Category: Navy

Two stories that makes me proud to be a Navy Vet… and not be currently serving!

Our fleet will smell like fried chicken.

Domestically produced biofuels will lessen the military’s dependence on petroleum form overseas and “make us better war fighters,” Mabus said. What it won’t do – at least in the short term – is save any money in an era of constrained budgets. The $12 million purchase equates to a per-gallon cost of about $26. Mixed 50/50 with conventional fuel, as the Navy plans to use it, the cost is around $15 a gallon, Mabus said.

Our Sailors will be well dressed for the occasion. NOT!

What’s black and white and in short supply all over? The service dress blue jumper.

For the past three months, a production problem has left the Navy shorthanded in five common sizes of the SDB jumper, the top half of the winter crackerjacks. These male-only uniforms are missing from the racks of some uniform stores, and some recruits are graduating from boot camp without jumpers in their size.

I’ll let our shipmate AW1Tim do the talking from his place.

A disturbing and infuriating situation has arisen.  Apparently, under the “leadership” of  CDR Renee Richardson, USN – head of the Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel, the US Navy has decided NOT to repatriate the bodies of US Navy sailors interred in Tripoli. These men were sailors from USS Intrepid who lost their lives in an attack against the Barbary pirates.

This nation has ample resources to repatriate the remains of these brave sailors to their United States, and see them buried with full military honors. Yet, our own Navy, under the leadership of CDR Richardson, has chosen to abandon their bones to the soil of a foreign land, a land that has, more often than not, been hostile to our nation.

That this slight to these sailors should take place should not surprise anyone who has seen the demise of tradition and honor under recent CNO’s.  Those Navy leaders placed diversity above warfighting, and have chosen to expand their own “diversity enterprise” at Millington while discharging competent Petty Officers from the fleet to “trim the budget”.

This Navy has chosen to also abandon the former USS Olympia, the last surviving warship of the Great White Fleet to it’s likely demise of either being sent to the breakers, or sunk at sea.

We are throwing good money down the black hole of shipbuilding on such un-needed and inefficient platforms as LCS & DDG-1000, yet we can’t find the funds to bring a few good men home.  Big Navy has more admirals per sailor than at any point in our history, more staffs and Make-Work commands than ever before, yet we can’t save USS Olympia, the last of her kind.

CDR Salamander has an excellent piece about this, and I encourage all of you to take a few minutes and read his article. When you’ve finished, call your Congress Critter(s) and give them a piece of your mind regarding this situation.

The men of USS Intrepid have lain in foreign soil long enough. It’s time to bring them home.

Answer: When it is just a metal room with curious seating arrangements.

This story just cries out for bad puns, but I’ll try to stick to the facts.
Toilet Troubles Add to Sailors’ Deployment Stress

It may seem like a trivial inconvenience in the scheme of things, but it’s become routine enough that some sailors aboard the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush say it’s affecting their morale, their health and their job performance: Since the ship left for its maiden combat deployment in May, its toilet system has suffered outages so frequently that crew members sometimes can’t find a single working commode.

I’ve served on ships that ran out of fresh water, or been dead in the water, but never lacked for a place to take a dump.

The problem lies with the vacuum system that pulls waste through the ship’s 250 miles of pipe. The Bush is the first aircraft carrier to be outfitted with a vacuum system, similar to those on commercial airplanes and cruise ships.

So we have a systems that sucks because it doesn’t suck?

Too many questions.  It seems someone got in trouble for taking a leak over the side? I reckon taking dump over the rail would be a hanging offense?

I too have a miserable day to tell about,  sans RPS though.

We left Subic for Hong Kong ahead of a REALLY big typhoon. I theory we were to out run the beast, but Murphy was also at sea it seems.

Nothing quite like the feeling one gets when the waves are so high the the bow tries to become a submarine and the whole ship shudders when the screws come out of the water. Imagine a carrier taking white water over the bow… saw it happen from my ship and that was THIS storm!

Ships have a simple little device kinda like a clock pendulum with degrees marked on it in various places aboard. I know I saw 40 plus degrees indicated more than once. I literally was able to walk on the bulkhead a time or two. I know I got rolled out of my bunk on occasion.

Everyone was seasick except for a few. The heads were awash with vomit, any hatch that opened onto a weather deck had an arc of puke slowly being washed away by the waves. The ship stunk!

My misery… I was one of the few not seasick. The galley was closed and all that could be had to eat was saltines and baloney sandwiches for several days.

Some Army guy in another thread claimed to like Sea Stories.

Let’s do it! We’ll just need to keep it simple. Army guys, need I say more?

I’ve got a million of ’em. Mostly true.

Points for knowing what a P-38 is.