Hadn’t noticed until today, but now all five services have their own Together We Served sites up.

Now serving Coasties!

Recap:
Navy
Marines rails ties free

Army
Air Force

Find your old service buddies. really…it works!

Something beyond being “friends.”

It was the every other week opportunity to hang out with history. Being the “junior” one, I made a point to head out, despite the rain, to make sure I wasn’t the one walking in late. Turns out, arriving on time, I was the first one. Sat with coffee as a companion, watching them set up for breakfast, and then they began arriving. I asked the Admiral if he had considered it “below minimums.” he chuckled and about thet time, more showed up.

The USNA Grad who invited me to this set of meetings, the ohter “Shoe” of the group showed, and after shaking hands around, asked where Rut was. Comments “not sure if he’s coming, maybe he met someone at a bar last night. Dick pulled out his cell phone cad called. No answer. Dick looked concerned, then said “I’m heading over there.” One other noted “Maybe my joke about the bar wasn’t appropriate.” We (the group) isn’t a bunch of young, invenerable LTs any more…some not by a lot, but, we can dream. So, the “normal” (only my second meeting) chatter begins, the orders are taken.

My cell rings: “his car is here, I’m headed ot his door. Sat and Friday papers are here. Hang on…going in….no one here. Place is clean as a whistle….oh, crap….” Dick the described some evidence in the bathroom that hings might not be so wonderful. Out the door, asked the security (gated community) guard if there had been any ambulance calls…not that I recall. then he told me he was calling the VA.

Dick walked backn in about the time the breakfasts were arriving, and sai. Yep…he’s at the VA. Drove himself, Dick admitted he had mis-IDed the car, and that the doctors had no idea what was wrong.

Short story, but it’s about reacting to that funny feeling, when your shipmate need your help. Dick was eating, then was headed to the VA for support.

Anyhow, as I drove home, it sunk in. Few would have thought it out of place to pass it off as just sleeping in on a rainy day, but your shipmates know that you make that meeting, or tell them you won’t be there, so they head your way to find you. Change the venue, the story is the same.

That’s what “shipmate” has really meant to me, but this morning, I saw it an action, and I canput words to it.

In memorium:

William J Dimmling was a Senior Vice President Financial Systems with Marsh McLennon Companies. He was one of the 295 employees of this firm who were lost his day, in their offices between the 93rd and 100th floors of the North Tower. сборник картинок эротика

He went by “Bill” and his colleague Harry Carel says Bill always had a smile on his face, no matter what came his way.

47 years old, at the time of his death in the World Trade Center North Building attack. He was a resident of Garden City, NY [ed: corrected]. He is survived by his wife Leslie and sons, Gregory and Nicholas.

He grew up in Queens, NY, attending PS115 and JHS 172, playing sports with his friends and dating. Back then, he went by “Willie.”

Work came early for Bill. His father, who had immigrated to the US from Germany was a butcher. His father died suddenly when he was 18, leaving him as head of his household, having to take care of his mother and his brother Rudy. The article in the NY Times indicates this was the genesis for Bill’s love of life, and optimism, and drive.

He had just completed a joint financial reporting system for Marsh, Inc the week before the attack, a project which he completed by fostering cooperation between executives around the world.

Bob McDade called him friend for 35 years, beginning with their meeting in school in 1966, and he noted Bill welcomed new people into his life and made them feel special.

One of his former employees, Orla Horn, paid this tribute to Bill:

He was a wonderful man – full of energy, vision, commitment and resourcefulness. He was also an extremely kind and caring man – who loved his family more than anything else in the world. He had a happy disposition and always managed to overcome adversity. I’m sure all of these good traits will continue to be felt by his family and friends in the years to come as they’ll always know that Bill made a difference…Our world is a better place because of him.

High praise, indeed. I think we were deprived of the possible friendship of a wonderful man, as his family and friends have been for the past 7 years, and the rest of their lives.

For others memorialized by the Project 2996, click here.

In memorium:

Cortz Ghee was killed on 9/11/2001 at the Pentagon, one of 184 vitims at that attack site. At the time of his death, he was a resident of Reisterstown, MD. Little is on the web, but I can find he has a sibling and at least two nieces. By a stroke of fate, his niece Kim decided to skip out on a dentist appointment on 9/11, that Cortz was due to take her to. How life may have been different for one family, had she gone that day, escorted by her Uncle?

At the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial, there is a bench named in his honor, that of a 54 year old man, at work, supporting the military by his daily work.

One of our citizens who is no longer with us or his family.

RIP, Cortz, and thank you for your service in the defense of the nation.

For others memorialized by the Project 2996, click here.

It was a few days of interesting handshakes. Older gentleman and his wife pushing their shopping cart through the new WalMart “Neighborhood” Grocery Store. Looked to be Korean War vintage. I stepped in to his personal space, after spying the “US Navy Veteran” blue ball cap and introduced myself. When did you do in the Navy? I was an airframe mechanic. What airframes (now the tricky part…you had to be there)? “Oh, SBDs and F6Fs.” My head was going tilt….but I had set the filters for 50s stuff…Then…I caught on. I complimented him on how well time had treated him, while I reframed. Wow! SBDs! I have always liked those planes.

Then, As reported in the prior post, breakfast with men from WWII (A rear gunner on PBMs, turned officer and Naval Aviator after the war, to RADM Charles B Hunter, USN (Ret) who earned the honor of wearing the Navy Cross for a single plane night mission into Hanoi, where he managed to dodge the SA-2s and still put his 18 500lbs MK80 series bombs on the intended primary target…and then got back home. He didn’t tell me that. I found it the web:

As the air war went on, year after year, the naval command adopted different tactics to improve the effectiveness of the carrier strikes, while minimizing losses of men and planes. One approach was the use of two or single-aircraft strikes. One such operation involved the all-weather, day-night A-6 Intruder attack plane crewed by Lieutenant Commander Charles B. Hunter and his bombadier/navigator, Lieutenant Lyle F. Bull. They volunteered to carry out an extremely risky night attack on a railroad ferry slip in Hanoi, which was ringed with a lethal array of surface-to-air missile batteries, antiaircraft artillery sites, and MiG bases. On 30 October 1967, the Intruder launched from Constellation in the Gulf of Tonkin, flew fast and low through the mountain valleys of northeast North Vietnam, and got to within eighteen miles of the target before the enemy discovered its presence. Then, the on board electronics intercept equipment indicated that Communist radar had detected them. Hunter flew the plane close to the treetops and “jinked” to left and right to avoid the SA-2 “flying telephone pole” surface-to-air missile that soon lit up the night as it streaked at and then past them. In the glow of antiaircraft fire and searchlights crisscrossing the sky, the intrepid aviators pressed home their attack dropping eighteen 500-pound bombs on the railroad ferry slip. The pair saw the ordnance obliterate the target as they banked and escaped into the night.

He knows both my COs from MILWAUKEE (AOR-2). Just a normal guy, with a ball cap with embroidered pilot wings, sitting in a cafe on a beach near the gulf.

I got invited to attended regularly. I’m honored. I’m hoping they will entrust me with some sea stories, and actual reports of the times as they were.

Today, enroute the innards of where America now does business (Panera Bread), I stopped to intorduce myself to a man with a “Vietnam Veteran” ball cap. Started as a “Deck Ape,” became and EM, then the S2 Ensign decided he could cut hair and he became the Ship’s Barber on USS PURVIS (DD-707). Left after on hitch, got his electrical engineering degree and worked building big plants all around the Middle East and even worked for President Johnson, he proudly told me. He has my card and an offer to call and get a free cup of coffee out of me for the price of a few sea stories. I thanked his wife for allowing me to share him for a few minutes, which I do to acknowledge them allowing my random interruptions. She smiled and told me it was alright.

I look forward to what ever phone calls come my way, hoping to catch some first person stories I can share, or just keep to myself and know I heard a bit of real history or two.

How better to begin a day, than to be invited to a long standing group os mostly Naval Aviators, and some Marines, who span military history from 1942 to the mid-90s (I was the youngest one…and moved that goal post)?

Via business networking and meeting and doing business with told me to show up for breakfast. I didn’t get al the names right, I’m sure, but a Navy Cross winner, a retired Admiral who wnet “downtown.” The man with the most CUTLASS traps every. A P-3 pilot who was one of my CO’s roommates at USNA, and…we had met at the change of command, and figured out he and I had crossed paths in Dec 76 @ Comm School in Newport. And that’s not all the history I sat in the middle of, but, I was the lone “Shoe,” and non-USNA. They still welcomed me in and told me to come back…They do this every two weeks.

More later. Much more I’m sure….maybe an interview from a Cutlass pilot….

The taxpayers now own the soon to be commissioned USS NEW YORK (LPD-21) of the SAN ANTONIO CLass.

As of 220911L AUG 2009, the ship was accepted by Navy representatives. This places the ship in a special category of “In Commission, Special,” meaning she is a US Navy assets no longer owned by the Northrop Grumman bulding yard at Avondale, LA, but has not yet been formally commissioned.

The commissioning will take place on Nov 7th, 2009 in New York. More info at the official commissioning site.

7.5 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Cetner Ground Zero was used in the forging of the keel of this vessel. CDR Curt Jones, Prospective Commanding Officer.

At 170MPH…7/31/2009: New World Record in Skydiving: Head Down Formation of 108.   Done at Skydive Chicago, with jumpers from around the world, and the head down craze inspired by a dude named Olav Zipser (I watched him jump in 1996 at Skydive Arizona...he and his team of 4…had a packer working for them so they made many, many jumps a day).

Looked like 5 Twin Otters (DHC-6) which hold 22 each, so…room for two videographers.

You know…they make it look easy, don’t they?

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A guest post from Alec Rawls.

Crime 1: Another multi-billion dollar subsidy for Government Motors.

When Obama stole Chrysler from its stockholders and gave it to his union cronies, we knew he would take every opportunity to waste taxpayer dollars trying to keep this lead balloon afloat. The Cash for Clunkers subsidy is just particularly egregious, since it works by subsidizing the last people in the world who need a subsidy: those who are well off enough to be buying new cars in the midst of a deep recession. Talk about a middle class welfare program!

Crime 2: Eliminating Government Motors’ competition by gratuitously slagging an expected 750,000 perfectly good used cars in the sub-$4500 price range.

The Obamacrats aren’t just subsidizing cars for the well-to-do. They are destroying the cars that the less well-off are in the market for, driving up used car prices as part of their effort to make new cars more attractive:

Some parts may be kept but the engine and drive-train must be destroyed. Specifically the engine will be injected with a liquid glass solution to permanently disable the engine and it will be the responsibility of the dealer to make sure this is done to the engine.

Injected with liquid glass? Sounds like a Quentin Tarentino murder fantasy, and the reality isn’t any prettier. Witness Obama’s procedure for destroying the would-be cars of the non-wealthy:

Here is another one, a spiffy-looking Volvo that holds out for 4-plus minutes. Some clunker, and check out the row of semi-new cars lined up to go next:

Take THAT all you graduate students, newlyweds, store clerks, aspiring actors, single moms, non-deadbeat dads, warehouse workers, journalists, hippies, and other assorted poor relations. You want a car, you can scrape together your savings for a down payment on the privilege of paying hundreds of dollars a month to Government Motors for FIVE YEARS, just like everybody else.

How big is this crime?

A very substantial portion of the population NEVER buys a new car. I, for instance, have never bought a new car, and I never expect to. Why would I, when California has the best used car market in the world? In the last 10 years I have bought two 1984 Toyota Vans, one with 45,000 miles, one with 115,000 miles, each for $1500. Both still run great. One is set up as a work vehicle. One converts from passenger van to camper. No new vehicles would serve as well, or look as sharp.

My two uber-vans, one extra-dirty from its recent 2000 mile trek to Seattle and back. (Shasta, Crater Lake, Boeing Museum of Flight, Blue Angels, Olympic Peninsula, Fort Stevens, Oregon Dunes, North Coast, and back across the Golden Gate. Ain’t that America?)

The vehicles that are being gratuitously destroyed are newer than my two vans (which are just outside the 25 year age limit) and they are up to three times the price. For instance, the immensely popular Toyota Previa vans (1990-96) all qualify.

A good California Previa with a hundred thousand miles left on it sells for two to three thousand dollars. The government’s offer of 35-45 hundred is outbidding the market even on these top quality used vehicles. Cash for Clunkers is a misnomer. Some bottom-of-the-barrel cars will be turned in, but the rules insure that most will not be these “clunkers.”

To qualify, a car must have been registered the name of the new car buyer for the last 12 months and it must have been insured for the last 12 months. These actively-used cars of people who buy new cars are the quality core of the used car market. Most “clunkers” will be perfectly good cars that would be prize possessions for a half million less well-off Americans, wantonly destroyed only because the Obamacrats prefer that they be destroyed. Dollar for dollar, this is the equivalent of trying to solve the glut of housing foreclosures by purchasing the houses with taxpayer money then burning them down.

Any Obama supporter who claims to be motivated by distributional justice, go soak your head. You want to subsidize the better off? Be as stupid as you want. But don’t go destroying en masse what the less well-off need to survive.

All justified by a lie

Obama’s excuse for decimating the last two generations of used vans, SUV’s, pick-up trucks and full size cars is the global warming hoax. The ascendancy of Obama is, in his own narcissistic vision:

…the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

Energy consumption must be curtailed in the extreme:

…under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.

It is all about CO2 and the phony global warming industry that Vice President Al Gore created with $10b of seed money when he pioneered and administered the executive branch’s global warming portfolio (now called “climate change,” since the earth stopped warming 10 years ago). Gore’s appointees have directed almost all of the full $79b that the U.S. has spent on climate science since 1989, and they don’t care at all whether CO2 is actually warming the planet. Their real motivation is an eco-religious belief that economic activity is gobbling up the natural world, so that for the natural world to survive, economic activity must contract.

To these high priests of green religion, CO2 is the perfect fall guy, no matter how insignificant its actual impact on climate. If the CO2 released by fossil fuel burning can be framed as a threat to the planet, that provides a rationale for drastically curtailing human economic activity, thereby stopping economic activity from gobbling up the natural world, whether or not CO2 itself actually has any harmful effects.

CO2 alarmists reject the scientific method

We can say with nearly complete certainty that the bulk of 20th century warming was NOT caused by CO2. This is because we know what DID cause the warming: the “grand maximum” levels of solar-magnetic activity that obtained for most solar cycles between 1930 and 2003.

Numerous studies have found a high degree of correlation (.6 to .8) between solar-magnetic activity and global temperature. That is, solar-magnetic activity “explains” statistically 60-80% of global temperature change on all time scales. That degree of correlation, observed over thousands and millions of years, HAS to be causal, and the causation can only go one way. It is not the temperature of the earth that is causing sunspots.

What is not well understood is HOW solar-magnetic activity drives global temperature. We just know that it does, just as before Einstein we did not know what mechanism causes massive objects to fall towards each other, we just knew that they do.

We actually have some pretty good theories of how solar-magnetic activity drives global temperature but set that aside. The eco-religionists, who thanks to Al Gore control ALL of the research funds for the “climate change” industry, use uncertainty about HOW solar-magnetic activity drives global temperature as an excuse for completely omitting the solar-magnetic variable from their models. They explicitly put theory over data, exactly the opposite of the scientific method, which says that data is always supposed to trump theory.

This anti-scientific method misattributes to CO2 the warming caused by high 20th century levels of solar-magnetic activity. Put solar-magnetic activity back into the equation, attributing to it what warming has historically been correlated with high levels of solar-magnetic activity, and the levels of warming that could possibly be attributable to CO2 become small. In particular, they become benign.

Warming in general is good. When Greenland was green, civilization prospered, as did plants and other living things. Nothing gobbles up the natural world like ice. It is only by claiming that CO2 could cause some unprecedented “runaway warming” that the alarmists have been able to present CO2 as dangerous. Stop misattributing solar-magnetic warming to CO2 and that possibility is off the table.

The dominant driver of global climate is solar-magnetic activity and any modicum of warming we can get out CO2 is all to the good. If our fossil fuel burning has the side effect of making our warm times a little warmer and our cold times a little less cold, that is a happy bit of luck for a world that ALWAYS seems to be colder than the optimum, with the next glacial period due any Millennia.

Proof that the IPCC completely omits the solar-magnetic variable

Just look at any of the IPCC assessment reports. They all include the following graphic (slightly updated over the years):

From the 4th Assessment Report (figure 2.4 on page 39 of the Synthesis Report).

The only “natural” climate influence accounted by the IPCC is “solar irradiance,” which means visible light and other electro-magnetic radiation. It does in any way include the solar-magnetic flux, which is completely omitted from all IPCC models, even though every climate scientists knows full well that, according to the raw data, magnetic effects are the primary driver of global temperature.

EVERY educated person who accepts CO2 alarmism on the authority of the global warming anti-scientists is failing the most basic due diligence.

Technically, the alarmists’ anti-scientific inversion of theory and evidence takes the form of what is called “omitted variable fraud,” where the omission of any important explanatory variable causes its explanatory effect to be misattributed to whatever correlated variables are included (in this case CO2 which, like solar activity, also went up in the 20th century). This is the most basic, the most common, the most familiar form of statistical fraud. Everyone who has ever studied not just any physical science but any social science at any moderately high level is fully competent recognize for themselves the statistical fraud that is being committed by the CO2 alarmists.

The educated Democrat-voting elites who are pushing to unplug industrial capitalism on the authority of alarmist anti-scientists have an obligation of due diligence to check for themselves whether the facts of the matter are beyond their own competence, and they are ALL failing this basic obligation. They are just assuming that they have to accept on authority that the survival of the planet requires the radical curtailment of CO2, when even a quick look at the facts reveals that the statistically most important variable is omitted from the alarmist models.

Why this willingness uncritically enlist as foot-soldiers for the destruction of modernity? Because like the CO2 anti-scientists themselves, these Democrat elites also don’t care whether CO2 is actually a threat. They too are eco-religionists who are glad for any excuse to curtail the economic growth that according to their presumptions is gobbling up the natural world.

Wrong about economics too

Of course the eco-religionists are also wrong about economic growth being bad for the environment. Economic growth creates and is created by technological advance, and it is technological advance that is allowing mankind and the natural world to both thrive at once. Economic activity is not the enemy of the natural world. It is the salvation of the natural world.

Having dedicated their intellectual resources to maintaining their religious presumptions instead of following reason and evidence, our Democrat elites have become pure political animals in the lowest sense, driven entirely by their lust for power. Every excuse, be it phony concern for distributive justice or phony concern for the environment, is wielded with complete dishonesty, utterly heedless of how distributive justice or the environment are actually affected, until all that is left is their ultimate presumption: that the one thing most necessary is that THEY have power.

This pathology finds its epitome in President Obama. Cash for Clunkers is just one paltry multi-billion dollar program, but the same coming-and-going perversity is manifest in Obama’s larger jihad against CO2—his push for cap and trade legislation. If we would uncork energy, the economy would rebound tomorrow, but Obama is determined to close the energy spigot down, not open it up.

Anybody who thinks this recession is ending is out of their minds. Obama is draining the oil and pouring in the silica slurry. If you want to hear where the economy is headed, listen to the “squirk” from the end of the Obama-car-death video, when the engine jerks at the end of the hangman’s rope.

This is the sound of a valuable helper being sacrificed by government to the false idols of green religion. It isn’t just barbarous. It is a clear violation of the establishment clause. Execute the worst human criminals, yes, but Mission Solano has it right: “No Death Penalty for Cars!”

Blogging has been light, but today, while checking the normal places, I find a picture posted by my virtual shipmate, SteelJaw Scribe, showing one of my haze gray homes about to get hit by 2 2.75″ rockets from a Mexican Navy helicopter.

CONOLLY (DD-979) absorbing naval gunfire during SINKEX 4/29/2009

USS CONOLLY (DD-979) was sunk 4/29/2009 off Jacksonville, FL as part of the UNITAS 50 multinational exercise. She was my “home” from late September, 1983 until early May 1985. I served as the Engineer Officer on my first Department Head assignment. Reading that link, I’m proud to see, even without a responding combat system and damage control teams, it sure took a lot of ordnance to put he down. Sure the “BUFFs” were laid on for some high altitude fun with Harpoons, but CONOLLY was gone by then. More info on the entire exercise, to include the other SINKEX photos, are here.

Update 8/18/2009: Found the YouTube post by a very uppity USS DONALD COOK Crew. None the less, she took a beating and keep aflaot. She sure made them earn their pay, while giving them valuable anti-Surface warfare experience. Let’s go to the video!

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Back to the original post:

The picture at SteelJaw’s place, of course started the nostalgia engine running. Irony: I stepped aboard CONOLLY in the middle of UNITAS XXIV. She went to her demise during UNITAS L. The next thought: USS CONOLLY was to be the one DD-963 to be preserved, and not sunk. The plan was for CONOLLY to become a museum in the Great Lakes area. A lot of energy had been put towards that goal, but last year, the game plan changed. Given that determination, the PAUL F FOSTER (DD-964) is currently the Self Defense Test Ship out at Port Hueneme, CA, and is the one last hope of a single DD-963 hull, of the 31 built to replace the GEARING Class destroyers from WWII.

The SPRUANCE Class was built to stay in service for sometime, and having commissioned DD-984, USS LEFTWICH, the 22nd hull of the class, there were many open spaces on the ship for future growth. They even named them as such, and most ships had made the “EW Growth Area #2” the main ships’ classroom on the 03 Level aft of the bridge. Years later, as I inspected the combat systems readiness of the Atlantic Fleet, I saw those spaces mostly full of equipment, taken over by OUTBOARD installations and various other new gear.

LEFTWICH weighed in at a heavy, compared to a DD-710 Class hull, at 7900 tons. Conolly was in the same configuration when I reported aboard. After CONOLLY’s first Regular Overhaul (ROH), which took place at Portland, ME as the first ship to use the recently acquired Bath Irons Works facility in Portland, we left for sea trials, as the first non-test ship for Tomahawk of the class, sporting two huge armored box launchers (ABLs) on the foc’sle, two MK-15 CIWS mounts and the Mk-23 Target Acquisition System (TAS), with 300 tons of lead ingots taking up space in my fuel tanks as counter weight, making displace right about 10,000 tons. The shipalt to add Kevlar armor to the superstructure, however, was canceled, due to the miscalculations the engineers had made, as one other ship listed significantly in Pascagoula, when the reflated her after drydock.

I stepped aboard her in Puerto Mont, Chile, having been picked up at the airport there by then LT John Taylor, the Weapons Officer, who I had served with while an instructor at Fleet Combat Training Center, Atlantic (FCTCL), just before this assignment. CDR Harry Maixner was the Commanding Officer, LCDR Stan Weeks the XO, LCDR Mike Moe the Operations Officer, LT Karl Boggott the Supply Officer. The MPA was LT Al Curry, Electrical Officer was ENS Nolan Hale, and ENS Mike Tow was the DCA. LTJG Mike House, was COMMO at the time, and later became my DCA, when Mike moved to MPA during overhaul, when Al left. GSMC(SW) “JC” Weigman was my only khaki clad enlisted man in the propulsion side, with HTC Bob Conklin in Damage Control. LT Bill Goodwin was the Engineer, and his men had a great deal of respect for him. Big shoes to fill, and no time in the department behind me. Mike Moe had been the Engineer before Bill and had split toured aboard to Operations Officer. Harry Maixner was a no nonsense gunnery guy, out to run the best ship. Ask the crew of the USS SCOTT (DDG-996) what helium balloons and empty 5″ powder casing can do to your tactical picture late at night, if you get the chance. Harry was going to win, and he had the tactical acumen to pull it off, too.

It was a great tour and I had asked not to go there…not the ship, but the billet. I had spent two sea tours above deck, and one ashore teaching combat systems. In SWOS Department Head School, I asked to stay in the Combat Systems arena. I figured I was a dead ringer for a FFG out of Mayport, as I had been teaching Pre-Comm for FFG Combat Systems teams, CSOs and CO/XOs at FCTCL. Wouldn’t even have to send me via the pipeline…I was teaching i. Nope, my detailer sent me to be a Snipe. Later in my career, he was XO on USS BRISCOE, and when I was visiting another shipmate there, I asked him why. His answer: “Your record said you could do it.”

I stepped aboard into a situation where the Engineers had just had to rebuilt the clutch-brake assembly for GTM 2A in place. Turns out it was the first time the fleet had seen it and even the civilian engineers out of San Diego who had flown to Valpariso (the port city for Santiago) had no clue what to do. The GSMs, lead by JC Weigman wrote the procedures on the fly. That work was adopted for use everywhere. A few days later, while conducting NGFS firings at Tic Toc in Chile, the same casualty occurred on GTM 2B. I told Bill Goodwin and CAPT Maixner I would still sign the relieving letter as Engineer Officer, knowing the caliber of the crew. A few nights later, specifically 180032SEP83 local, we were steaming at 22 knots (top speed for one engine online) in the South Pacific and GTM 2A failed…catostrophically. I was Officer of the Deck, and called CCS on the 21MC “What’s happening, CCS?” “GTM2A is offline, starting GTM 2B, sir” I grabbed the tactical radio and informed USS SCOTT of our casualty, then called the Captain. Capt Maixner took the report and told me to always notify him FIRST. Aye, aye, sir!

I completed the midwatch without further incident and in the morning, after the system had cooled, I was on the cat walk aft of GTM 2As exhaust plenum looking in the manhole cover, at Al Curry, who had a double handful of black sand. I asked what happened to the engine? He held up his hands. Somewhere, in a box, I have a quart fuel sample bottle, 2/3s full of that fine grained metal, with a black tape label stating “GTM 2A 0032 18 SEP 83.”

We changed the engine out in Montevideo, Uruguay, in a storm, alongside a pier, using a floating crane. It was done by a crew of dedicated sailors, who, despite the bending of the rules, the disappearance of a few cases of steaks from the galley, and some Ship’s ball caps and plaques, in one hour less than “book,” (83 hours vice 84) and when we went for a start, it had all been done correctly. Nothing had to be redone. Oh…that repair had been preceded by a 35 straight hour rebuilt of the other clutch brake, at sea, because the USAF decided they wanted to see Uruguay, and didn’t want to wait until we reached Brazil, which was the plan. The analysis showed the main fuel control value failed wide open and the excess fuel poured into the combustion chamber caused thermal stress on the high speed turbine and power turbine blades, which caused the destruction, not human error.

There are more stories about my time on CONOLLY Some are in the blog on this search.

It was my second most rewarding tour, but not by much. My XO tour was shaped by my experiences as an Engineer, where I learned that some departments never sleep, and are countered upon for a myriad of things, generally missed by those who walk the upper decks, and just have the things they need provided by the “snipes.”

I met the CO and he told me I would be standing bridge watches. I reminder him I was his new Engineer Officer. He told me he had plenty of good engineers, he needed more people to drive the ship. It didn’t make much sense then, but soon I was standing bridge watches, first to transit the Chilean Inland Waterway.

Enough of the reminiscing, but I’ll say this: We were the first 963 to refuela another ship at sea. I was there…I did blog it. If any of you PACFLEET guys with a good PAO come around, sorry, you didn’t do it first.

Bottom line: The men of the Engineering Department aboard CONOLLY trusted me enough to let me think I was leading them, and to figure out how to get an “Engineer’s Chair” installed in CCS, next to the EOOW’s Desk during overhaul. I used the lessons they taught me (“There are only gremlins if you admit it,” “Sir, there’s a short in the galley and We’re not sure when we can find it, but we sure don’t want anyone hurt,” and the value of “Brain Books”) I used then, and several to this day. I owe them a thank you for their patience and mentoring.