mental issues going on that probably wasn’t helped by the highly publicized bad command climate on the USS Shiloh.
Sailors aboard the cruiser Shiloh during the 26-month command of Capt. Adam M. Aycock often worried about the CO’s use of one of the Navy’s most arcane punishments: confinement for three days in the brig while being fed only bread and water.
Over time, Aycock’s proclivity for using bread and water to punish junior sailors became well-known on the Yokosuka, Japan, waterfront, where the Shiloh is based, according to sailor comments in three of the ship’s command climate surveys.
“I do not wear my ballcap at the (Navy Exchange store),” one sailor wrote. “Even the taxi drivers on base know us for being the ‘USS Bread and Water.’” [Navy Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but I am willing to be that many servicemembers would rather suck up three days of bread and water instead of getting hit with extra duty and restriction of up to 45 days through the Article 15 process.
An American sailor whose disappearance at sea last week prompted a search by American and Japanese ships of thousands of square miles (square kilometers) of ocean was found alive onboard his ship on Thursday, the U.S. Navy said.
The U.S. 7th Fleet said the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Peter Mims of Interlachen, Florida, were being investigated. It said Mims would be transferred to another ship for a medical evaluation and recommendations for follow-on care.
In a statement, the Navy did not comment on Mims’ condition or say where he was found on his ship, the guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh.
Mims disappeared last Thursday when the ship was in Japan’s southern waters and was believed to have fallen into the sea. A search was suspended Sunday after more than 50 hours of effort by the U.S. and Japanese navies and Japan’s coast guard.
The Navy said a search onboard the Shiloh continued, and Mims was located on Thursday. [Associated Press]
I wonder if anything like this has ever happened before in the Navy because this is the first I have heard of something like this happening?
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