Nothing happened, and nothing could have happened other than him missing a practice target by a mile. It doesn’t even show him aiming at something in particular, just looking down the barrel. Ammo can kill you, not having a working optic is not a safety issue no matter what direction it’s installed. Did he check the chamber to see if there was a round? Did he flag any other sailors? Did he keep his weapon pointed down range? Every single person around him let him shoot the weapon like that, they obviously didn’t feel too unsafe to be around him. None of them even seemed to noticed it was on backwards either. How can you tell it’s backwards from this picture of him?
He wasn’t dishonorably discharged or court Marshalled (idk how to spell that). He was just replaced. I want to think the reasons you listed played into that decision and why he didn’t recieve further disciplinary consequences.
They as good as ended his career with that. You don’t think every sailor hasn’t already heard or will hear at his next command that he is so ignorant he can’t even fire a rifle right? If he’s that incompetent they shouldn’t have let it get so far that he got a command in the first place. He’s either so incompetent that he can’t do basic sailors tasks OR they made up a reason to fire a sailor who made a non critical mistake. Do we publicize IN PRINT when an army infantry NCO has a negligent discharge at clearing barrel? Maybe locally, but it doesn’t mean he is completely unfit to lead men to war.