I went digging around for news from the real world, not the peculiar daydreams of the left side of the fence, and came across this from the BBC News.
This story is in regard to a declassed CIA memo about a Polaris class sub, SSBN James Madison colliding with a Soviet Victor class sub off the coast of Scotland near Holy Loch. It indicates how closely the Soviets followed our subs and could have taken out our first line of defense in a heartbeat, according to the article.
I’m sure sub sailors will have a few things to say about it.
What is disturbing is that the news of the collision was not released until now, some 40 years later, because at the time, Kissinger considered it to be “too embarrassing” to be released as news by the Ford administration.
Embarrassing?? Embarrassing is being caught with your pants down, isn’t it? Subs ain’t sandwiches built especially for you by some benighted soul behind the glass sneeze shields at a Subway shop on the highway.
You wanna talk about embarrassing?? How about the last eight years??
Yes, I know you’re all bored silly, but it is, after all, the 50th anniversary(?) of the Great Chicago Blizzard of 1967, which shut down an entire city and the surrounding counties of people who commuted from the suburbs to work in Chicago.
What does this have to do with military stuff? Well, this is no shit. I was not in Chicago just then. That was yet to come. But the weather guessers back then based their forecasts on the chinook, the warm spell prior to January 26th, which had raised the temperature to a springlike 65F. They knew a cold snap was coming, but they predicted 1/2″ of snow for Chicago and the surrounding suburbs.
The actual snowfall totaled 22.5″, not including drifted snow as happened in Boston a couple of years ago. Remember that one? This link is to a video of the aftermath of that storm. I hope it works for you.
My home town was 250 miles south of Chicago. I was trying to persuade my parents to let me go to Chicago and look for a job there, because I knew they had friends there. They kept saying “N-O, no”. So I went and talked to the Navy recruiter. I liked the WAVES’ uniforms, navy midnight blue with a white blouse and a black tie. I liked the bucket hats, too. I didn’t like the WMs hats, and the WAFs uniforms were a sort of wimpy blue. No offense meant, ChipNASA. The WACs and the WMS offered green, but I liked dark blue. Don’t ask me why, but when I found later, reading John Molloy’s ‘Dress For Success’ for women, he said a navy blue suit with a white blouse is an authority symbol. (Oh, stop laughing.) So, yes, I went with the wardrobe. The Navy also offered more for girls to do than the WMs and the WACs did at the time. I know that’s all changed now. I’d have better choices.
The southern edge of that storm hit my hometown with snow followed by sleet, which is now called freezing rain, and high winds. The topsy-turvy phone pole in that photo was only one of many, snapped off at ground level. Wind force must have been fierce, because there was little to stop the flow, despite the rows of hedge apples planted as windbreaks in the 1930s. I went out with my camera to get a bunch of shots, thinking that it might help at the recruiting station if I had a few recent slides to show the recruiter. That was before ASVAB testing. He just gave me basic English and arithmetic skills testing and told me to come back on my birthday, gave me some forms to fill out with where I’d been. My mother was meticulous about keeping addresses; her address book on our travels went back to where my father got his PhD in Speech and Theater, the University of Denver.
I didn’t say a word to Mommy and Daddy, but dammit, I was going to get a job and leave, whether they approved of it or not! Yes, I had just turned 21, so that makes me an old fogey now, but dadburnit, I was old enough to make up my mind what I wanted to do with my life, wasn’t I? I had 3 semesters of boring required classes behind me and I was bored and restless, and joining the Navy offered me a chance to do ‘my own thing’. I could finish college later, and I did, in barely two years, by carrying extra hours and taking summer school classes. I crammed in every credit I could get. But that was after my first hitch, and that’s another story.
So, like an idiot, I went back to the recruiter’s office. The streets were pretty well cleared out when I went back and signed on the dotted line. The recruiter shook my hand, gave me those forms, said something like ‘Welcome aboard, you go to Chicago in March’, and I went home. My mother was fixing dinner, so I set the table. While we’re all sitting there, my mother gives me a card, because it was my birthday. I said ‘Thanks, Mom,” opened it and there’s a check. She never bought presents. My brother was sitting across from me. He was still in high school and hadn’t gotten his draft notice yet. My sister had already gone off to grad school months earlier.
When my mother asked me what I’d done today, I said, “Well, I have a job.”
“Really? Well, what was it?”
“Well, I’ve joined the Navy.”
“Oh, you don’t want to do that.”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
I had never seen my mother truly peeved until then. When she said she wouldn’t give her permission for me to do that, I said I didn’t need it. So help me, Hannah, she drew a blank when I asked if she knew how old I was. Come on, Mom, you were in the delivery room gasping and squawking. What year was that? She was just gobsmacked.
Meantime, my father said loudly “I think it’s a good idea.” A little later, he said he was proud of me.
A month later, in March, I was at the Navy Recruiting Station in Chicago, which used to be on South Clark Street, with four other girls who had also joined the WAVES. We had to wait until March for our company to form. The WAVES recruiter, I think a PN1, drove us to the airport and put us on the plane for RTC(W) Bainbridge, MD.
The people at militaryphony.com sent us their case on Anthony Provost who leads people to believe he was a Naval Special Warfare Officer and Navy SEAL.
Ya, well they don’t think that his claims are true.
The records are pretty straight forward. He did do an enlistment in the United States Navy. The records show he was a Yeoman 3rd Class, or E4. A yeoman is an enlisted person within the United States Navy that performs administrative and clerical work. They deal with protocol, naval instructions, enlisted evaluations, commissioned officer fitness reports, naval messages, visitors, telephone calls and mail. There is no listing of SEAL Training and he is not listed in the UDT/SEAL database.
It also appears he spent some time in the Navy Reserves. You can visit their site for all the rest on this guy.
Military.com reports that four members of the Navy Department are having their valor awards upgraded by the outgoing Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus. Sgt. Michael Mendoza, will receive the Navy Cross, Sgt. Nicholas Brandau, Master Sgt. Steven Davis, Lance Cpl. Edward Huth, and Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael Atkinson will receive Silver Stars;
Mendoza, who previously received the Silver Star for bravery in Anbar province, Iraq, in April 2004 as a member of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, is credited with leading five Marines in a heroic charge across an open field after his vehicle was disabled by a rocket-propelled grenade.
According to his citation, obtained by Military.com, the “vigor” of the assault resulted in the deaths of 10 enemy fighters and forced the retreat of many others. When his commander was wounded, Mendoza took out the assailant and laid down cover fire until an armored vehicle could arrive to evacuate the officer.
[…]
Atkinson, a Navy corpsman serving with the Marines’ 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion in Iraq in April 2003, exposed himself to enemy fire on four different occasions to offer lifesaving care for two wounded Marines, according to his citation. At one point, he dismounted from his vehicle and braved hostile fire to pull his wounded first sergeant from his vehicle and render aid.
Huth, who was recognized for bravery in 2010 while serving as a machine gunner with 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, in Afghanistan, continued to lay down suppressive fire on the enemy with his M240B medium machine gun even after receiving a gunshot wound. After being shot in the right arm, he moved the gun to his left arm and kept shooting, according to his citation.
Brandau, who served in Afghanistan with 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, also braved enemy fire, engaging enemy fighters by throwing grenades between bursts of machine-gun fire, and later directed suppressive fire to allow for a fallen Marine to be evacuated.
In Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, Davis distinguished himself while providing security for armored ambulances evacuating casualties from the heart of the war-torn city, according to his citation. When another Marine was wounded by gunfire, Davis departed the safety of the vehicle and braved “a hail of enemy fire” to reach him. When Davis himself was wounded by gunfire, he used his own body to shield the other wounded Marine.
Reuters reports that Navy ship USS Mahan, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer had contact with some Iranian vessels yesterday;
The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the USS Mahan established radio communication with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boats but they did not respond to requests to slow down and continued asking the Mahan questions.
The Navy destroyer fired warning flares and a U.S. Navy helicopter also dropped a smoke float before the warning shots were fired.
The Iranian vessels came within 900 yards (800 meters) of the Mahan, which was escorting two other U.S. military ships, they said.
[,,,]
The official added that the warning shots fired on Sunday were just one of seven interactions the Mahan had with Iranian vessels over the weekend, but the others were judged to be safe.
Somehow, Reuters managed to blame Donald Trump for the more aggressive response to Iranian interference in operations in the Persian Gulf, you know even though the commander-in-chief of Naval forces is still the Nobel Prize-winning President Obama;
The incident, which occurred Sunday and was first reported by Reuters, comes as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office on Jan. 20. In September, Trump vowed that any Iranian vessels that harass the U.S. Navy in the Gulf would be “shot out of the water.”
[…]
The IRGC and Trump transition team were not immediately available for comment.
Bobo sends us a link to the Navy Times which reports that the Navy has decided to restore ranks and ratings;
The move comes three months after the Navy stunned sailors around the world in September by eliminated ratings titles, including those such as boatswain’s mate that dated back to the founding of the service.
The extraordinarily rare move comes after a fierce backlash from the fleet that became a distraction from the Navy’s broader effort to reform the antiquated personnel system, Navy officials said.
Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, called it a “course correction” and acknowledged the overwhelmingly negative reaction from the fleet was a key factor in the decision.
According to our buddy, Kristina Wong at The Hill, the Chinese Navy has seized a US Navy unmanned underwater craft;
The USS Bowditch, a survey ship, was preparing to retrieve its unmanned drone out of the water, as part of their typical mission to collect data on the ocean and weather patterns, the official said. The drone had surfaced and sent out a signal as to its location per normal operations, the official said.
A Chinese ship that had been shadowing the Bowditch then dropped its own small boat in the water and swooped in to grab the drone, the official said.
The Bowditch crew then called over to the Chinese ship to ask for their equipment back. The Chinese crew confirmed receipt of the message, but began driving away, leaving with the drone.
So, the State Department has filed a strongly-worded rebuke and the Navy says that the matter is firmly in the hands of John Kerry. He’ll probably trade away half of the Pacific Fleet as tribute to his Chinese masters. C’mon, January.
