I have mentioned in other posts one of the jobs I had was conducting inspections of surface ship in the Atlantic Fleet for combat systems readiness. The inspection was called the Combat Systems Assessment (CSA), and during my three years of doing this, it was done under two different procedures. That’s not important right now, but fodder for more sea stories.

Near the end of my 3 year “shore duty” (oh, yeah, that’s the one where you’re supposed to be home) tour, the people over at Naval Surface Forces, Atlantic (NAVSURFLANT) decided we also needed to do CSAs on the patrol hydrofoils. They hadn’t been given this level of scrutiny, so we pulled checksheets for their systems and programs, assembled a smaller team (myself and 4 others) and scheduled an airlift to Key West from Norfolk. Darn the bad luck the Naval Air Logistics Office (NALO) “gave” my team and I the “Station Plane” from Chambers Field (NAS Norfolk). The station planes are like the assigned vehicle for the NAS commander. It was a C-12, in military terms, but, in the civilian world (and most especially in the skydiving realm) it’s just that wonderful Beechcraft King Air airframe. Read twin turboprop executive plane…:)

Anyhow, we went to NAS Key West and then aboard the USS HERCULES (PHM-2). She was one of 6 ships of the PEGASUS Class of hydrofoils. 42 kts while “flying,” and armed with a 76mm gun, and 4 Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

We did our thing, checking the checklists, then watching the crew do a practice engagement. Once this all was completed, the CO, a LCDR (O-4) had the Officer of the Deck “land” the ship in the emergency mode, which was a tactic to run fast on the foils, get into a bunch of ships like a fishing fleet, then slam the ship down on the hull and magically look like the fishing boats around you on radar. The passed the word for all hands to brace for an “emergency landing,” and proceeded to do one for us. The ship was running on a steady course and dropped from 42 kts to about 3 kts really fast. I you hadn’t been hanging on, you’d become somewhat of a flesh missile hazard. Impressive. Back up on the foils we went.

There was time to burn and I was on the bridge. The CO asked me: “Sir, would you like to conn the ship?” Conning the ship is discussed in my post on backing out of station here. I replied: “No, I’ve conned plenty of ships, I want to drive this one.” He had the helmsman get up and let me take his seat. On the PHM, the helmsman and lee helmsman (the person who directly operated the throttles) sit in chairs with seat belts. The controls for a helmsman are like a bomber control yoke, the big partial steering wheel. The CO ordered the OOD to execute a “Figure Eight.” They told me when the order “full rudder” is given, it means you turn the wheel until your hand touches your thigh. “Right Full Rudder!” “Right Full Rudder, Aye, Sir!” and I turned us to starboard. The ship heeled impressively at speed. “Shift Your Rudder!” (position the rudder on the opposite side, the same number of degrees) “Shift My Rudder, Aye, Sir!”

The ship sped along, straighted up, then began to heel the opposite way and the bow dipped and headed for the water! WHAM! Another “emergency landing” just happened, but no one passed the word. Sea spray engulfed the ship for a few moments, as we stopped. Everyone looked around sort of dazed, not because of injury, but more the “what just happened” kind of dazed. No one was hurt, but a few a little shocked when momentum took over unannounced.

In a few minutes, the Engineer reported to the Co that the landing had been caused by a gyro casualty. The PHM’s had two foils aft, just forward of the stern. Each had underwater wings that were computer controlled, and the computer took the inputs from the gyros. The ship had two gyrocompasses. The initial software for the ship’s flying stability did not account well for the loss of one gyro. When the software safety people evaluated the program, they found that if one gyro’s signal was lost, the computer would compensate in such a way as to possibly cause the 288 ton vessel to cartwheel across the sea surface. The software was modified with a “fail safe” mode as a result of this discovery. The new software, when if sensed the loss of one gyro signal would command the ship to land, which, would result in an unannounced “emergency landing.”

When things were all squared away, and they gyro back on line, we proceeded into port. The CO told me I was the only non-crewmember to ever “land” the ship.

As we were about to depart, the Captain had “Flying Certificates” made out for each one of us. I’m not sure if it was OSCM Dave Roddy, or GCMC Dave Cress who looked at me and said “They should have crumpled yours up, boss.”

History, and I was a piece of it….

UNITAS, it’s a wonderful deal, which, as one of my commenters noted to my post here, is no longer. The “deployment” is no longer done.

I arrived aboard USS CONOLLY (DD-979) in late September, 1983. Assigned as Engineer Officer, I felt it was my duty to quickly and properly qualify as Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW). My CO, CDR Harry Maxiner, had other plans. Reporting aboard in Puerto Mont, Chile, the ship was to begin a transit down the Chilean Inland Waterway. That breathtaking passage is about 1/2 the length of Chile, with the foothills of the Andes to port and jagged island and smaller mountain chains to the starboard side. It is a route taken because the South Pacific at that time of year is very rough. Chilean Naval Officers are the pilots for the transit. There is a group of them assigned with this as their duty for their Navy and visitors such as us.

Capt Maxiner told me I would be standing watches on the bridge. I was disappointed, but, orders is orders. That’s another interesting story.

We would be arriving home in Mid-December and then, after leave and standdown (30 days), we would be prepping the ship for a complex overhaul. For 10 months, we would be held captive by Supervisor of Ships in Portland, ME, so Bath Iron Works could do the work on us. That over haul would go from Feb through Dec. After that would be some local work ups and qualification of newly installed Tomahawk, MK23 Target Acquisition System (TAS) and MK15 CIWS. Next in the operational schedule would be a trip to that wonderful garden spot we just call “Gitmo” for 6 weeks of “Refresher Training.” By my rotation date, I would be off the ship before she sailed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and headed to the second half of my Department Head tour.

In order to be selectable for Command at Sea, there is a (go figure) checklist. One of the items (again, go figure) is demonstrating the ability to handle a ship. Included in the list of ship handling evolution was taking the ship alongside another. The other evolutions didn’t require the presence of another ship, so they could be done entering any port, or when the ship was independently streaming.

I had three months when we would be operating around other ships, and then the overhaul, then I’d depart (if the plan would hold for my normal rotation). I needed to go alongside a ship while on UNITAS, or I’d not get the option later. Not good for the Fitness Report to leave out “qualified for Command at Sea.”

While I stood bridge watches for the first month, the alongside opportunities didn’t present themselves. I went to the Senior Watch Officer, at the time Lt Mike Moe and asked for him to put me on the list for the next time we’d be refueling at sea. He told me the junior officers needed the handling time and I was a “proven commodity.” “That’s true Mike, but I’m staying in and we have no idea how many of them will go to Department Head School.” It didn’t work, he said maybe later. I countered with my short time window to do this, and he wasn’t terribly concerned.

I went up to the bridge and found the Captain on the port bridge wing. I began to tell him about my desire to wrap up my shiphandling this cruise. He looked at me, listening, and when I was done, said “Ok, go take the conn (the person who is legally able to give engine and rudder orders, usually the Junior Officer of the Deck).” I looked at him, and it must have been in a funny way, then he said “We just got ordered to go alongside the MINEAS GERIAS” (an aircraft carrier of the Brazilian Navy).

I took the conn and we took waiting station starboard, hoisted “Romeo” at the dip, indicating we were ready to approach. The Romeo flag on the MINEAS GERIAS was “closed up” and we smartly increased speed and began to come alongside. This process requires a lot of attention to detail, a throrough understanding of the handling characteristics of your ship, and hydrodynamic interactions between ships close aboard. I’ll cover that in another post.

I settled the ship in at the desired position alongside, at 120 ft separation, and matched the speed of the carrier. We remained there about 10 minutes, then received a signal to return to our screening station. Capt Maxiner looked at me and said “Have you ever backed one of these out of station?”

The conventional wisdom is you depart from your place alongside by increasing speed, and, until your stern is clear of the other vessel’s bow, and then you begin to steer away. Capt Maxiner was suggesting that we go backwards to leave.

The SPRUANCE Class Destroyers were the first combatant class to be fitted with controllable, reversible propellers (CRP). The shaft turns the same way all the time (in this case, the two shafts counter rotate as well, turning inboard from their respective sides), with large hydraulics physically changing pitch on the blades. Because of this, you can reverse your course very quickly, since the engines don’t have to be stopped to turn the shafts in the opposite direction.

UPDATE: 74 of Bow Ramp corrected me. in the comments: “For the record, the Ashville class gunboats were the first US Navy combatants with CRP shafts. We could go from DIW to 40 knots in under 60 seconds and from Ahead Flank to DIW in 300 feet (under two ship lengths.)” I stand corrected. Thanks!

“No” I said. “Do what I say” was the next order. “All back flank.” “ALL BACK FLANK!” I spoke into the handset to the helm. The ship quickly began to shudder as we rapidly decelerated. The eyes on the people on the MINEAS GERIAS got big as pie plates….The carrier, proceeding at 12 knots, with us now approaching 0, pulled ahead quickly. The four turbines whined as the fuel pumps sent the maximum amount of liquid into the combustion chambers on the GE LM-2500 main engines. Our bow rapidly cleared their stern. Our screening station was on the port bow of the MINEAS GERIAS, so coming away from her starboard side, we had to get around her to carry out or orders. “ALL AHEAD FLANK THREE!” was the next command to the lee helmsman. The engines were up to speed, so now it was up to the hydraulics of the Byrd-Johnson system to change our direction. “LEFT FULL RUDDER!” “LEFT FULL RUDDER, AYE, SIR!” came back in the amplified speaker. The crew of the MINEAS GERIAS was moving aft to watch us back out of station. “RUDDER AMIDSHIPS!” as I saw we could steer straight ahead and clear the transom of the carrier. “Combat, course to station!”

As we secured the navigation team on the bridge, Capt Maxiner looked at me and asked “Is that what you needed to do?” then laughed a big belly laugh, as he sat perched in the captain’s chair on the bridge wing. “Yes, sir, that was it.”

While slicing through the ocean at 32 knots may not sound near as exciting as some of the things Neptunus Lex graces us with, it’s still a trip to be able to haul about 8000 tons of Tin Can about with such grace and flair. Like everything else, when you do it right, it looks great. On the other hand, if not, it can be scraped paint and ruined careers. I’ll also say, with certainty, no one ever was heard to yell “Do some of that SWO (Surface Warfare Officer) stuff!” just in case you were wondering, even when we looked as cool as Tom Cruise, sunglasses on, short hair blowing in the stiff breeze across the deck, while the ship surged along with “a bone in her teeth.”

Captain Maxiner was a tactician, ship handler and gunner, with the heart of a warrior. One post I hope to get to is his use of 5″ gun powder casing tubes, and weather ballons to kick the USS SCOTT’s “can.”

Stay tuned, same station, but unknown time, for the next episode.

Digging around the urban legend site Snopes, I came across a speech by a retired Air Force Officer. The speech was given in the fall of 2001, obviously from the text, after 9/11. Great speech. Brian Shul has flown 212 combat missions from Vietnam, and in the Cold War. Here’s what caught my eye:

And many years later, while fighting another terrorist over Libya, my backseater and I outraced Khaddafi’s missiles in our SR-71 as we headed for the Mediterranean…

I recall clearly that night in April, 1986, while aboard USS BIDDLE (CG-34), we had been told a “national asset” would be traversing our airspace. We gathered around the radar scopes in the Combat Information Center, switched on the SPS-48 air search display and proceeded to watch the SR-71 smoke by. We probably could see about 600 miles across (about 300 around the ship). As the radar rotated, we saw about 4 radar returns from one side of the area of coverage to the other. He was a real “fast mover.”

Now I know it was Brian Shul who flew by.

History, it’s fun stuff, especially when you are present.

Each year, the Navy sends a group of ships, to exercise with the navies of Central and South America. The cruise is named “UNITAS” and has been a long tradition of showing the flag in the southern part of the Western Hemisphere. While there is good professional, at sea experience to be had, and the opportunity to meet with your professional counterparts from other countries, there also is a requirement to enter port and attended “mandatory fun.” More on what that looks like is a topic to be reserved for a later post.

In the later part of 1983, two of the ships of the UNITAS task force were detached to go on the West African Training Cruise (WATC). One ship was mine, USS CONOLLY (DD-979), where I was assigned as Engineer Officer. The other was the USS JESSE L BROWN (FF-1089).

We had both been import in Brazil, in a port north of Rio de Janeiro. The BROWN was next to the pier, and we had been nested (moored to the outboard side) to the BROWN. The day before departure, both ships were scheduled to refuel. The hoses first went to the BROWN, and upon her completion of fueling, the hose would be brought across her deck to our fueling stations. I had my fueling team stay aboard that day, anticipating it would be our time to fuel about noon.

About mid-morning, the Duty Engineer called me and said BROWN was done fueling and we were getting ready to receive the hoses. I recall thinking that had been a very fast refueling, but, ordered the engineers to get us fueled.

We sailed east the next morning without incident, the BROWN leaving port right behind us. Our destination was Liberville, Gabon, and hers Equatorial Guinea. While we were “proceeding independently,” because our destinations were close together on the continent of Africa, we would end up sailing close to one another for about half of the transit across the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

We sailed in the warm, almost empty ocean for several days, when we received a message from the BROWN: “We don’t have enough fuel to reach Africa.” Exacerbating the problem tremendously was the fact that the USS SEATTLE (AOE-3), who had sailed south to meet the UNITAS group for exercises with the Brazilian Navy, had already headed back north the States. CONOLLY was the only ship within thousands of miles that could help.

No destroyer is designed to give fuel away. That being said, we have to get fuel down from the topside refueling stations, and it’s just a matter of pipes and valves, and having some sort of pumping system to reverse the flow. There is a very minimal capability to do this, in particular for a condition where you may have to de-fuel the ship. Having the competent crew that we did, I sat down with CDR Harry Maxiner (the Captain) and LT John Taylor, the Weapons Officer, and a few key players to figure out how to transfer fuel at sea to another ship. We had two options. One was to rendezvous with the BROWN, have one ship go to all stop and rig fenders, so the other ship could come alongside and moor together. Option two was to pass the fuel via connected replenishment while underway, using a manila “highline” and 2 ½ inch fire hose as the delivery method. Option two had the least impact on the arrival schedule in Africa for both ships. In any case, the transfer rate of fuel would be very slow, so to stop at sea for a better part of a day would put us both behind in meeting our “show the flag” commitments.

LT Al Curry, my Main Propulsion Assistant, GSMC(SW) Weigman, and men of “M” Division got the plan together for using our fuel transfer pumps (used to take fuel from the storage or “bunker” tanks to the service or “day” tanks) to send the fuel about 50 feet up in the fuel piping, where it would cross over to the BROWN in the fire hoses. John Taylor put the Boatswains Mates to work laying out the lines, hoses and blocks necessary to make a RAS (replenishment at sea) rig.

We rendezvoused with BROWN and Captain Maxiner set it up for us to make the approach (meaning BROWN would sail at a set course and speed and we would come up from astern of her, off to one side about 120 ft, at a higher speed, until we were alongside her where the location of our fueling station and her receiving station were across from each other, then match BROWN’s speed). The best part about this is that meant our officers and crew would get the experience of shiphandling in close quarters, and all BROWN would have to do was make sure their helmsman steered his course.

The approach was generally uneventful except for our smirks at our peers, who, I’d conjecture, had been too anxious to get out for a last day of liberty in Brazil (and let me just add, liberty in Brazil is wonderful), than making sure they had been “topped off” prior to sailing. It is customary when a ship comes alongside a delivery ship, such as the USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2), my first duty at sea, the delivery ship would announce over the topside 1MC circuit (the loudspeakers) something to the effect of “Aboard the USS JESSE L BROWN, welcome alongside USS CONOLLY. You are the first ship alongside this deployment. Standby for shot lines fore and aft!” After that, the receiving ship deck crew would have the fueling station supervisor blow a long whistle burst and direct the signalman to indicate readiness to accept the shot line. The delivery ship station crew blew a whistle and the directed the gunner’s mate to shoot. The passing of the hoses to the BROWN as planned and we pumped about 30K gallons of fuel to her in the next four hours.

It was history. No SPRUANCE Class destroyer had yet done this. To document the event, we sent a message off to Destroyer Squadron TEN, our parent command. In response, we got a message back, telling us they would log in the successful completion of a “Z-26-S Delivering Fuel” exercise in our training and readiness matrix. In the TREAD Manual, that was not one we had been required to do (for obvious reasons). They gave us a score of 100%.

The BROWN proceeded to Equatorial Guinea, making it safely. We still had plenty of fuel to arrive in Liberville on time. We had bragging rights for the first, and gloating rights over our counterparts aboard BROWN. We didn’t have any close interaction with them for the rest of the cruise, such as a port visit together, where I’m sure my “snipes” would have made the point of who was better in the local bars. Our homeport was Norfolk, and the BROWN’s was Charleston, so we went on our separate ways, returning home in mid-December of 83.

Our mistake on the CONOLLY was to not have the Public Affairs Officer write up the event for an article in All Hands, or Surface Warfare Magazine. A few years later, one of the Pacific Fleet SPRUANCEs did the same type of operation, and they took the time to grab that overworked junior officer and make him draft and submit the article to Surface Warfare Magazine.

I was there, I know who was really first.

I have plenty of “sea stories” about the E-7s, -8s, and -9s that made me look successful for 20 years. Most of them are uplifting and more than a few just plain humorous. Some are not so good, but I found out that incompetents, lazy, and slackers come in both genders, all colors and backgrounds. Conversely, dedicated, hard charging, make it happen people come in both genders and all colors and backgrounds. In both cases, there is no exclusivity.

When I was an XO, and we were on cruise, a few of the Chief Petty Officers were complaining to the Senior Chief Petty Officer of the Command (SCPOC) about how bad the junior officer were. Well, instead of the EMCS doing the “right thing,” and having a short “meeting” in the Goat Locker, where he would have read them the riot act and then handed them the solution, he came to me.

I enjoy solving problems. On the other hand, on a Persian Gulf deployment, being the Navigator, the second in command, and the guy who had to keep all the right balls in the air, I was sort of busy with the “big picture” stuff. When the SCPOC brought this one and dropped it in my lap, I was slightly annoyed, so I had called the meeting in the Goat Locker.

I didn’t yell, I didn’t throw anything around. I just provided them with this fact of life (or words to this effect):

“You know how you you have served with COs and XOs and department heads that really sucked and made your life miserable, because they didn’t know anything? Well, guess what? Their CPOS, when they were division officers failed to take them aside and train them, so you got stuck holding the bag.”

“Not only do you have my permission to bring your JO down here, close the door, put a cup of coffee, no, strike that, can of Coke, in their hands and tell them how life is, I actually expect you will do that, because that’s your job. If you don’t take the time to do it, you’ll just be stuck with them as department heads, XOs and COs who will make your life miserable and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

It sure seemed pretty clear to me how to solve the problem. Once more, I refer you back to one of my earliest posts about RDC Mac and his ensigns beginnings.

We need those senior enlisted to step up to the plate and form a bond with their “butter bars,” so the wisdom of real leadership can be passed on. We also need the “butter bars” to resist the urge to think they have a commission and therefore a corner on the knowledge market in the profession of arms. When this happens, we see a military that can slice and dice more bad guys before breakfast, than most other armed forces could do in a week.

Since we see this capability in action via the many blogs, I know there is this sort of “training” happening. Let’s hope the tradition stays with us.

A few “hall of fame” names of my enlisted mentors (in order of appearance):

OSC Michael P. MacCaffery
RMC Hansen
GMCM(SW) Don Dolance
STGCM(SW) David Frey
FTCS(SW) David Magnus
GSCS(SW) John “JC” Wiegman
GSMC(SW) John Graham
GSEC(SW) Denny Rohr
RMCM(SW) Rumbaugh
OSC(SW) Michael Bennett
GMCM(SW) David Cress

To swipe General Doolittle’s book title, I’ll just say, I could never be so lucky again, to have such great senior enlisted men who took the time to invest in me.

While checking the referring links, I followed one of the inbound search engine links back. They had come looking up “whaleboat.” One of the other links presented with one of my posts was to a 1st person story about the sinking of the USS NEOSHO (AO-23), a fleet oiler, at the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942. for those without an understanding of the significance of that battle in WWII, it was the first time the US forces in the Pacific took offensive action against the Japanese. It was pretty much a draw, but it stopped the advance of the Japanese in the Pacific, and after that, we just kept pushing them back to their homeland.

I am always facinated by 1st person reports, and this link provides some good reading.

This quote is of particular interest, as there was some similar discussions on this topic when I spent the afternoon with Dick Rohde, regarding being in the rafts after the Battle Off Samar:

“Three whaleboats were put safely over the side of the tanker,” continued the sailor. “One of them took me and the other wounded from a raft and the other two boats were also rapidly filling with men.

“When it became apparent there wouldn’t be enough room for all the men struggling in the water. Lieutenant Bradford suddenly stood up and said:

‘I guess those of us not wounded will have to get off.’”

“Then he dived into the water.

“Several other uninjured men in our boat followed his example and we later learned that fifteen men in all had voluntarily quit the whaleboats to make room for the wounded. The lieutenant and two enlisted men of the fifteen survived.”

Read the link on the NEOSHO. It will give you an appreciation for the perils of the sea service, when you have a capable enemy to confront.

To get even more info on the story, this link will provide more detail on the NEOSHO, as well as having links to Bill Leu’s video interview (the person who did the 1st person report mentioned above)..

After reading with interest the stories of the two men in the topic line, one the first Congressional Medal of Honor Winner in the GWoT, the other, a combat leader who has been subjected to an Article 32 (equivalent of a civilian Grand Jury proceeding). That contrast, for each man, is their distinction is a result of combat action in Iraq. One a hero, one accused of murder.

That’s about as far at the opposite ends of the spectrum as you can get. Now for some comparison:

In the stories of who each of these men are, there was a common thread between the two. They both demanded their men were ready for combat. Training was the method, and it sounds like was used for thier units by SFC Smith and Lt Pantano, while other units went on Liberty.

Paul Smith had been called “the morale nazi” by his men, implied in the St. Petersburg Times articles, because he made them do things over and over, making sure they had them right. SFC Smith’s life philosophy seemed to be that his profession was what he focused on. His troops, after his death in the firefight, credit his training, taring, and training, as what kept them alive, while he took on the terrorists. The men in his charge, who thought he was some kind of fanatic about traiing, I suspect are now “reborn” and will hammer the lesson into their units. They are the next generation of “morale nazis” as well as combat heros. SFC Paul Smith’s legacy will save more lives.

2Lt Pantano sounds like he is cut from the same cloth. Insisting on doing it right through training, and then demanding those procedures on the battle field. As a result, he was accused of murder. The man who accused him was a sargent who was relieved of his squad leader position for failing to follow procedures while the platoon took a break in the field. the sargent didn’t have his men follow the correc tsecurity procedures. Sounds like a good reason to pull someone out of leadership to me. Not only can a mistake like this get the sargent killed in combat, but many of the other members of the unit. From my experience, I cannot see how the reprimand and relief of duty could not have been a causative factor in the bringing of charges against his platoon leader.

Not to compare any of my work with these two combat heros, but I’ll tell you what I found while in the training world, to help frame the Lt Pantano case issues. for three years, I was assigned to a mobile training team and my duty in the organization was to evaluate the Combat Systems readiness of Atlantic Fleet surface units. I reported as a senior O-4 and left as an O-5. I’ll say this: I didn’t have the job to make friends, nor to make enemies. I had it to report to a 3 star the status of his ships, as they worked their way up through the readiness for deployment cycle. As a result, I had to make some calls, based on established criterai from printed Navy and DoD references. In a few cases, the “grade” wasn’t to the liking of the Captain of the ship, or maybe his boss. The bottom line: A few senior officers wanted to throw me under the bus, along with my team, because we did what we had to do. One very senior O-6 Squadron Commodore, made a point of publicly berating me on the bridge wing of a ship because I was “flunking his best Engineering ship.” I don’t know about you, but it sure seemed like a disconnected argument to me. The equipemt to ward off attackers wasn’t working to design specs, and under preformed (by a big margin) that day. I had an obligation to report it. The Commodore flew to Norfolk to walk straight into the Type Commander’s office the next morning. Thankfully, the Type Commander “got it.” Case closed, grade stood.

My point: Most of the people I met in the service, to include my two tours while assigned to training organizations, really weren’t interested in doing training, training and more training. The ones who did were looked at, at the least, like they had three heads.

SFC Smith’s actions on the day of his death dispelled any thoughts of him being a morale nazi. The sargent who accused Lt Pantano of committing murder is alive to do so, because he served a leader who knew it was important, above all else, to be ready for combat and to carry out that training.

With luck, Lt Pantano’s case will be dropped,as the Article 32 board seems to have recommended. I just hope the leadership of the Corps does the right thing.

He was my second Commanding Officer. An aviator on a “deep-draft” vessel, the stepping stone to command of an aircraft carrier. Getting this far, you knew people in these positions would be wearing flag rank one day.

Capt Cecil B. Hawkins, Jr. At 6’4″, half Cherokee Indian he was now in the Combat Logistics Force (CLF) on a replenishment oiler. He was the kind of CO that was all over the ship, but only for the reason was he was interested in what made the ship tick. When you found him looking over your shoulder, and he asked “What are you doing?” he wanted to know the details.

Prior to being my CO, he had been the CO of the largest aviation squadron at the time. If I remember correctly, it was an A-7 training squadron in Texas, with about 1000 people assigned. Quite a responsibility.

Sometime in 1978, we had pulled into Port Canaveral for a few days, I can’t remember the reason, but, as usual, the Commanding Officer was given a car, but the rest of us had to hoof it if we wanted to go somewhere. Several of us were sitting in the Wardroom, it must have been a Saturday, and Capt Hawkins came in the door from the weather deck and asked “Does anyone want to go to Cape Kennedy?” The 1st Lieutenant, LCDR Mike Pivonka, and I said we would like to come along. We changed and met him on the pier. Capt Hawkins had been the CO for a while at this point, but as we drove to the Cape, he began to tell us about being part of the initial set of men being trained as Mercury astronauts, that he had not mentioned. As we walked about the Cape, he told us stories of the original Mercury 7 astronauts selected. One put his house up for sale as “A Future Astronaut.” One of the others had the reputation of doing anything it took to make sure he was one of the astronauts selected. Over the years, his stories have squared with other historical accounts, such as “The Right Stuff” and “From the Earth to the Moon.”

I did a little searching and found that there were 32 men who were not only passed the selection process, but also volunteered to enter the training program. Capt Hawkins told us he went almost all the way through the program, but was “cut” when the final design of the Mercury capsule was completed. The tallest you could be was 5’8″ and still fit inside the capsule. At 6’4”, he wasn’t going to get to fly.

Capt Hawkins had another story he told, and if any of you out there who have been in Naval Aviation, or worked with some of the aviators, see if you can confirm this:

For the filming of “Tora, Tora, Tora!,” a large group of Naval Aviators were recruited to take leave and fly as stunt me in the movie. With scenes of Japanese planes launching from their aircraft carriers, where else do you get people who can actually do that while the camera rolls? Anyhow, Capt Hawkins was one of those, and told of the film producers paying their stunt actor guild fees, and how there were really big parties every night. His next claim is one I’m not sure is all real, as I ran across someone else, who had a CO who made the same claim. He told us that the one plane in the carrier launch scene that leaves the deck, then sinks out of sight, only to reappear a few breath taking seconds later was piloted by himself!

He never made a big deal of all of this, but just presented it as the story of his life, just a slice of history. I learned many things from Capt Hawkins, as a very junior officer on a CLF ship.

It has been 13 years since Richard Marcinko’s autobiography, Rogue Warrior was published. He was the first commander of SEAL TEAM SIX, back when it didn’t exist, and was the Navy’s first full time counter terrorist organization. It would be wise to review his findings (hint: READ HIS BOOK!)

I read it with great interest many years ago, and as I listened to the discussions about the errant pilot in a Cessna 150 that flew too close to the White House and Capitol buildings today, a piece of Richard’s story came back to me.

Close to the end of Rogue Warrior, Richard Marcinko describes how his unit, SEAL Team 6, was tasked to conduct a terrorist attack on a Naval Base in Southern California. I don’t recall if it was Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station, or the Naval Weapons Systems Engineering Station at Port Hueneme, but in either case, they were bases with perimeter fences, and the general public did not have access to the base.

What has stuck with me all these years was Richard’s description of his tactics. He had a two week window for the exercise. His could attack at any time during this period. Start with the premise that we have not manned our bases to have a person physically present at every point of a a perimeter, but we have elected to place guarded access points (gates), and then use physical structures, most usually, cyclone type fencing topped with barbed or concertina wire.

The base to be attacked knew they had to put out vehicle and foot patrols to protect against the impending attack. If you’re the bad guys, what do you do? Well, for a bunch of SEALs (remember, they were playing terrorist roles) with two weeks to just get in and show they could, the answer was easy. Prep your gear, do your scouting, then it’s party time for almost all the rest of the two week window.

Why would they do that, besides the fact that most every sailor won’t turn down paid “liberty ” time, when they had a mission to complete?

Simple: The base security had to guard every approach, all the time. Because they were not manned to do this under regular operating conditions, it meant they would have to suck it up and put a much more intense watch schedule into effect. Over time, it’s easy to figure out that before long, the defenders would be dog tired, trying to cover everywhere, all the time.

What happens when you get tired? Complacency and lack of attention to detail. Both, in a combat environment, will kill you or the others you are with or protecting.

The SEALs partied it up in San Diego, then headed up within a few days of the end of the time frame for the exercise, made their final checks and coordination, and they successfully (and easily) made it into the base.

We have been in that set of circumstances since well before the morning of 9/11/2001. We have made conscious, money related decisions, even back a number of years, to acknowledge that “we” cannot defend against any kind of attack everywhere and all the time.

The inevitable finger pointing will come, most likely as early as tonight, saying things were chaos, there was no plan, no one knew what to do, yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah. The result was a slow, small aircraft, with a very tiny radar “paint” (return signature) was detected and people were alerted and sent away from the possible target (in a worst case scenario), or directed to shelter. Not only did the White House get the message, but so did at least the Capitol and the Supreme Court buildings. I heard they had people cleared out in about 4 minutes. Pretty good response time, I’d say, given it’s not a ship full of trained sailors being called to General Quarters. Actually, in light of that, 4 minutes to herd a whole bunch of civilians, both in and out of the Federal Goverment’s employ, that quickly is remarkable.

I for one am pleased at the response.

Consider what Richard Marcinko taught us back in the 1980’s, and told about in 1992. It applies to the circumstances of today, but the “adversaries” aren’t going to just embarass the base commander and his security department….

Said the XO, CDR Dave Martin on 4/4/1977.

It was a different time in our history, and I present this story as a contrast to the young men and women we see today, who put on a uniform and do the many things they do, at home and abroad, to protect us.

I had officially reported aboard Saturday evening, checking in the with Command Duty Officer, as my first ship was moored at Pier 2 in Norfolk. George told me to take the rest of the weekend off and show up Monday morning.

I originally had orders to be the Communications Officer on USS OPPORTUNE (ARS-8), but….things changed. My orignal orders had refelected that I would have many “hats” to wear, so after “Little SWOS” (Surface Warfare Officer’s Basic Course), I was sent to Communications Officer School and also Legal Officer. The purpose of a Ship’s Legal Officer, which on most every ship is a “collateral duty” and not a primary one, was to be the person to provide guidance to the Command on the Uniform Code Of Military Justice (UCMJ), mostly from an administative support role. While the XO reviewed my terribly skinny servie record that day, his eye caught that I had attended the training to allow me to handle the Legal Officer duties. No one else aboard had been to the course.

My first ship was USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2), a replenishment oiler. The letters in the hull humber, we often joked, stood for “Always Out Replenishing.” As part of the Combat Logistics Force (CLF), we were not one of the sleek greyhounds of the sea, nor a mighty aircraft carrier, capable of projecting power “across the beach.” We were just the ship that hauled around a bunch of crusty old sailors, who had been around the block and the world many times, making sure the boilers and aircraft on those fancy, “high value” ships didn’t have empty tanks. As a result, some of the best and the brightest sailors and officers eluded these assignments.

We carried two CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. On any ship, when “flight quarters” is sounded, an emergency firefighting team is on station, with their equipment laid out, just in case. For rhe most part, specially trained crew members man the “crash and smash” team, having recevied additional training over what every sailor gets as a matter of course.

We had many small boats for the ship. The largest ones were the “40 Footers,” which could double as cargo haulers, in addition to getting the crew to and from “the Beach,” as the ship drew a 40′ draft, and many times had to anchor away from shore. We also had two 26 foot motor whale boats. When you ride in one, you will notice most small boats do not have “dry bilges,” and what’s down there, mixed with sea water, is usually a little diesel fule, as well as engine oil. Flammable stuff. One of the universal rules of Navy small boats: No Smoking, and that was in effect long before the Navy decided Smoking was bad in the mid-80’s. It’s a safety thing.

When you carry fuel in large quantity, and MILWAUKEE did, you need vents on the tanks. On Navy oilers, the cargo storage tanks have very large vents, and are located on the main deck. We worked and walked around them daily. Rule on the “weather decks” of Navy oilers: No Smoking (I hope I don’t have to explain that one). MILWAUKEE carried 6M gals of Diesel Fuel, Marine (DFM or “F-76”) and 2M gallons of JP-5 (jet engine fuel, or “F-44”).

I was sowrn into the Naval Reserves as an E-3 in August, 72. That was the first year when there was no ore draft. Fighting was still raging in Vietnam, riots were happening on aircraft carriers, where enlisted minority groups made their displeasure known to the chain of command. It was the opening days of the “All Volunteer Force,” and I can state I was one of the charter members.

Fast forward to Apr, 1977. I was assigned to fill the collateral duty of Legal Officer, and within a few days, I was attending one of the very many “Article 15s” or “Non-Judicial Punishments” I would attend over the next 19 years.

Three enlisted men from the Engineering Department were charged with:

1) Unauthorized Absence (UA) from apointed duty station (crash and smash crew) during Flight Quarters and
2) Unauthorized use of drugs, to wit: Smoking marijuana
3) While in a small boat
4) in a skid (cradle to store the boat in while it’s not in the water), which was
5) On the main deck of an oiler….

Five punishable offenses in one moment of drug use. Welcome to the duties of the Legal Officer….

By the time I retired in 1996, the crew of ships (and I travelled extensively to Atlantic Fleet ships weekly in 90-93)were exactly the opposite of those early examples of sailors I first ran across in 1977. I don’t mean to imply it happened that late, just that the contrast is remarkable across that time span, and a powerful reason to support and all volunteer, professional fighting force.