{"id":65343,"date":"2016-04-19T16:41:02","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T20:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=65343"},"modified":"2016-04-19T16:41:02","modified_gmt":"2016-04-19T20:41:02","slug":"uss-iowa-27-years-ago-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=65343","title":{"rendered":"USS IOWA; 27 years ago today"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IOWA\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Mick reminds us that it was 27 years ago today that the Number 2, 16-inch gun turret exploded on the World War II-era battleship, the USS IOWA killing 47 sailors off the coast of Puerto Rico. Two investigations into the cause were conducted. The first blamed a suicidal sailor, Clayton Hartwig, for intentionally causing the explosion because of a failed homosexual relationship. Upon further examination, the Navy determined that Hartwig wasn’t a homosexual. A subsequent investigation by Sandia National Laboratories determined that the crew had over-rammed powder bags into the breach of the gun, but the Navy disagreed with Sandia’s determination and merely closed the case as unsolved.<\/p>\n

Survivors of the blast<\/a> gathered in Norfolk;<\/p>\n

Sailors who served that horrific day 27 years ago came together Tuesday to remember their fallen comrades in a ceremony at Norfolk Naval Station. They’re grayer and paunchier. Some struggle through nightmares and survivor’s guilt. Some struggle to attend the annual ceremony at all.<\/p>\n

April 19 is the one date that some of those who served on the Iowa then are able to talk about what happened that day and in the subsequent months as Navy investigators turned the tragedy into a controversial and, ultimately untrue, story of sabotage. They feel they’re a family, one bonded by more than just grief, but also a need to bolster themselves and remember their friends….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mick reminds us that it was 27 years ago today that the Number 2, 16-inch gun … USS IOWA; 27 years ago today<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-we-remember"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}