Many sailors consider Scott Waddle among the best of submarine officers
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Each day, the crew of the USS Alabama gave tours to the public. Each evening, they cleaned and polished. And as they worked, the sailors composed a ditty - to the tune of "The Ballad of the Green Berets" - mocking their skipper's nightly hunt for specks of dust with a little metal pointer.
But when the captain overheard the song and confronted the crew, a junior officer stepped forward to take the blame. "Captain, I helped write that," said Scott Waddle, then a lieutenant junior grade just a few years out of the U.S. Naval Academy.
Nearly two decades later, Waddle may once again shoulder the blame for a spit-and-polish submarine crew that made an error, albeit one with far graver consequences.
Waddle, 41, was the skipper of the USS Greeneville when it smashed into and sank a Japanese fishing vessel on Feb. 9, taking nine lives. Today, three senior admirals will convene a court of inquiry into the Greeneville disaster, and many of Waddle's former shipmates say that the career of one of the Navy's finest officers - a commander who never shirked responsibility and who always showed kinship with his enlisted men - almost certainly will come to an end.
It is not at all what they expected. Several of his former shipmates say the only formal Navy proceeding they ever thought would focus on Waddle would be the awarding of an admiral's stars.
David Cates, a nuclear machinist's mate, recounted the episode aboard the USS Alabama. It had docked in Mobile, Ala., for a week of greeting visitors from the state whose name it bore. And, according to Cates, there was nothing out of character about Waddle's joining the enlisted sailors in their song.
"A lot of officers have a hard time relating to the enlisted. They act like they're better than you. He was never like that," Cates said. "If you had asked me in 1985, in my opinion, Scott Waddle was going to be an admiral. ... He was very smart, very pro-Navy and very squared away. There are very few officers I felt that way about."
Not all are forgiving
Some of his former shipmates fear that the top brass, feeling pressured by the public and by Japan, may not only force Waddle to retire but also press charges of negligence against him. He is seeking "testimonial immunity" to avoid incriminating himself during the court of inquiry, a fact-finding hearing that could lead to a court-martial. The sympathies of many submariners lie with a good officer they believe is about to be destroyed by a big institution.
Not everyone is so forgiving.
"I would like to believe that it was an honest mistake," said Mark Erwin, a former chief missile technician who had served aboard the USS Kentucky with Waddle. "But in the submarine force ... we are, by nature of the job and mission, trained to be intolerant of mistakes. Many a good sailor has lost his career to an honest mistake. So, if it was an honest mistake, hang him."
Such is the harsh code of the submarine force, Erwin argued, adding: "He would do it to any of his subordinates to save his own ass and career."
In a score of interviews with retired and active-duty submariners who had served with Waddle, two main points emerged. The first is that, after almost 20 years in the Navy, Waddle is well-known across the submarine force. The second is that he is remembered, with almost universally high praise, as a commander who combined rigor with a common touch and concern for all of his men.
"He is one of the most professional, dedicated submarine officers I have ever had the pleasure to serve with," said John Snell, who was chief of the boat - the top enlisted sailor - on the USS San Francisco when Waddle was its executive officer in the mid-1990s. "I would go back to sea with him as my commanding officer tomorrow."
Another old salt, retired Command Master Chief Petty Officer Edwin "Bud" Atkins, who was the chief of the boat on the Alabama, Waddle's first submarine, said that of all the officers he encountered during his 35 years in the Navy, Waddle was the one he would least have expected to skipper a sub that rammed a fishing boat.
"He was a very conscientious officer," Atkins said. "He was a very good officer and a joy to work with. He knew his job and got the best out of his men. This should not be happening to him."
Bad skipper - or bad system?
For some in the submarine force, the court of inquiry in Hawaii will not be as much about Waddle as about the Navy. If he is such an outstanding officer, one who always followed standards and procedures, they quietly suggest, perhaps the fault lies with the admirals who set those standards and procedures - or who put civilians on his boat with the requirement that they had to be back at Pearl Harbor before the end of the day, requiring him to perform maneuvers in busy coastal waters.
"If the conclusion is `bad skipper' instead of `shaky system,' we will not be learning the true lessons," said one retired submarine captain. "A situation in which good people evaluated as well-qualified and -trained can perpetrate such a colossal foul-up requires re-evaluation of the evaluation system and the training system."
Born in Japan, where his father was an Air Force officer, Waddle was raised in Austin, Texas, and entered the Naval Academy in 1977. At Annapolis, said a friend from the class of 1981, "he was one of those guys who stood out in the crowd - very personable, not shy."
When he first stepped aboard the USS Alabama, a ballistic-missile submarine, in 1983, "he was a very handsome man and made quite a presence when he was in his dress uniform," recalled Joe Chevere, a missile technician. "He really looked like he stepped out of a recruiting poster."
Careful teacher, strong leader
As the years passed, Waddle matured into a careful teacher and strong leader, several sailors said. While some officers train only as many crew members as necessary to pass unit tests, said Luther Lucas, who was a machinist's mate aboard the Alabama, "he took time to ensure training was getting done, and done by all, not just a few."
Waddle went from the Alabama to a staff job in Italy, then back to sea on the USS Kentucky, another ballistic-missile sub. Samuel Baron, now a chief petty officer aboard the USS West Virginia, served under Waddle on the Kentucky.
"I remember Commander Waddle as a model officer and a gentleman," he said just before going to sea recently. "He was level-headed and very fair with the men who worked for him."
Waddle's next billet was that of an inspector for the Pacific Fleet's Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board, a prestigious job for a junior officer.
In 1995, he became the executive officer of the USS San Francisco. Being an "XO" can be a difficult job, those who have held it say: One is near the top but has to follow someone else's style of command.
"Waddle was a demanding XO - and that's a good thing," recalled Devon Generally, a sonar technician.
Another member of San Francisco's crew recalls that Waddle had a commanding voice that would sometimes resonate through the sub. "Yes, once in a while he was loud, but you got to do what you got to do to get the job done," said David Barrientes, who was a fire-control technician. "My memories of this man were of an accomplished officer, a caring father and a friend who worked hard at everything he did."
Part of Barrientes' job was to plot sonar contacts with other ships. That role could be a major focus of the court of inquiry because of reports that the Greeneville's fire-control technician stopped plotting contacts and did not inform Waddle of the proximity of the Japanese trawler. Barrientes, who left the Navy in 1997, said that, in his opinion, it appears that the fire-control technician on duty on the Greeneville let Waddle down.
After his tour on the San Francisco, Waddle studied at the National Defense University at Fort McNair, another stopping point for officers likely to rise to the top.
In command of Greeneville
Finally, in February 1999, after 18 years as an officer, he took command of the Greeneville, a Los Angeles-class attack submarine - a fast boat laden with weaponry and bristling with intelligence-gathering antennas and recorders.
Roger Dunham, a former submariner who went on to become a doctor, went aboard the Greeneville twice while it was under Waddle's command - once in Hawaii with Dunham's Japanese in-laws and a second time last summer off San Diego. Dunham remembers being impressed with how well Waddle bowed when introduced to his Japanese relatives.
"This man isn't an ordinary commanding officer," said Dunham, who wrote a book titled "Spy Sub" about his time in the Navy. "He is a remarkable officer, and I've known a lot of commanding officers over the years."
Last week, Waddle reportedly had tears in his eyes when he went to the Japanese consulate in Hawaii and delivered a stack of letters expressing his personal apologies to the families of those who died aboard the Japanese vessel Ehime Maru. The gesture, widely reported in Japan, has earned him respect there and helped to defuse anger over the accident.
Waddle has declined requests for interviews and has not spoken publicly about the collision. According to some of the 16 civilian guests who were aboard the Greeneville, he was stunned when the sub slammed into the Ehime Maru while conducting an emergency surfacing drill. "Jesus, what the hell was that?" one of the civilians quoted him as saying.
But even as he looked through the periscope and, presumably, realized that his career had just been shattered, Waddle seemed to have kept his cool. He ordered that the civilians be taken from the crowded control room to the wardroom. Then he turned to his crew - one of the civilians, John Hall, later recounted on NBC's "Today" show - and told them "that they needed to relax a little bit, that he felt that the adrenaline was pumping in everybody and they were trained for this and they needed to slow down and do everything proper."
Dunham has spoken to Waddle several times since then. "He is under a great deal of stress, but he knows how to deal with stress," the doctor said. He added that Waddle retains the aura of command: "He is clear-minded, he speaks well, and he has a sense of priorities."