There stood the Captain, the XO, the OOD, and a whole bunch of others, looking over the starboard bridge wing at the drone in the water, a few yards from the hull of the ship.

Rewind to the morning of that day in the northern Puerto Rican “OPAREA.” We were in the Caribbean to pump fuel and deliver stores to the “real” ships, who were down there exercising the equipment that differentiated them from being merchant hulls. We have a detachment from Fleet Composite Squadron Six (VC-6) embarked to provide drone target services.

The VC-6 guys loved using us as a launch platform. MILWAUKEE (AOR-2) had a big flight deck aft, designed to support two CH-46 cargo helicopters for VERTREP (vertical replenishment – more on this in some future post). There were two cavernous hangers for the “birds” built into the after superstructure, plenty of room to stage the drones on their launch platforms. They could set up the drones for launch in an area free of the elements, and with plenty of lighting in the pre-dawn period. When the operations were to begin, they rolled up the doors and wheeled the set up drones out to the deck edge, wired them up and they were ready to go.

They also loved to set up their control station in my helo control tower. Once more, it was enclosed, with three big windows, and an elevated, commanding view of the flight deck and aft of the ship. They flew the drones by watching an x-y plotter that dead reckoned the flight path of the drones. They would mark the plotting surface with the planned formation of shooters, so they could guide the drone over the ship getting its run. The drones launched with small rockets from the frame that held them and were on their way. It was pretty cool to hang out on the flight deck, between launches, and watch the tin cans lined up astern, pounding out VT-NF 5”/54 rounds at the inbound targets.

The plan for the day was to sequentially launch drones all day long, as each one reached fuel exhaustion and had the chute deployment commanded, the next one left the deck. My crew in Combat Information Center (CIC), under the watchful eyes of OSC “Mac,” would plot the splash point of each drone, so we could send the helo out to retrieve them at the end of the exercise. Being pretty new at all of this, I recall he used an overlay for the maneuvering board with a “Z” on it. I wish I could remember the name of the method, but is was an “old school” search and rescue plotting method. I do remember this: When the shooters smartly hauled off when the last target splashed, Chief Mac’s plotting drove the recovery platform to all six of them, regardless of the fact some had been floating out there for about 6 hours.

The VC-6 crew cleared their gear off the deck and an H-46 was rolled out for launch. They had the “wet crewman” (Search and Rescue Swimmer) aboard, and a long pendant to be used to attach to the hook on the top of the drone, so they could lift it and then deposit it back on the flight deck. The OS Helo Direction Controller in CIC vectored the H-46 to first drone and the Captain requested a course to one of the other drones. Off we steered to one of the orange unmanned vehicles.

Now I’m caught up. Wide angle shot from the pilot house door at the multitude of personnel of the bridge watch team and the CO and XO leaning over the bulwark, some 50 feet above the ocean surface at this thing floating right next to us. Cut to the helo, about a half mile away, hovering so close to the water, that the wheels were almost touching the surface, with a mist of blowing sea water enveloping the chopper. You can see the movement of the pendant off the rear ramp, as the crew, invisible at this distance, due to the mist and shadowed interior of the helo, thrashed about, trying to snag the hook of the drone without much success.

Since the helo crew had their job somewhat under control and sunset coming in the not too distant time frame, we once again peer over the bridge wing. Finally, the CO rhetorically asks “How are we going to get that?” After about 10 seconds of silence, I say “I will!” All eyes pan my direction. “I have my snorkeling gear in my stateroom” I volunteer. The idea takes hold. I also look up at the Signal Bridge and ask if one of the SMs (who was a swimmer) wanted to go. He said “yes,” and the Captain directed the crew to man the whaleboat. I took off and grabbed my gear, pulling on my pair of “UDTs” and headed to the starboard boat davit. We lowered the boat, drove the short distance to the drone. The signalman and I rolled over the side and attached a line from the whaleboat to the drone. Once the line was secured to a set of bits, we swam over and each grabbed a wing, while the motor whaleboat pulled the drone over to a position under the boat boom. We connected the hook to the drone and up it went.

We had just shown how we could pretty much double up on drone recovery, get one with the helo, and one with the ship. In short order we had the 6 drones back aboard to be flushed out and prepped for future launches. Over the next few weeks, I got to recover a number of drones. Not only was it a fun break from watch standing, this happened in February, while our spouses and children were going through one of the coldest winters Norfolk, VA had had in quite some time.

The water temperature was a bathtub warm 85 degrees, and so clear that I could see the entire bottom of the ship from about a ¼ mile away. The ship drew 40’ of draft when loaded and was 659’ long. The water depth was 12,000’ and it was incredible to look down in the water, seeing the sun’s rays being swallowed by the dark blue way below the surface. In all my formal “swim calls” during this operation, I only saw one fish, which was a very large sun fish that had come to inspect one of the drones. There were no sharks around, or anything else.

We steamed back into Norfolk on March 1st, during a snow storm. It was quite a contrast from the Caribbean. Actually, the snow wasn’t such a bad deal compared to the dirty looks we got from our families because we had really nice sun tans…..

What can I say? Someone had to do it…

Scientific American for May 2005 says on the cover “Do-It-Yourself Black Holes: Physics Gets Ready.”

For the loyal blog readers here, you’ll recall that physicists decided a earlier this month that Black Holes didn’t exist. I guess the Scientific American writing staff and editors didn’t get the word. And, for those of you in the military, we know it’s not an excuse when you don’t know, you just get nailed for “Failure to get the word.” I’ll admit it, I’m confused as to what’s the truth here.

Ok, it looks like if you get out to the garage and dust off your particle accelerator (or head down the community center to use theirs), you know, the one you built as from a Heathkit project, a model of the accelerator at CERN near Geneva, you can possibly make microscopic Black Holes, so you can play in the quantum particle physics field.

Don’t worry, these “small” Black Holes won’t rip stars apart (they didn’t mention what it will do to the Harley you also keep in the garage).

Once you produce a hole, you should be able to make discoveries to enhance our understanding of the universe. Just make sure you keep your prized Craftsman tools, the golf clubs and your Harley at a safe distance (just in case), to make sure they aren’t taken to a parallel universe.

A few days ago, in my post on the revelation that black holes don’t exist, I mentioned “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. I finished listening to it today and here’s my review:

Sort of like the line in “Top Gun:” “That was some of the best flying I’ve seen, right up until the time you got killed.” this was a good book, right up until the last commentary by the author.

After 5 CDs of listening not only to the fantastic things man has discovered, by who and how, and many stories of how things were either not understood, or not even comprehended, and later, once something was discovered (“plate tectonics” was a term first used in 1968), all of a sudden, right at the end of the book, Bill Vryson begins to pontificate about how life was actually a series of highly improbible things happening over and over again, so that’s how it works we’re told. He describes “miraculous” things, then makes it a result of a few chemicals and a spark.

He goes on to tell us how they (scientists) postulate that 90% of the species on Earth still haven’t been discovered, and a few moments later, he starts berating mankind for being the most selfish and inept species ever in the history of the planet, uncaringly either letting species be eliminated, or actually wantonly eliminating them.

It struck me as incredible that the very history of our journey into modernity has been rife with misunderstandings, personality conflict, rejection of actual fact, yet all of a sudden, we are chastised for destroying the planet and what lives here. We have also been responsible for global warming (it couldn’t have been the big yellow ball hanging up there in the sky!), since that began when humans first walked the earth.

Anyhow, listen to it all, but if you’re not in the mood for a lecture on how bad humanity is for dear old mother earth, skip the last track on the last CD and spare your blood pressure.

I had the honor of spending yesterday afternoon with a man who was a part of the last naval battle: The Battle Off Samar. I blogged about this battle here on the 60th anniversary of the battle.

Richard Rohde was a radioman aboard the USS SAMUEL B ROBERTS (DE-413) on Oct 25th, 1944. The battle is well documented in Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors” by James Hornfischer.

Imagine running at full speed towards the YAMATO, all 68,000 tons, in a 1745 ton destroyer escort. It’s somewhat of a skewed battle, taking 2 5″/38 caliber guns up against 9 18.1″ guns.

The battle is the last naval battle to have taken place, and it was a fierce one. Dick was there, and was wounded, and then suffered throught two days in the shark infested waters off Leyte Gulf before being rescued. He graciously spent almost 5 hours with me, sharing some stories, and listening to a few of mine, and it’s amazing how so much of Navy life is still the same.

One man killed that day aboard the “Sammie B” was Paul Henry Carr. I was XO aboard USS CARR (FFG-52), which is what has made the opportunity to meet Dick a special occassion, as I have heard something of Paul, who won the Silver Star for his heroism that day and to get a sense of the battle that day.

It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

I like science stuff, in fact I was loaned the CDs for “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. If you like books on tape (CD) and are facinated how our speices figured out all the stuff we have, I recommend this.

As a long time skydiver, I’ve studied a little physics. That also facinates me. By, today (and please pardon the pun), I’m crushed, as I just found a weblog that led me to an article that says Black Holes don’t exist.

Besides having to drop all refernecs to such things as “singularlity” and event horizon” from my vocabulary, just hink of all the scifi that will have to be rewritten…

If Bill Clinton had had this lecture, he wouldn’t have needed to risk the freedom of Sandy Berger….

We know Sandy accidentally stuffed his pants and socks with National secrets, just before the 9-11 Hearings. When I saw this quoted email from Buzz Patterson, author of “Dereliction of Duty” (a fine read, by the way), and Buzz’s remarks about it wasn’t about the documents themselves, but the handwritten notes on the margins. He is so correct. We can only surmise why the followers of Clinton didn’t want that on the street.

It was back in 1987, and we had returned from a major fleet exercise a few days before. While we had been at sea, there was a change of command, and the incoming commodore of our destroyer squadron was Capt Joe Lopez. It was our first time back in the office (somewhere we didn’t get to visit very often) and he walked out of his office, holding a naval message in his hand. Since we were still feeling him out, and he us, it got quiet.

What Joe Lopez said next has stuck with me since that day. It went something like this:

“Gentlemen, we may make our jokes and derogatory comments about the units we work with at times, but those things should be kept among us.” He held the message up facing us, and there were some handwritten remarks in the margins. He didn’t tell us what it was, but in this context, that wasn’t important.

“We have people from our units and other places that come in here regularly to meet with us. How would you feel if you walked in here, as one of the ship’s company of a unit of ours, and saw something about your ship written on a message sitting on one of the desks in here?”

“If something needs to be written on a document, make it factual and professional. That way, you’ll never be called upon to explain something you regret writing.”

He didn’t have to say any more, the point was quickly grasped.

As Engineer Officer in a surface ship, the maintenance and operation of the ships gyroscopes fell under my purview. We were in the South Atlantic Ocean, operating with one of the South American navies for a surface gunnery exercise.

The Weapons Officer was having a bad day, as the fall of shot from our main guns (5
“/54 caliber) wasn’t landing near the towed target. The CO, being the warfighter he was, as well as being a gunnery expert, asked Weps what the problem was. Reportedly, without much hesitation, he proclaimed the signal amplifiers for the gyros weren’t operating properly and therefore, the gun orders from the fire control system was off.

Gee, thanks, John, is really all I could think about as Captain Maxiner chewed on me about equipment not operating to specs. I called Ensign Hale and got him to work running checks. After a few hours, Nolan came back, showing me the sync amp outputs were all within specifications. I reported this to the Captain. What I found out later that day was that while we were scratching our heads and checking the gyros, the fire control division had been madly swapping out circuit cards in the MK 86 Gunfire Control System. If my sync amps were the problem, it was odd that they would be doing this kind of work on their system, particularly if you didn’t know where the problem was.

It turned out Weps hosed me, but I did get a dig in a few days later when we were doing another gunnery shoot. I wandered up to the bridge, and stood behind the Co and Weps, as the guns pounded out round after round and got calls back over the radio from the tug that was towing the target sled of “Alpha Mike” over and over. “AM” is the report that the round hit within close enough proximity to the target sled that it would have been a direct hit on a real ship.

I waited for several of the reports of success to come over the radio, then, when there was a lull in the firing, said loudly “Those sync amps sure are shooting good!” All I got was two hard, cold stares from the Captain and the Weapons Officer. All I could do was stand there and smile.

One small victory for the Engineering Department was racked up that day.

Part XII – “Red Blood or Red Ink”

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII: “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

This is probably an original way to portray what I’ll comment on below. It’s been running around in my head for a few years now, and this seems to be the right time to roll it out.

Think jeopardy. What’s the difference between warfare and business? Bingo. One is a more gentile form of the other, but in each case, the goal is to take something from the other party, and make it yours. What’s the difference between Wal-Mart moving in, with the local hardware, toy and grocery stores taking a significant, if not financially fatal “hit,” and Hitler moving into Poland? I think you can’t argue that there is a fundamental difference here.

It’s all about competition. It’s about figuring out your enemy/competitor’s weakness and exploiting it to your gain. Certainly one venue is far more radical, and in many cases, far more final. Particularly for those service members who have been able to attend one of the National or international service colleges, this is a daily exercised skill, and therefore, a part of their thought processes.

The curriculums of the war colleges focus on building better warfighters, at the upper levels. The degrees awarded are in the Strategic Studies arena at the Master’s level. The almost universally studied texts is “On War” by Carl von Clausewitz. The other classic is “The Ancient Art of War” by Sun Tzu. These writings are studies in how people operate in the most extreme climes of competition, that of armed conflict.

Reduce this to the business environment and what you have is people who subconsciously know what to look for when you ask them to figure out how to increase market share, or how to take over, or penetrate a market. To them, it’s just second nature to mentally construct an operational concept, that will form the “battle plan.”

Not only will they formulate the concept, they will have had practice in drafting the operational plan and then communicating it to the office/sales force staff.

Think about it. How many business seminars have you been to where some tremendously successful business person stand before you and they reference some great philosophy that is directly derived from a great warrior? Why shouldn’t they, it’s the same concept at work.

Part XI – The Military’s Supply System

Index to the Series:
Part I: Initiative, marketing, sales, project planning and program management skills
Part II: Auditing Skills
Part III: Operations 24/7/365
Part IV: “Point Papers”
Part V: Collateral Duties
Part VI: The “Git ‘er done!” Factor
Part VII: “Total Care”
Part VIII: Communications in the Workplace
Part IX: “Give a smart person with potential a chance”
Part X: Process Engineering, Continuous Improvement, Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, or what ever you call it. The bottom line title: Making “it” better
Part XI: The Military’s Supply System
Part XII: “Red Blood or Red Ink”
Part XIII: Constructive Plagiarism

For most non-commissioned officers and above, pretty much everyone on on the ship had to interact with the supply system in detail. I have good and bad sea stories regarding the actual supply officers I worked with, but for the most part, while we didn’t like the thought that they didn’t have watches to stand at sea, they were a professional bunch, with only a few radical bean counters in the bunch.

If you needed something, there were ways to look up exactly what it was, and then a form to order it with. While it seemed like a pain in the butt for a pad of paper, it was pretty handy when you turbine front frame attached gear box failed, and you needed another one in order to put that engine back in service.

We all learned it wasn’t a wild, wild west out there, with easy access to the storerooms, but a structured system, which accounted for useage and made sure the next one got on order to be able to keep the authorized spares in place.

My point is that military person in front of you understands the need for a large, seemingly cumbersome logistics network, and how, in fact, it really does make life easier.

The requisition form goes to the supply petty officer, he logs it in the division’s records and it begins it’s journey to the chain of command. The chief or leading petty officer usually has a grasp on the budget and knows if it’s a go or not, so they can justify it to the division officer, if it’s not a part of the planned, budgeted process.

You won’t need much to educate an ex-military person about your system, because the basic concepts and operation are already a part of what they have done. Show them the forms and tell them were to go to submit them and when and where to expect a delivery.

I ended up becoming very connected to training issues in my career. In the outside world, I was a skydiving instructor for about 15 years. I always found the quickest way to get someone into the “program” was to use correct analogies, that drew on their past experiences. When you see their eyes light up in a few minutes, and they are saying words indicating they “get it,” you’re on the way and probably saved many hours of classroom time with your new employee. This post was to provide an analogy that may be useful for just this situation, when you bring someone into a large corporation, with an extensive logistics system.

YouTube has some great stuff….

Since I know the retired paycheck of a Navy Capt is not good enough to allow Neptunus Lex to have

an F/A-18 in his garage for weekend jaunts, maybe he’d be satisfied with doing what the guy in this video did….

And, oh, yeah…he already understands the management of powered flight systems, so he’ll pick it up in no time and can be down at Skydive San Diego real

soon now…