It’s getting downright depressing when your “leadership” bails, then puts on suits and ties and whines like spamked little boys. On the other hand, it puts a smile on my face to see the all of a sudden (left wing) supporters (who used to think anyone in the military couldn’t get a job in “real life”) somehow believe the complaints of 6 former generals will cause the President to move aside the SecDef. That’s hilarious.

I can’t say every day in my 20 years was the way I would have done it. On top of that, I thank God it wasn’t sometimes. I worked for some excellent officers who had plenty of practical experience at the profession to help guide me along. I enjoyed my time, overall, but a few days I’d like not to remember.

My first real choice came in 1980. I was coming to the end of my obligated time based on the acceptance of an ROTC scholarship. By then, I had served aboard two ships and had made one forward deployment and what seemed like on, due to the time spent out of homeport on a newly commissioned vessel (and most of it wasn’t in some exotic overseas ports, but in beautiful Pascagoula, MS, in the shipyard). I thought several things could be done better and I made a choice. I could get out and complain, and have no real power to effect change, or I could stay in and work towards what was better than the existing conditions. I stayed.

I was sent ashore to a training command, where I had the chance to improve on the training I had received, for the new crews coming through my office. With the tutoring of many fine men in my shop, we, together, produced some outstanding results, which were widely complimented and recognized to the top levels of a major training facility.

I spent a tour as a Department Head. I had great role models from when I had been a Division Officer, but there was room to improve. Once more, with a fine crew supporting me, and two great captains, we did some spectacular things.

On a sea going staff, with a commodore who never saw a tasking, for us or anyone else, he wasn’t willing to say to “my staff can do that!” I’ll say this: The positive part was we got our fingers into all sorts of exciting things. The negative part was there wasn’t many minutes (I chose that word carefully) left in the days to sleep. The personal management at this period of my career left somethings to be desired, but we all lived, even if the wives had separate plans to reduce our workload. I see a microcosm of the desrciptions of Secretary Rumsfield being a hard man to work with in that time of my life, under one commodore. We had to have done our homework and you better be on top of what was going on, or we got asked where we got our SWO pins from (you guessed it, the answer was provided many times: A cracker Jack box). Was it pleasant? Nope. Did it make a point? When it was over, was it recognized as a “teaching method” that worked? Yep. Would I use it? Nope (well, one time in a particular situation I did). I blended the message with other teaching/mentoring styles I had been taught, and I think I was effective.

As I worked my way up the “increasing responsibility” ladder, I had several occassions to either complain, or work to fix “it.” In 1988, I did just that, and ended up actively working a side project for 5 years. Along the way, I had the opportunity to look some of my seniors in the eye and tell them they were making it essentially impossible on the fleet sailors and officer to comply, while I had to fail ships at inspections. My option was to roll up my sleeves and do something, while telling the big boss’ staff to extricate body parts and rewrite directives. One four striper in particular, didn’t like what I was trying to say at all. One weekend, I spent about 20 hours making an Excel sheet to graphically depict what I had been talking about. When he looked at that, he agreed and became the biggest proponent in getting it all changed. I didn’t care he was presenting it to the Admiral as his plan, the fact of the matter was he understood and then was able to fix things. There are days I realize it sure didn’t help me make the last few career steps, but in the end, the fleet did get relief and sensibilty applied.

There were times in the downsizing of the shore based training and inspection teams I was tasked to plan how to do it. I had plans submitted that were “modified” to the point of not being effective, but I said my peace, then saluted and gave a cherry “aye, aye!” and made it happen with what I had left.

I never made flag, but all I can say to the generals is I’m pretty disgusted and I expect more. Thankfully, no one I worked for has ever shown such bad manners. Sirs, if you didn’t like what was happening, I say it was your duty to stay in and constructively argue your point, but to know when it was acceptable to try someone else’s way to get it done. If it ever got so bad as to be intolerable, then it was your duty to submit your resignation, citing the issues clearly, but not to keep your mouth’s shut until you can cut a book deal.

Well, it’s over today. Yep, the 2006 Sun n’ Fun Fly In is seeing the last people leave today.

Here’s a quick outbrief, but not with pictures of the actual event…those come tonight.

On Thursday evening, I drove Jim, Sr. (Valiant Glider Pilot of who flew under the Eiffel Tower fame) (the link is to part 1 of three…links to all parts of the antics of Jim and his glider buddies contained therein), to have dinner with those of the Stinson aircraft type (for he flew a Stinson L-5 under the tower).

They were not only gracious, and, having established earlier contact, had name tags for the two of us, and then proceeded to eat BBQ, and listen to Jim’s tales of days gone by with great interest.

Due to other scheduling issues, we didn’t get back to the Fly In until Sunday afternoon. We wandered about, found an SNV aircraft, which Jim referred to as the Vultee “Vibrator.” They went from 120 HP Stearman trainers, to the 450HP Vultees.

I went off to see the F-22 Raptors and Jim got talking to another gentleman, who turns out, flew from the same field as Jim, only a year apart. They did a little reminiscing.

I got my 6 o’clock shot (yep, static, but I can’t afford the gas bill to chase one) of the F-22, as a follow on to this post over at Neptunus Lex.

We wandered among the many palnes of various ages, me finding a Twin Beech, with a passenger door, which conjured up memories of jumping at Covington, LA in 1980 from said equipped aircraft. It’s amazing how 10 people could actually build formations from those without being spread across two counties on exit. I got my SCR, with the jumpers there building an “8 Way” around me. Saw a C-47 (jumped one of those at Perris Valley), and then a few T-34Bs.

The “Legacy Fly By” was to be a TF-51, and F-15, and the F-22. I got a good spot by the fence and waited for the take off. Due to low clouds, they could only hot dog so much, but the F-22 didn’t use a lot of runway. Next the F-15 made a bunch of passes, having to go to burner a lot, but a great low altitude presentation. To the south, the F-22 played about, just under the clouds about 2000′, doing Cobra manevuers, until the TF-51 joined with him. Then the fun began.

The two aircraft commenced to do a little “DACT” (dis-similar air combat training). The F-51 turned some tight circles, with the F-22 matching him in speed and turn diameter. Impressive for a large jet to do that. The, the LtCol must have gotten bored, for on about the 10th circle, he vetored thrust and functionally cut across the circle on a spoke thru the middle and quickly joined on the wing of the TF-51, while the prop plane was still in the same turn. That’s impressive to watch!

The F-15 finished it’s passes and then joined the two other aircraft to make a three ship formation. From there, they conducted two “Heritage” passes, the TF-51 in the lead, the Eagle to port and Raptor to starboard. I did get a vido of the first fly by, without framing my subjects well….gotta love new equipment.

Next the Raptor pilot did his passes, most of the time without his afterburners on, and was just as impressive as the Eagle. Then he came in low and vectored the thrust to begin a vertical climb. It looked like someone grabbed the nose and shoved the tail underneath to get vertical. I’d not like to be on the business end of that maneuver.

Ok, I’ll try to get the pictures up tonight.

Chap has encapsulated, in his thoughts on career “circumstances” of his own, a lot of insight for the rest of us. Well, let me clarify: He seems to have said what many of us have felt. See the comments for thorough understanding of this.

We all entered knowing the struture we work within is a pyramid. We, at the subconscious level, know only one person is at the top at a time. Some of us don’t make it there (what a blinding flash of the obvious!). He discusses that type of issue, with far more clarity than I.

Read his post and be rewarded with a very honest monologue about military life.

Every since the introduction of Mac OS 10, I predicted the day would come when the morning headline, above the fold, in large print, would read:

The day was 4/4/2006, and it’s been a long time coming. The OS 10 operating system, being built on a UNIX base, runs UNIX programs. It (obviously) runs Mac programs, (which is an interesting story about backwards compatability the Apple always supported – but that’s another post). Now, with the Intel based Mac computers, Boot Camp (oh, btw, a free beta!)…”we” have arrived.

A pox on the houses of all of you die hard, brainwashed PC-ites, who, having never laid a hand on the mouse of a Mac, could, with a straight face, tell me “Macs are no good!”

The same to you who proclaimed “We have 25,000 programs, you only have 2,500!” Now we own all of yours and all of ours….

One comment (as Chapomatic likes to say): Heh!

Yep, I have a PC now, but you’ll have to wait until Oct this year before I lay out my hobby equipment “ownership” post.

And if you think it’s no big news, check Apple’s stock. As of a few mintues ago, it had gone from $60 (yesterday) to $71 today. The Dow is presently “taking a dump” my investor friend tells me….hmmmmmmm…..

Update: 4/7/2006: The 2 Steves Who Changed the World from CNN. How true…

Part I, Part II, Part III,Part IV, Part V, Part VI,

Part VII, Part IX

So life, the evening of March 24th and wee hours of the 25th were exciting. Quite honestly, it was also the closest I personally ever came to combat during my career, and then it turned out to not even be that at all. In this case, it was the closest I ever came to being connected (directly) to a major international incident.

As the sun rose later on the 25th, at least two of Khadaffi’s Navy ships were transmogrified into mobile targets for the battle force’s SUCAP. Later in the day, I recall a ship’s company sailor poking his head into our watch station area, proudly holding a black and white 8×10 picture of a smoldering NANUCHKA gunboat. He asked if we wanted a copy. I would have loved one, but then I thought back to a story one of my CO’s had told me of a story about pictures.

Gary Voorheis had been at a Wardroom party many years before, at the house of one of the ship’s officers. He told us of being ushered upstairs, where upon he and a few other officers were shown pictures of the USS BELKNAP (CG-26) just after she had collided with the USS KENNEDY (CV-67) in 1975. These were photos taken by the officer, with his own camera, and he had held onto him for several years. Back in “the OLD Navy,” the Navy’s policy was every, yes, you read that right, every picture taken aboard a vessel was Navy property. The common convention was, short of some major situation, no captain bothered to have all photos developed and examined for possible useful content, however, the regulation was in place. In this case, these picture of the post-collision damage fell under this regulation. To shorten the story, shortly after the party, I believe the Naval Investigative Service paid the officer a visit and confiscated the photos, and I recall significant (read career ending) repercussions followed for withholding evidence from the collision investigation board.

In light of that story, and not being certain of the possible classification that may be assigned to the photo of the unlucky gunboat, I declined. About two weeks later, when the stateside mail caught up with us, there were copies of US News and World Report, with the very picture of the flaming evidence on the front cover.

We gave Khadaffi’s boys a big black eye, taking out a couple of SAM radars and at least two gunboats. My understanding is a thrid Nanuchka, with a little brighter skipper, was zig zagging between the ROCKEYEs lofted at him, and while he made it to port, the shrapnel left enough damage behind for the ship to sink pierside from progressive flooding.

The SARATOGA CVBG, taking ADM Jerimiah and the CRUDESGRU EIGHT staff back to the US. Just the CORAL SEA and AMERICA CVBGs remained. My staff transferred from the SARA back to USS BIDDLE (CG-34), and resumed our watches in the staff area in the Combat Information Center. The CORAL SEA CVBG began preps to turn over and OUTCHOP, too. Our last scheduled port visit was Benidorm, Spain (for the USS BIDDLE). On the last day of the port visit, we were informed we had been extended in the Med. That was quite a shock, but, orders are orders.

Side note: While we were involved in this series of operations off Libya, we began to receive mountains of mail from the States, courtesy of Operation Dear Abby. The history of that operation, which continues today, began with a letter from a BIDDLE sailor, even before we had left for the cruise. Early in my blogging days, I discussed the special support we received thru this project.

I also recall one day on watch when ADM Jerimiah was out on the Flag Bridge of SARATOGA, he beagn laughing and called us to come out and “see this.” We pulled the curtain back to see a small commercial jet, which had been chartered by a news crew flying over the CVBG, and an gaggle of different Naval aircraft were all tucking in beside an behind it, trying to get on camera. I suspect that was the time the famous picture, of a crew member of an EA-6B Prowler was holding up the sign “SEND COOKIES” for the camera, that was widely published.

As we headed back to sea, and the planning began to rapidly develop for a Navy strike on Tripoli and Benghazi, one night, the USAF sent a “natiional asset” our way to recon the target areas. The SR-71 flight I blogged about last year, was what I saw, and my post discussed how I found out who the pilot was, LtCol Brian Shul, quite by accident.

Due to time constraints, I’ll edit this post later (most likely tomorrow), to record my view of the events 20 years ago today. Those events were the bombings of Tripoli (actually named Tarabulus by the Libyans) with USAF FB-111s and Benghazi with Navy A-6s. The event was named Operation El Dorado Canyon.

The blogger known as the Southern Air Pirate, now on active duty and part of the GWoT, realizes his father was in the same fight, but, there where I was 20 years ago today….and his dad went “feet dry” with VA-85.

Stay tuned for the details from my view!

Do we call it the “Flyak” or “Foil Kayak?”

In any case, who thought “up on the foils” was reserved for powered vessels?

Maybe I can find one of these to crash, too!

Even if it looks really cool and has the possibility of being a great babe magnet, even before this incident, I have always declined to have percussion fired ordnance as paperweights on any of my desks…stick with electically primed is my advice. A 5″54 cal round will do nicely and can also be used as an anchor if you live in New Orleans and the hurricanes come.

The explosion also destroyed a computer keyboard, scattering some of the keys around Colla’s desk.

So even if his fingers come out of this OK, he’ll be having a hard time typing whole words from now on, too…

One of Matt’s guest bloggers, Laughing Wolf, has a post about the Army banning the use of personally purchased body armor. Admittedly, this has to have been a tough call for the chain of command and I’m sure there will be some backlash from parents, spouses and the media, claiming the Army really wants the tropps to die. Not true at all, but it’s a hard thing to comprehend.

An example I ran across back in the late 80s had to do with blankets (like the kind you use on your bed blankets). I was XO on a ship and had to put the word that all personal blankets were to be removed from the ship and henceforth only the Navy issue wool blankets were authorized. As cold hearted as that sounds, it was actually a way to preserve the lives of the sailors aboard the ships. Here’s why:

Essentially all blankets you can buy at the store on the beach, short of ones of natural fibers, use some sort of synthetic material for the fabric. This is fine in the house, but not on a ship because, when the “civilian” blanket burns, it produces toxic fumes. So, you retort: “Yeah? SO?, here are fires in houses, too!” Yes, there are. I reply: “And when your house is burning down, you run outside and get away, which puts you in an area of lots and lots of fresh air, which would dilute the toxic fumes. When your ship is burning, you have to attack the fire (enter the berthing space) and therefore go into an enclosed space, where the heated fumes boil down from the overhead, along with the smoke.”

By getting the blankets off the ship, we decreased the risk of serious lung injury to our men. That’s all about protecting the crew from harm.

Add to that discussion of blankets to the situation where a sailor dies in a shipboard fire, but from burns, but suffocation, and the autopsy showed the death was due to toxic fumes in the atmosphere? When that happens, the law suits will make the $400 hammers and toilets seats of days gone by like an a walk in the park. The public would be outraged, and I would submit, rightfully so, for the chain of command didn’t make sure the sailors were safe.

All manner of things are tested extensively, before being allowed for use in the Fleet or field, such as such simple things as ear plugs. Stuff bought off the shelf may or may not help keep your hearing intact, and it would be nice to know. The testing required by the Armed Forces is to make sure we are getting our money’s worth, and the new item is capable of doing the job we asked it to. But, even more important than the research to make sure the product work, is the sacred trust the service members have in their Government to take care of them.

One only has to look at the fallout of such issues as the use of Agent Orange without proper precautions to realize how vital this ban is, until the civilian companies equipment is proven to be effective. It may even come to pass that the civilian items of a particular manufacturer are better than the stock items, which will then get that manufacturer on the list to buy from at the Federal Government level. Back in the late 80s, my Commodore went from his staff job to being the assistant to N6 (the office in charge of all the Navy’s computers. Wes Jordan was instumental in running tests that showed that the extra cost of verifying Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) computers was a waste of the taxpayers money. I saw a video tape that was done where they put an HP-9020 computer and monitor in a 19″ rackmount and proceeded to run the Grade A shock test (considered a replication of the force of a nuclear blast), with a modification. They raised the hammer to it’s maximum height, not just (I think) 8 feet high. On the 20th drop of the hammer, the monitor flicked off and the equipment, which had already exceeded qualification for Grade A worthiness (I think it was three drops to qualify – and from 8 feet, not higher), appeared to have been bested. Upon examination, the power switch for the monitor had been damaged, and upon replacement, the unit came up and the computer display was still there. THE HP-9020 itself took the licking and kept on ticking.

The analysis was that even commerical clients were demanding computers and peripherials to be built to survive some rough handling, and HP, for one, was putting a product off the end of the assembly line that met MILSPEC standards, without each unit having to receive extra testing. Net result: We (the Fleet) got good COTS stuff for use in all sorts of tactical applications and the taxpayers reaped the benefits in big dollar numbers. The boost in our ability to detect and identify hostile targets, and then engage them with confidence in our targeting, was dematically changed, as our detect to engage times went from hours to minutes in one particular system I directly worked with.

With luck, our groud troops will be benefactors of such an investigation, and we, as taxpayers will also see savings.

It seems there are people are doing the same thing with really cool (read: EXPENSIVE!) cars like general aviation plane owners have been doing for years….time sharing!

Anyone interested in a MilBloggers shared car? 🙂

Oh, and there is Ferrari wallpaper at this website…

Part I, Part II, Part III,Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VIII

Part IX

It was the early morning hours of March 25th at this point (around 0200) and there we were, the entire staff and almost all the augmentees, standing there in our watchstation on the Flag Bridge. I believe it was the 07 Level on the carrier’s island. All around us were the nominal things used to stand the watch: Notebooks, pens, pencils, dividers, parallel dividers, magic markers, tactical publications, message boards, and, don’t forget the coffee cups and Coke cans. These things, as some of you readers know, have another, more generic name: Missile Hazards. More on that in a moment.

In theory, the pair of Soviet built OSA missile patrol boats headed towards us “AT HIGH SPEED!” were each loaded with 4 SSN-2 STYX cruise missiles. In new math, that means 8 near supersonic, with a flight profile low to the water, weapons may be announced with the proword “VAMPIRES” any moment. Back to the missile hazards. Steve Nerheim was at one side of the chart table, and I was at the other. I recall I looked at Steve, and he had a wild-eyed look in his eyes, just before (and simultaneously with me) his hand grabbed for the latch on the top drawer of the chart table and proceeded (aided by my hand at the other hand on the other latch) to slam the drawer wide open, whereupon we both yelled “MISSILE HAZARDS!” and began sweeping every loose thing from the chart table top into the drawer. After that we grabbed and stuffed every thing in sight into that drawer, and then got to getting ourselves into battle dress.

The concepts of missile hazards and battle dress are generally introduced to most naval personnel during the endless days of “REFTRA” (refresher training), which used to be held at Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a place more often (and oh, so lovingly) just called “GTMO” (pronounced “git-mo”). The many and varied stories (of the same incidences in some cases) would fill screen after screen after screen on blogs by the hundreds, but almost all of them would mention something about missile hazards or battle dress. Missile hazards, as deemed by common sense, once you get by the fact the GTMO Fleet Training Group (FTG) sailors were “making you do it,” is anything that the force of a close by explosion may be able to impart enough energy into it so as to damage the human contents of the surrounding vicinity of said missile hazard. You come to hate the thought of dealing with the lost point for things like the “left behind” paper clip the FTG guy is holding in your face just before the ship is cleared for getting underway for the day’s training, with that “I just nailed you for one more point off your exercise score, buddy!” look on his face, but after a few weeks, you begin to unconsciously scan your vicinity constantly for loose items. It’s bad enough to get nailed at the beginning of the day, but more irritating when you use some object, such as the dividers to measure something on a chart, and then carelessly put them down on the chart, and, as luck normally has it, right under the nose of the exercise observer, who, once more, smiles and lifts his clip board to make a note about another point off.

That being said, when real, high speed ordnance may be in your future “real soon now,” you immediately recall the laws of physics, and some rudimentary biology that says that coffee cup over there is gonna leave a mark if I leave it sitting on the frame stringer just behind the chart table. It’s sort of like Steve and I, having served in different commands to get where we were, “got religion” on the topic when this scenario presented itself.

Battle dress is the other thing sailors love to hate and do just about anything to justify not reconfiguring their clothing in order to satisfy the little tyrants the FTG guys seem to be. Battle dress amounts to a real fashion statement. Consider the well dressed (for work) sailor, chief or officer (not in the new BDU knock off stuff) with the bottom of the bell bottom or khaki trousers stuffed into their black socks above their shoes, the normally open shirt collar buttoned all the way to the top, and the long sleeves rolled down and the cuffs buttoned. It does look very strange, and, once again, when you consider the purpose, it is something meant to keep the exposed skin to the absolute minimum. In the in most every training scenario, the outfitting also meant scrambling for the locker in the space that held the gas mask bags, each one normally labeled for the crew member it was issued to/fitted for. Picture strange shaped olive green or medium grey footballs with waist straps flying across the space as someone answers up to the name just read off the stenciling. In the late 80’s, we adopted the crew wide issuing of anti-flash gear, which included opera length gloves and a pull over hood, with the open hole for your eyes and nose to be exposed though.

I’ll admit, I missed out completely on the opportunity that most every other service member experiences: The tear gas chamber. I was in GTMO for refresher training in early 1985, while assigned to USS CONOLLY (DD-979). We were going to be import for the weekend, but the Saturday morning schedule had most of the crew set to attend this wonderful opportunity to appreciate the wonders of low level chemical warfare. On Friday evening, they sent us a schedule change that sent us to the base school auditorium instead. Our training involved listening to a Royal Navy LT, who was currently assigned on an exchange tour with Fleet Combat Training Center, Atlantic as a Tactical Action Officer (TAO) course instructor. That assignment was not the basis of his talk that day. He spent several hours talking about his experiences in the Falklands War. He had been the Weapons Officer on one of the destroyers that was hit with and sunk by an Exocet cruise missile. He had been rescued and then was aboard the frigate that had had an Argentinean dumb bomb, unexploded, lodged in the engine room that exploded when the EOD technicians were attempting to safe it. That ship sunk also. As you might imagine, despite the significant exhaustion that GTMO instills, no one was sleeping in the gym that day.

He talked about the effectiveness of anti-flash gear in various parts of the presentation. He said you could tell those who did not like to wear it and had pulled the lower part of the flash hood hole down under their chins. He said when the fireball caused by the unused fuel of the cruise missile ignited and swept through a space, those with exposed skin bore the damage, from surrogate sun burns to significant burns all over their face. He also discussed another physics topic, which was about the property of colors to transmit heat. One ship’s commanding officer had labeled his flash hood with “CO” on black magic marker on the forehead area of the hood. Despite wearing the hood properly, that captain will forever go through life with “CO” burned into his skin, in the same manner that the colored patterns of the kimonos the Japanese women were wearing during the atomic bombs dropped caused their skin to be marked where the darker colors in the fabric patterns was. That part of his story stayed with me to the end of may sea time.

While the brief moments of time were passing in that watch station, with everyone kicking into GTMO muscle memory mode, the SARATOGA Surface module crew ordered the airborne SUCAP (Surface Combat Action Patrol) to intercept the OSA boats. We had the ASUW circuit up in one of our many speakers and I remember the section A-6 lead calling asking if the ship was sure there were OSA boats out there, for the area where he was sent did have a ship, but he said it “had a lot of lights on it.” That reminded me that before the cruise, I remember there had been a push to make sure the Air Wing A-6 assets where equipped with TRAM pods. These “pods” were multi-function sensors mounted beneath the radome of the aircraft, and they were articulated to allow the aircrew to steer the cameras and laser designators around. Included in the sensors was low light level television. The section leader of the SUCAP, despite the urging of the ASUW talker to engage the targets with Harpoon, spent a few extra moments using the available tools to ensure he was doing the right thing. What he reported back was he was breaking off the attack because it wasn’t OSA boats, but a cruise liner, with all sorts of deck lights on, and it was doing 16 knots, not 42. Moral of the story: Make sure everyone has their heads in the game, and you’ll not make stupid mistakes that cause nations to have to apologize to most of the citizens of the world for engaging a “white” (neutral) target in the fog of war.

And this ends my recollection of the events of March 24th and 25th in 1986, in the central Ionian Sea, aboard the flagship for Battle Force ZULU. It is not, however, the end of the tale of the beginning of the offensive phase of the GWoT.