Here’s a link to a first person report from a Naval Officer on the LINCOLN. He simply states what he sees with all the people “getting in on the act” in the disater relief, and adds a few emotional comments.

I can attest to the proplem of “strap hangers,” or, as my first Executive Officer, CDR Dave Martin, used to call them: Trolls. Just so as not to confuse you, that was back in 1977-78, before blogging, where we have a similar type of uninvited, rude, insensitive, and generally all around selfish people. In March, 89, I had the “pleasure” of having Bob Zelnick and crew, from ABC, riding us during a training day at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Not only where they constantly in the way of the drills, I had to assign ship’s company, who should have been training, to escort them around. That was one experience where I came to dislike the Public Affairs Officers, because they were ashore, drinking coffee….that’s a topic for another post.

The officer who wrote this ends by making some cogent comments about the decreased readiness of the pilots. One thing the aviation community takes seriously is the maintenance of training for those who fly on and off things at sea. Besides being an issue of life and death, quite pragmatically, a cost-benefit analysis tells you after paying that much for a fancy airplane, and that much more to train the aircrew, it dings the budget quite a bit when one goes in the drink. It’s an all around losing scenario.

I may have been a “shoe,” but I worked enough time on the helo decks to know those aviators need the experience to maintain their proficiency.