The commander of a US Navy warship is apparently a not-so-sharpshooter.
A commanding officer of the USS John S. McCain, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, was mocked online after he was photographed holding an assault weapon with its scope mounted backward as he took aim at a target known as a “killer tomato.”
Cmdr. Cameron Yaste “observes the live-fire exercise event. The ship is in U.S. 7th Fleet conducting routine operations,” read a caption posted by Defense Visual Information Distribution Service alongside an image of him holding up the weapon with the Trijicon VCOG scope installed backward while pointed at a large target balloon.
It noted that the “7th Fleet is the U.S. Navy’s largest forward-deployed numbered fleet, and routinely interacts and operates with Allies and partners in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific Region.”
Several people also pointed out that Yaste’s shooting stance and technique were not exactly on the level of, say, a US Marine.
One user fired off the first salvo on X, where he wrote: “US Navy just killing it on Instagram,” alongside laughing and cringing emojis.
