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

Category: Navy

  • AP: Navy pilots “sent” their plane into apartment building

    Now sometimes people are just neglectfully stupid. Sometimes they simply suffer from very human faults. And sometimes they print headlines like this:

    AP hates Navy FA-18 drivers

    If you write for a living as an editor or headline monkey and you put that out you’re either a.) grossly incompetent or b.) so filled with anti-military vitriol as to be incapable of doing your job.

    Those pilots didn’t eject and therefor “send” their plane into that apartment building. They suffered massive mechanical failure and only through their selfless acts of remaining in their doomed aircraft as long as possible and dumping all excess fuel did more people not die or suffer injury.

  • Navy Hornet crash in Virginia Beach

    ROS and Hondo send links to the news that an F-18 crashed in Virginia Beach a few hours ago. It’s being reported that the pilots ejected and one went to the hospital while one other person on the ground has been hospitalized for smoke inhalation.

    David Schleck of the Virginia Pilot tells MSNBC that several witnesses saw both parachutes descending in the air, with both parachutes being caught in buildings above ground. One of the pilots was reportedly still attached to his parachute, which was entangled with the burning apartment building. Schleck says a local neighborhood child was able to obtain a knife that was reportedly used to free the Navy pilot.

    I guess the news is a lot better than it could have been so far.

  • Be careful what you tell your kids

    ROS sent us a Facebook link to this letter that a little girl sent to deployed sailors. Since many of you are sociopaths who don’t do Facebook, I thought I’d drop it off for you here.

    Oh, put down your beverage before you read.

  • Navy MOH Recipient dies at 79

    You know I’m partial to the Navy and Docs.
    Navy Times is reporting that retired Master Chief Hospital Corpsman William Charette, Medal of Honor recipient, died yesterday at 79 years.

    Charette enlisted in the Navy in 1951 and joined Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, which left for Korea in February 1953. It was March 27, 1953, during the Chinese attack on Marine outpost Vegas when Charette threw himself over his patient during a grenade attack, absorbing the blast with his own body, according to the Military Times Hall of Valor.

    In separate instances, Charette removed his battle vest to put on a patient, tore parts of his uniform to dress battle wounds and stood up in a trench, braving gunfire, to attend to a patient.

    Mr. Charette is like the  soldiers and sailors we know, trust, admire, served with: the kind of men and women we’re raising our children to be.  Unlike the filth we’ve been inundated with lately.

  • A Bit of Good News

    Still out there and driving the liberal anti-war loons nuts.

    Act of Valor STILL in the top five!

    Jonn’s review is here.

    I’ve seen it and certainly recommend it too.

    More than anything it serves as a valuable counterpoint to other recent events. 

    Sure gonna try to catch it again.

  • Navy spending $26.75/gl for biofuels

    Everyone’s favorite Navy Secretary, Ray Mabus, was on the Hill this week getting yelled at by some House Republicans for putting Obama’s political considerations before his Department’s war fighting considerations. But what else is new? Most of the Politico article’s premise, the Navy’s “green energy” program, is old news for TAH readers but a few specific things caught my eye.

    The U.S. must move away from its dependence on foreign oil, and the Navy’s clean-energy projects, including investments in algae-based biofuels, “have made us better warfighters,” Mabus said, explaining that for every $1 increase in oil prices per barrel, the Navy pays and additional $31 million in fuel costs.

    “That means that our sailors and Marines steam less, train less, fly less,” Mabus said. “For these reasons, we have to be relentless in our pursuit of energy goals that will continue to make us a more effective fighting force and our military and our nation more energy independent.”

    And yet the article goes onto explain that not only is the Navy spending about 600% more on bio fuel that’s not economically viable but it’s doing so for non-military related reasons.

    The efforts for a greener Navy don’t come cheap. In December, the service purchased 450,000 gallons of biofuels at $26.75 per gallon, POLITICO Pro reported. The biofuels were then mixed with petroleum-based fuels, typically costing just a few dollars a gallon.
    One of the reasons behind the Navy’s investment in the more-expensive biofuels is to promote domestic alternative-energy production. Navy leaders contend that a vibrant clean-energy industry in the United States could protect the fleet from spikes in fuel prices.

    Last I checked that’s what the Strategic Oil Reserve is for. At least when it isn’t being tapped into to lower needlessly inflated gas prices during an election year.

    It’s truly Orwellian to have the Secretary come out and say that the Navy needs to use these biofuels to save money during budget cuts and improve their ability to fight wars then immediately concede that not only is the program increasing costs, but it’s being pursued in the context of the White House’s heavily politicized (and corrupt) strategic energy policy. I mean the guy was raising a fuss over a fuel type fluctuating by a dollar a gallon and then turning around and spending $20 more a gallon to replace it. They tried to hedge a bit by saying that the Navy needs to “be ready” for when these fuels aren’t heinously inefficient and expensive. But we’ve been hearing for 15 years how biofuels and other alternate energy sources are “just a few years” away from being economically viable. Fast forward to 2012 and the Navy is shelling out $26 bucks for something it could be paying about $4 for.

    In case you’re not sufficiently offended by the intellectual dishonesty, here’s a moral outrage to ice the cake: Mabus finished off his political dance by invoking the memory of past, and the specter of future, Marine casualties.

    Leaders of the Marine Corps also have focused more on energy in recent years — a result of the high cost of moving huge volumes of fuel to U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. Currently, the corps consumes more than 200,000 gallons a day there.
    “For every 50 convoys we bring in in fuel, a Marine is killed or wounded,” Mabus told lawmakers last month. “That is too high a price to pay.”
    In all, about 3,000 U.S. troops or contractors have been killed or wounded protecting convoys, POLITICO has reported. Roughly 80 percent of convoys carry fuel.
    The Marine Corps has set two major energy goals: to cut its battlefield requirements for energy by half by 2025 and to have half its bases produce as much energy as they consume by 2020.

    Now I’m all for creating renewable sources of power for bases overseas to cut usage if the systems make sense. But if you’re going to start using my dead friends to push your boss’s energy policy on behalf of good vibes for his political base you better make damn sure you’re not doing so while spending an extra $12 million a year on fuels with lower BTUs than traditional petrol and so actually INCREASING the number of convoys required to meet our military’s energy needs.

  • Zero trust in the professional force

    This next stroke out of genius of the Department of the Navy’s leadership is along the same line of thought as that targeted by my recent rant over Lt. Daniel “Lock ’em Down” Durdin’s desire to rescind the boot-leave (and, realistically, massively popular PR program) for the 99.987% of bootcamp graduates who make it through that ten day minefield unscathed.

    According to Fox News, the Navy and the Marine Corps are planning to install breathalyzers on their ships and in their units for Sailors and Marines as they report to duty. No sarcasm, no hyperbole. That’s a 100% true statement, irony free. From Fox:

    The U.S. Navy will start giving Breathalyzer tests to Marines and sailors reporting for duty aboard ships and submarines and at squadrons, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced Monday in a worldwide call to forces.

    Another winning initial from Obama’s new Navy Secretary. One would think that only a severe and immediate crisis would prompt such a dramatic and service wide effort. Instead it’s this:

    The testing is part of a new 21st Century Sailor and Marine initiative…

    I trust everyone’s alarms bells are sounding at this point, yes?

    a multi-prong program aimed at reinforcing healthy lifestyles both on and off-duty. The program emphasizes healthy lifestyles through nutrition, responsible alcohol consumption, zero tolerance for drug use and fitness programs as well as suicide prevention, family and personal preparedness and financial planning.

    Ah, yes. Of course.

    Not only will sailors reporting for duty watch have to submit to alcohol testing, random Breathalyzers will be done elsewhere “to reduce the occurrence of alcohol-related incidents that can end careers and sometimes end lives,” the Navy confirmed to Fox News.
    “This is not done to punish, but to help. We want to help sailors and Marines make good choices before something happens that can’t be undone,” Mabus said during remarks given aboard the USS Bataan in Norfolk, Va., which were televised and web-streamed live to the fleet.
    Mabus said the goal is to maximize readiness, fitness and safety.

    —

    According to Federal News Radio, a senior Navy official said the Breathalyzer tests would be non-punitive nor legally admissible, and is intended to let commanders of individual vessels get a heads-up about potential alcohol-related problems.

    Now anyone that knows anything about the US military knows there are no such things as non-punitive actions when it comes to this sort of thing, especially when it’s constructed in the paradigm of “integrity checks” or “substance abuse”. Then again probably the only worse thing than a sailor or Marine hit by this “wellness” program getting ran up the flag pole for not quite sleeping all of last night off is a sailor or Marine failing a breathalyzer when reporting for duty and getting a good long talking to about living a balanced lifestyle from someone with a ponytail.

    When I read about things like this my mind goes to dark places. Is this another attempt at infantilizing Americans? Is it an ideologically motivated initiative to “cleanse” those of the old school who don’t embrace the Left’s New Military? After all, I’m not exactly old salty over here and when I came in the Marines our SNCOs were still complaining about not being able to have a couple beers at lunch at the E-Club anymore. Or maybe, most frightening of all, the people at the top of the DotN really do think so little of their sailors and Marines.

    Because, ultimately, this isn’t about “sometimes young sailors and Marines can make bad choices”, as we all know is true. This is about replacing NCOs with a piece of technology and treating the entire force as pending miscreants. It says, “I don’t trust my enlisted leadership.”

    Regarldess of how you cut it I can’t say that we’re sending the message that we have a capable and trustworthy force of professionals guarding our nation when the Navy finds it prudent to make sure the 155 Officers and Petty Officers it has entrusted a $2 billion dollar vessel with enough nuclear weaponry aboard to incinerate a quarter of the world’s population be given a breathalyzer first. Or that the Marine Corps needs treat the Marines who just spent 9 months living in blood, sweat and shit while making truly life and death decisions everyday need to be treated like DUI offenders trying to start their car in the morning.

    Hopefully it’s more cock-up than conspiracy and this can just be chalked up to stupidity.

  • Still Tryin’ to Get Home

    150 years ago…

     When the turret of the Civil War ironclad Monitor was raised from the ocean bottom, two skeletons and the tattered remnants of their uniforms were discovered in the rusted hulk of the Union Civil War ironclad, mute and nameless witnesses to the cost of war. A rubber comb was found by one of the remains, a ring was on a finger of the other.

    Now, thanks to forensic reconstruction, the two have faces.

    In a longshot bid that combines science and educated guesswork, researchers hope those reconstructed faces will help someone identify the unknown Union sailors who went down with the Monitor 150 years ago.

    The article is here.

    “After 10 years in the lab, maybe it’s time for these guys to get out of archival boxes and into a final resting place,” he said. Fundraising has also begun to erect a monument in Arlington to the 16 men on aboard Monitor, which he called an “iconic warship that changed naval history.”

    “Like all who served and all who do pay the price, that in and by itself makes them important and worthy of remembrance and recognition,”

    Fair winds and  following seas shipmates.