Navy Officer Installs Starlink On Warship And Gets Demoted
A US Navy chief was demoted because she and her enlisted officers installed Starlink internet on a warship, only so they could scroll social media and watch movies and sports channels while being deployed. This is a major issue since internet access is restricted while a warship is underway to maintain bandwidth for military operations and ward off any cybersecurity threats, simply because having malicious hackers gaining control of a warship isn’t really a good scenario.
The Wi-Fi
But that didn’t stop the Navy chief Grisel Marrero from installing a Starlink satellite dish onboard USS Manchester without any authorization, and she even lied to her commanding officers to keep it a secret.
According to the source, Marrero—who was a former information systems technician—and her seniors paid $2,800 for the Starlink High-Performance Kit, which they installed in April 2023, prior to deployment. She and more than a dozen chief petty officers used their own private Navy Starlink Wi-Fi to message home and watch content from the internet.
The Cover Up Attempt
Once she and her accomplices realized that the Navy Starlink Wi-Fi doesn’t cover the entire ship, they bought network extenders and signal amplifiers.
Dubbing the network “Stinky” and making it appear as the network-attached printer, Marrero denied the existence of such a network and even went out of her way to intercept a comment regarding the network left in the commanding officer’s suggestion box.
She was relieved of her duties in late 2023 after she repeatedly misled and lied to her ship’s command about the Wi-Fi.
The Demotion
Afterward, she was convicted at a court-martial, where she pleaded guilty to misconduct, insubordination, and dereliction of duty—an offense that applies to all branches of the US military—after she willingly provided false official statements to her commanding officers regarding the Navy Starlink internet.
Marrero was demoted to chief petty officer after the command lost confidence in her leadership abilities since the Navy holds senior enlisted leaders accountable when they fall short of the prescribed standards of responsibility, reliability, and leadership.
A Lot Of Unknowns
The Navy provided scarce commentary regarding the whole Navy Starlink incident due to the ongoing investigation, and the entirety of the Manchester investigation file has yet to be released to the media, including supplemental enclosures—which generally include statements or transcripts with the accused.
The currently released records only show the initial probe, which concluded in November, and show that the entire chief’s mess knew about the secret internet on board the USS Manchester.
Marrero Isn’t The Only One In Trouble
Even those who hadn’t used the Navy Starlink internet set up by Marrero but knew of its existence were also found culpable for not reporting the misconduct and were given administrative nonjudicial punishment at the commodore’s mast—at least according to the investigation.
All in all, more than 15 chiefs aboard the USS Manchester were in cahoots with Marrero to purchase, install, pay, and use the Starlink system aboard the US Navy warship.
Needless to say, this introduced a massive security risk to those on board, as well as the entire Navy, especially since the ship was deployed to the West Pacific, where security concerns are paramount due to the heightened tensions with China.
Source: Navy Times
