A couple of things you can be sure of:
The plaintiff attorney's will be beating a path to the door of that child's house offering to represent the parents in their suit against the CG (can you spell, uncle sam has bottomless pockets)... They will be sending flowers, offering a limo to the family for the funeral, sending hot food, 'anything' to have an in with the parents...
The commander of that CG unit will be dancing on a hot griddle... There will be internal investigations and reports up to the ying yang... The military has bureaucracy down to a science and CYA is an art form at the unit level...
The only bit of advice I would offer the parents is go to their congress critters and demand that an independent third party conduct the investigation of that CG boat - JAG, SECNAV, whoever - I would not trust the commanders involved to investigate themselves...
Now, having said that, I hope that in the end the coasties come out in the clear and it turns out that the other boat did something dumb...
denny-o | 
