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Reader Chris Doyle of General Dynamics Electric Boat writes in with a valid complaint. He notes that a past DID article had placed a caption of “Uhhh…Dad…” below the photo seen here, and argued it was inappropriate. While a few of us have had teenagers total vehicles (or… uh… been the teenager) for reasons of their own or others’ doing, using the caption in connection with Los Angeles Class USS San Francisco’s underwater collision with an uncharted seamount was a terrible idea.
* The caption clearly identified the vessel, hence implicitly referred to that specific incident rather than acting solely as a generic placeholder for a concept.
* As editor I had not recalled the incident clearly, other than remembering that there had been some minor injuries and the captain had received what I thought was harsh disciplinary treatment under the circumstances. As Chris Doyle remined us, Machinist’s Mate Second Class Joseph Allen Ashley, 24, of Akron, Ohio, later died from a head injury sustained during the collision.
The combination was disrespectful to Machinist’s Mate Ashley’s memory – and implicitly, one may argue (though Chris Doyle did not do so), to Electric Boat as well given that they were the subject of the story “$13.8M to Coordinate Maintenance of US Nuclear Submarines in New London, CT“.
DID does use humour in some of its captions as a form of levity and/or to make a sharp point now and again. Given our subject matter, there is always some element of risk involved. There will be occasions as a result when reasonable people may disagree – but this wasn’t one of them. I think reasonable people would agree that this one crossed the line.
DID (and I, personally) sincerely apologizes to our readers, to General Dynamics Electric Boat, and to the Ashley family. There’s an old Russian proverb that “once a word is out of your mouth, you cannot swallow it again,” and that’s true here as well. While an apology is necessarily inadequate, it is all that is within our power to offer, and it is offered sincerely.
The caption, needless to say, has been altered appropriately.