This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Navy

  • USS Miami Arsonist Gets 17+ Years

    Regular TAH readers likely remember NHSparky’s previous articles on the USS Miami arson incident.  In that incident, a shipyard worker – Casey James Fury – intentionally set a fire on board the sub.  He later told authorities he set the fire because “he wanted to go home because he was suffering from an anxiety attack” and “never envisioned such extensive damage”.  The resulting fire did what is currently estimated at $450 million in damage to the sub – and injured seven.

    Fury was sentenced yesterday in Federal court to 205 months in prison – just over 17 years.  He was also ordered to pay $400 million in restitution.

    Yeah, right.  Good luck on getting $400 million from this doofus, Uncle Sam.

    Oh well.  At least Fury will do something approaching a reasonable amount of time for his crime.  And at least no one was killed during the fire.

    But I guess Fury now has bona fide reasons for his anxiety attacks.  I understand prison can be kinda scary.

  • Senators introduce stopgap to reinstate tuition assistance

    Senators Jim Inhofe and Kay Hagan introduced a stopgap budget bill that would reinstate tuition assistance for the troops still on active duty according to Fox News;

    “The president wants Americans to feel the pain of the arbitrary across-the-board budget cuts from sequestration, but to cut off promised education assistance for our service members when there are other lower priority spending programs to draw from is an injustice,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.

    He and Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina introduced an amendment Wednesday to a stopgap budget bill that would restore the program.

    Inhofe recognizes what the service chiefs have ignored – it will hurt retention to cut off the few things the troops have which keep them motivated to stay.

    Hagan, in a statement, also said she understands the Pentagon has some “tough budget decisions” to make, but called the decision to suspend tuition assistance “shortsighted.”

    It’s especially sad that the politicians are looking out for the troops’ welfare better than their own generals are doing. And I especially think that it sucks that the Navy Department is willing to cut Marines’ tuition assistance, while keeping their own for other-than-Marine Navy personnel.

  • The Butterfly Effect

    A bit over 45 years ago – on 23 January 1968 – the USS Pueblo was seized in international waters by North Korean forces.   It was only the second US Navy ship to be captured by enemy forces since the War of 1812 (the river gunboat USS Wake was captured by Japanese forces on 8 December 1941).  It remains on the roster of US Navy ships today.

    During the seizure of the USS Pueblo, one crewman – Fireman Duane Hodges – was killed by North Korean gunfire.  The rest of the crew was captured alive.

    The crew was held prisoner for 11 months in North Korea.  Conditions were abysmal, and they were indeed abused and tortured by their North Korean captors.  Calling this “a year in hell” isn’t much of an exaggeration.  Some of the accounts here are disturbing; read them when you can afford to get disturbed – and angry.

    (more…)

  • Monitor sailors to be buried at Arlington

    GruntSgt sends us a link at navy.mil, which announces that two sailors found in the turret of the USS Monitor, the ironclad ship which sunk off the coast of Virginia in a storm on December 31, 1862, will be interred at Arlington;

    PAC, with the assistance of the Navy Casualty Office and NOAA, conducted a comprehensive effort to identify the remains of the unknown Sailors, to include time-demanding and detailed genealogical research. Given the age of the remains, efforts to identify them were unsuccessful. However, JPAC was able to narrow down possible descendents of the unknown Sailors to 30 family members from 10 different families.

    “The decision to lay these heroes to rest in Arlington, honors not only these two men but all those who died the night Monitor sank and reminds us, that the sacrifices made a hundred and fifty years ago, will never be forgotten by this nation”, said David Alberg, Superintendent of NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary.

    Because we never forget the service and the sacrifice.

  • Another Comes Home

    Another fallen brother-in-arms returns home to receive belated final honors.

    Naval aviator LT Richard Laws was lost over North Vietnam in 1966. At the time, he was assigned to Attack Squadron 24 operating from the USS Hancock.

    At the time, he was presumed dead.

    His remains were later recovered.  However, at the time of recovery they could not be positively identified.

    Recent DNA testing has confirmed that the remains are indeed those of LT Laws.  He will be interred at the US Naval Academy on May 10, 2013.

    Welcome home, my elder brother-in-arms.  Welcome home at last.

  • USS Guardian – An Update

    I wrote a few days ago about the USS Guardian running aground near the Philippines.  The latest word is that the ship is taking on water, the crew has been evacuated, and that the ship will have to be “lifted off the rocks” in order to be freed.  It will reportedly take another week or two to free the ship.

    That’s not good.

    The grounding occurred in an offshore area of the Philippines that has been declared a marine park and a World-Heritage site.  Another report indicates that the ship ignored radio warnings from Philippine park rangers that they were nearing the park, refused to let Philippine Park rangers permission to board in order to check paperwork, and told the park rangers to take their complaints “to the US Embassy.” (This second report is from what appears to be a blatantly anti-American source, so it’s perhaps best taken with the proverbial grain of salt.)

    It’s beginning to look like s fair number of people on that ship might want to start working on resumes.

  • Congress Gets One Right

    This story has gotten some publicity elsewhere.  But  I haven’t seen an update on TAH since Jonn’s original article, so I thought I’d do one.

    Apparently a key Senate committee recently refused to recommend approval for one Navy Reserve Captain recommended for promotion to RDML.  The guy they’re”blackballing” is a former naval aviator – with a confirmed air-to-air kill!  The nomination was returned to the White House without action, effectively killing it unless the POTUS chooses to nominate the individual a second time.

    Personally, I’m OK with that.  The air-to-air kill occurred in September 1987, during a training exercise.  And the jet he downed – a RF-4C – happened to belong to the USAF.

    (more…)

  • Our Navy – Some Reflections

    Hondo, and the comments his post engendered,  set me to doing some soul searching and you get to monitor that process – sort of.

    When I was in (64-69) “Rocks and Shoals” was still a topic of conversation.  This was well after the adoption of the UCMJ in ’51, but that thread existed still.

    In no small part part it was maintained by the Chiefs. The Goat Locker seemed a vestige of that era to lesser mortals.

    I don’t think the other branches (outside of the Coast Guard) have a similar hierarchy?

    Mind you… At my age I AM dealing with memories, and memories of memories, but I found this article that suggests I ain’t far wrong.

    The time honored rite of the U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer (CPO) initiation process has been eliminated. Political correctness has won out over more than 100 years of having gotten it right in the Chief’s Mess.

    What has the U.S. Navy done? Will it prove harmful, or will it even matter in the grand scheme of things? My prediction is that this will exponentially increase the number of glorified managers in the Navy’s senior enlisted ranks.

    With Jonn’s forgiveness let me cite one other item from the article:


    I DO believe we still have that kind of man in Our Navy along with what ever the PC crowd allows. Not sure where the tipping point might be though?