Blumenthal to Top Naval Officials: More Needs to Be Done to Prevent Deaths By Suicide Aboard Navy Ships

[HARTFORD, CT] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) today during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing questioned Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael M. Gilday, USN, on what steps are being taken to prevent deaths by suicide aboard the U.S.S. George Washington.

“We are at the one year anniversary of the death of one of those sailors, Master of Armed Seaman Recruit Xavier Mitchell Sandor, and [I] want to suggest that one way to alleviate, and I know you’re taking steps on the U.S.S. Stennis to alleviate some of those issues that were involved in those suicides, [is] to maybe procure housing on the open market when ships are in maintenance for many years using the [Basic Allowance for Housing],” Blumenthal said.

Sandor, a Connecticut sailor from Shelton, was one of three U.S.S. George Washington crew members to die by suicide in April 2022, while the ship was undergoing extended Refueling and Complex Overhaul at a Virginia shipyard. During this time, crew members were subject to frequent interruptions of electrical power, heating, air conditioning and hot water for weeks at a time and no access to welfare or recreation services. Sailors also often experienced a two months long backlog for mental health screenings.

In January, Blumenthal, along with U.S. Senator Chris Murphy sent a letter to Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, calling on the Navy to take swift action to remedy the situation aboard the U.S.S. George Washington.

Video of Blumenthal and Gilday’s exchange can be found here and a full transcript is available below.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you all for being here and for your service to our nation Admiral Gilday and Commandant Berger. Thank you particularly and your families for your extraordinary service over many years. I want to just take a moment to tell my colleagues about a bill that I introduced along with Senator Sullivan to commemorate the United States Marine Corps’ 250 years in a commemorative coin to mark this important milestone. I’m really grateful to my colleague Senator Sullivan to join with me in this tangible reminder of the Marine Corps’ contributions to our nation and I hope all our colleagues on the committee will join us in this legislation. It may seem symbolic but symbols often tell an important story, particularly Commandant in a time when the force design 2030 has created issues within the Corps. This kind of point of solidarity I think can be important. Admiral Gilday, I want to come back to the questions raised by the Chairman about accountability in the U.S.S. George Washington. I was in the briefing that we received and I have no question that you and the briefers and our top command in the Navy are deeply concerned about those three suicides, but what I heard in that briefing was that phase one didn’t address accountability, phase two didn’t have it as a specific topic but that accountability might emerge somehow from phase two. I’d like your assurance that accountability, that is holding responsible anyone in command who knew or should have known about the desperate straits of those three sailors will be at least named and held accountable in some way.

GILDAY: Yes sir. I know that you understand, everybody does, how complicated death by suicide can be and the number of factors that can be involved and I’m in no way trying to be evasive on this issue. I take personal ownerships for some of the failures that we saw in Norfolk and other places that we are currently correcting. That said, in any specific investigation, and we have, the Navy has relieved 15 commanding officers over the past twelve months for various reasons, we have to connect those actions directly to the findings to the facts of those investigations. I commit to you sir that we will look for an answer to that and come back.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you.

GILDAY: Yes sir.

BLUMENTHAL: And we are at the one year anniversary of the death of one of those sailors, Master of Armed Seaman Recruit Xavier Mitchell Sandor and want to suggest that one way to alleviate, and I know you’re taking steps on the U.S.S. Stennis to alleviate some of those issues that were involved in those suicides, to maybe procure housing on the open market when ships are in maintenance for many years using the BHA, a bigger topic for further consideration. Secretary Del Toro, I think you, we all have seen the recent leaks of classified documents that are so deeply alarming, appalling, and that show Americans how many members of our military have such wide access to top secret documents. I wonder if you are considering measures that might restrict access, particularly on the part of junior members of the military and the Navy for example to classified documents. I’ve been a longtime advocate of declassifying documents that don’t need to be kept secret, but at the same time, maybe we ought to be looking at who has access to those documents that truly have to be kept secret to protect vital information and sources and methods.

DEL TORO: Well thank you Senator. We very much are throughout the Department of the Navy and the Department of Defense, the Secretary of Defense just this morning has requested a 45 day review of security clearances and accesses across the Department. So we’ve been looking at this issue very carefully and as you know, on the one hand you have a desire to be able to share more intelligence and information with our allies and partners, and that presents risks obviously, and on the other hand there’s a need to actually protect the secrets that we do have and so it is a bit of duel edged sword but we have to do better across the Department to ensure that we keep it to only those that really need the intelligence in order to be able to fulfill their responsibilities and their duties both substantively and administratively as well.

BLUMENTHAL: Thank you. Thank you all. 

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