Category: Navy

Sporkmaster sends this link to the story of a married submarine commander, Navy Cmdr. Michael Ward II, who met a chick on line, immediately told her he was a special operator (because no one would believe a submarine commander would be on line picking up chicks half his age?) which came in handy when he suddenly decided that he wasn’t engaging in rational behavior, I suppose, and faked his death;

When Ward, who had only been named commander of the USS Pittsburgh a week earlier, realized he was in too deep, he allegedly contacted the woman by email purportedly from a co-worker named Bob. The email read:

“I am extremely sorry to tell you that he is gone. We tried everything we could to save him. I cannot say more. I am sorry it has to be this way.”

“He loved you very much,” ‘Bob’ continued. He goes on to say that Ward wanted her to have something.

Yeah, so the chickie went to his funeral, I guess it was classified, too, because there was no funeral, so she tells Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo at NCIS and turns over copies of the emails – and all of that results in Ward losing his command.

After learning that Ward was still alive, the woman said she was hospitalized and discovered she was pregnant by Ward before losing the baby.

Yep, because only sane women are picking up and boinking strange men on the internet. The internet told me so.

My background is Army. As such, I’ve never been to sea – and thus don’t really know much about shipboard operations or life.

But I’ve just never been able to quite understand out how two ships at sea could manage to run into each other. I mean, ships are not exactly small things; they can typically be seen and sensed from substantial distances.  And there’s generally plenty of room out there for each. Given common use of radar and lookouts, barring intent or electrical/mechanical issues it’s kind of hard for me to see how that could happen – even in the more crowded parts of the sea.

Yet ships collide sometimes. And such a collision apparently happened recently between a US warship and a oil tanker in the Straits of Hormuz. The USS Porter, a guided missile destroyer, is reported to have collided with the Panamanian-flagged merchant vessel Otowasan a day or two ago. There were no reported injuries or deaths, but the collision is reported to have left a rather substantial hole in the USS Porter’s hull.

Yeah, the incident occurred at 1AM local, so time-of-day doubtless played a role. And yeah, the Straits of Hormuz are pretty crowded. Still – the two ships couldn’t figure out how to miss each other?

I’m guessing the USS Porter’s captain has some ‘splainin’ to do about this. And I’m also guessing he probably might want to start thinking about his post-service career plans.

Navy vets, please weigh in here. How easy is this to avoid, and in how much “deep doo-doo” is the USS Porter’s captain?

We’ve all heard how the Navy is giving pink slips to sailors in anticipation of pending DoD plans to not balance the budget on the Defense Department. Well, I wonder how they plan to cut personnel when they can’t find enough people to go to sea, ya know kind of the whole idea of having a Navy in the first place. Stars & Stripes says;

Over the past six months, the service has instituted measures to address gaps in critical positions, offering cash and other perks to compel sailors to head back out to sea. While those measures are still taking hold, Navy officials said last week that more must be done to address the at-sea manning issue — including involuntary measures — as nearly one-third of its total enlisted ratings are currently unfilled.

As a result, existing programs are being expanded and new measures implemented to ensure these billets are staffed properly, according to a Navy news release.

So, they’re going to offer people bonuses to go to sea? Funny, but I was under the impression that going to sea was part of being in the Navy. Every time I worked with the Navy, it involved being on a boat and floating around on big bodies of water. So maybe my view of the Navy is a little skewed, ya know, based on my experiences. It must be because everyone in the Navy is secretly a SEAL, so they don’t have time to go to sea, I guess. Right, Joseph Cryer?

Yeah, I thought this was The Duffel Blog when someone sent me the link, but, no, it’s CNN. Somehow, not having urinals on carriers makes the ship gender-neutral;

Omitting urinals lets the Navy easily switch the designation of any restroom – or head, in naval parlance – from male to female, or vice versa, helping the ship adapt to changing crew compositions over time, Meyer said.

The Navy could designate a urinal-fitted area to women, of course, but the urinals would be a waste of space. Making the areas more gender-neutral is a relatively new consideration for the service, with most of its current carriers commissioned before it began deploying women on combat ships in 1994.

Ya, know we had female barracks in the Army that still had urinals in them and somehow the women survived by not using them and generally ignoring the urinals. Except when they had to dust them off before an inspection. I’m glad the Navy is worried about this subject, it shows they’re over-thinking every-f’ing-thing. So while you Navy guys are complaining about scrubbing the “near-misses” off of the toilet seats, sounding much like my wife, thank Big Navy.

Edward sends us a link about Yvonne Nosik, the widow of Kenneth Nosik who died suddenly from a seizure while he was stationed in San Diego. The widow had no one to turn to when she needed someone to help bury her husband’s body since all of his friends were deployed;

So, his wife placed an ad on Craigslist looking for sailors to carry her husband’s casket. It didn’t take long before she got a response.

“I didn’t have nobody to call that was in military that could help me,” Yvonne Nosik said.

Of those who stepped up to help in her time of need, Yvonne Nosik said, “They showed me that my husband is not forgotten and that they leave no man behind.”

How many other professions would do that for someone they don’t know? Police and firefighters, aside.