There are so few opportunities, and it puts ya on the Very Fast Track for Great Things.
When I first heard about this mishap, my first thought was "Ah-ha! The alternates on the 0-4 command at sea list are going to be having sleepless nights, waiting for their phones to ring...!"
I guess they can sleep through the night, now--they aren't gonna build a replacement; they'll just adjust the deployment schedules for the assets they've got.
That relieved skipper is probably the unhappiest person in the Navy today. Since they can't salvage the vessel, he can't even play the Nimitz Card!
Back in Nimitz's junior officer days, the Navy was a bit more forgiving:
Such a dream assignment couldn’t last long. Because of Japanese belligerency fueled by prejudicial treatment of Japanese immigrants on the West Coast, Roosevelt ordered the battle fleet to the Pacific, and Panay was recalled to the Cavite Naval Base in Manila Bay. Making his arrival call on the Senior Officer Present, the 22-year old Nimitz, now an Ensign, was sent immediately on board USS Decatur (DD-5) to take command. At the time, Decatur had been out of commission for about a year – in some form of inoperative or reserve status in which the ship was not only cold iron but without any crew. When he went on board, still in the whites with sword that he had worn to make his formal call, he was greeted by two Filipino watchmen, since a crew was still being assembled. Surmounting the problems of an idle ship, unbunkered with a scratch crew, ENS Nimitz managed to get Decatur to the dry dock at Subic Bay within the two-and-a-half days demanded by the admiral.
The war scare over, Decatur operated independently for almost two years in Philippine waters. In July 1908, on entering an unfamiliar harbor in Manila Bay she ran aground and had to be towed off the next day. Relieved of command and court-martialed, Nimitz was found guilty of “neglect of duty” and sentenced to a reprimand. The Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Naval Forces Philippines declared in his endorsement, “The promulgation of the proceedings and sentence will be regarded as constituting in itself the reprimand.” Later in life, as an admiral, Nimitz was quick to cite this incident when questioned if anyone who ran a ship aground could have a future in the Navy.
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_18/nimitz.htm
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