A naval warship commander has been relieved of duty after he was seen in a photo holding a gun the wrong way round.
Cameron Yaste, commanding officer of the destroyer USS John McCain, was removed from his position ‘due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command the guided-missile destroyer’.
An image shows Yaste in a firing stance gripping the rifle, the scope is turned backwards.
This led to considerable ridicule towards the US Navy on social media, with the Marine Corps sharing a photo of a soldier firing a weapon captioned: ‘Clear Sight Picture.’
The image of Yaste was eventually deleted and the Navy thanking those who pointed out the error.
They wrote: ‘Thank you for pointing out our rifle scope error in the previous post.
‘Picture has been removed until EMI (extra military instruction) is completed.’
Yaste has been replaced by Capt. Allison Christy, deputy commodore of Destroyer Squadron 21, which is part of the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group.
The ship is deployed in the Gulf of Oman to protect the San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt.
The carriers were sent to the Middle East in the event Israel need help repelling an attack by Iran or other countries.
The Roosevelt is the flagship of a strike group that has recently included three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, $2 billion vessels that are designed to shield carriers from attacks by air, sea and land.
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