Archive for the 'Work' Category
August 30th, 2007 -- Posted in People, Work |
Well today has been another busy day of teaching. This afternoon after lunch I have to give one of the students the antenna test. He missed the test the other day due to a motorcycle safety course so he will make up the missed class time this afternoon.
He just purchased a motorcycle and the Navy requires its people to attend a safety course before they can bring it on base. They only teach it certain times and he was doing well in class so we let him go and I will spend this afternoon with him getting him caught up.
Also with the three day weekend coming up we had to do a holiday safety brief. It is good to remind folks to be safe over the long weekends.
Other than that it has been business as usual both at work and at home. The end of the month is here almost, so tomorrow it will be a short day for the students but I will have my end of the month reports and all due. I will enjoy having the three days off though so that will be fun. I should get well rested.
This morning listening to the radio they were talking about some alarming statistics about illegal immigration and crime and the sanctuary city thing. I guess our mayor was on a couple days ago and denied that San Diego is a sanctuary city. Well if you believe that then I have a bridge for sale that goes from Coronado to San Diego.
It does seem that a lot of these politicians are starting to see the light as far as illegal immigration and keeping their office is concerned. More and more of the politicians are changing their tune and starting to express that something must be done about it.
The other thing that has been going on in the news has been that senator from Idaho that pleaded guilty to lewd behavior in the Minneapolis Airport Restroom. I guess for the longest time people have thought him to be gay and he has denied it all these years. He has also backed anti gay legislation and backed anti gay group, but now it appears he may be gay or bi-sexual.
There are a lot of people calling for his resignation and I would be part of that crowd. I am not against him for his political party, or his stance on gay people. I believe that any elected official that gets convicted of a crime is unfit for office and needs to be removed. I don’t care if they are republican or democrat. They must follow the law and if they break the law must step down.
I think this guy will be gone as the Republican Party does get rid of most office holders who mess up. It probably wouldn’t happen if this were a democrat as any behavior seems ok to the radical left.
Oh and speaking of that last night on one of the talk shows they were talking about John Edwards. This guy is really running a backwards campaign. Now he wants everyone to dump their SUV’s and go green. Humm, doesn’t this guy travel around in limousines and private aircraft? Doesn’t this guy own a few mansions and didn’t he make all his money off of frivolous lawsuits against hospitals and doctors? This guy is a real piece of work but then I am not surprised that some nut jobs on the radical left will follow him.
Well I suppose that is it for today. I want to make some improvements to a power point I have been working on.
August 20th, 2007 -- Posted in Navy Stuffs |
The weekend is over and so it is back to work and back to the weekly routine. This morning I finished up teaching the antenna couplers and we started on the antenna and coupler labs. They pretty much breezed through all of that so I should be able to get them started on the troubleshooting practice tomorrow. That will be a long process mainly due to the large size of the class. We’ll make due though, but there is going to be a lot of dead time as they wait for the equipment since we only have two antenna systems and two couplers.
Sometimes during the break we get shooting the bull about stuff, mainly old sea stories. Today we somehow got on the subject of storms we have been through at sea and damage caused by them.
Back when I first joined the Navy they didn’t have all the weather satellites and stuff that they have now. Yeah we would b alerted of big storms on our route, but the messages did not contain all the stuff that you get now, like satellite imagery and all that stuff.
My first encounter with some really bad weather started when I was on the White Plains. I had been in some rough weather before while on the ship, especially in the Taiwan Straights where water currents collide causing heavy seas.
Well we were in the Philippines when we got word that a killer Typhoon was headed for Guam and the island was going to take a direct hit. The captain pt down liberty call and instructed the crew to check with the ship at midnight to see if we were getting underway of now and we did indeed get underway with supplies for the island at sunrise the next morning.
We headed to the island following the storm as it headed for Guam and that was the first time I have seen waves that high. The White Plains was a pretty big ship but we were getting pummeled by waves that were crashing over the top of the radar equipment. It was pretty cool to look at but also gave me a chance to be a little frightened at the same time. The ship was bobbing around like a cork and sometimes was slammed into the water so hard that you could feel the whole ship shudder. Everything that was not tied down was moving and falling over and even some of the things that were secured for sea broke loose and were moving around and falling on people.
We made it through all that with little damage and nobody got hurt, though we did have many seasick personnel on board. We got to Guam My first letter of appreciation in my career was received from the Governor of Guam for the Typhoon Pamela cleanup. and stayed about a week to ten days there, helping clean things up and helping get services restored.
I remember on other incident when I was on White Plains and that was an odd one. We were north of the Philippines and out of the blue this giant wave came up and almost pushed the ship over. I remember I was in the aft cargo handling area when all of a sudden she ship rolled way over to one side. I saw a fork truck brake loose of its tie downs and it slid into the bull work. As fast as it happened, it was gone, and though I never saw the wave it was a topic of conversation on the mess decks for a couple of days.
Probably the worst heavy sea stories I have come from my tour on the Bronstein. The ship was small and it had an oversized sonar dome on the bow. Just leaving the pier in calm weather made that ship rock and roll. If we got into 6 foot seas or higher the ride was unbelievably bad.
We were on our way to Thailand from Guam I think and we got caught in a storm. I do not believe it was a typhoon, just a tropical storm by the seas were over 20 feet high, maybe 30 feet high. Normally the bad ride didn’t bother me too much as I was never the type to get sea sick. I would just have to carry the load for a few others in the shop that did get sea sick.
That storm had all but about 15 to 20 of us down and out. We also earned the nickname “Substein” on that trip because the battle group kept loosing us on radar as we entered the troughs. Having been in heavy seas before I was pretty much used to the bad ride, but as the afternoon turned into evening Bronstein started having problems. Some of the waves that were crashing down on the ship wee starting to cause damage, and then some of the spaces in the forward part of the ship started flooding.
What was worse was that we had to go to battle stations so we were restricted to our shop which was below the waterline on that ship. Also we were on our communications circuits allowing us to know what was going on in our spaces but we didn’t know what was going on with the rest of the ship other than a few reports that would make it down to our spaces.
The ship was not riding well at all and here I was down deep in the bowels of the ship hearing that spaces were flooding and that the captain was trying to get us detached from the battle group so we could survey and repair the casualties. He finally got up detached and we steamed as fast as we could for the ship repair facility at Subic Bay, Philippines. When we finally got a chance to look at the damage after we got to calm seas the entire forward part of the ship was destroyed. Lifelines and fire station equipment as well as pyro lockers and anything else forward of the break was gone. The gun tub for the forward 3in50 guns was squashed flat and the gun was damaged. Hatches were sprung and spaces were still flooded as we limped in to Subic for a little over a month of repairs.
That was one point in my Navy career that scared me more than anything in my life. There were times that night where many of the crew felt that we were going to the bottom. You get that really helpless feeling that God has it in for you. But we survived and luckily by the time I went back to the fleet again on Vancouver, Acadia, and Elliot the weather reporting and imagery was such that we were always able to avoid the large storms. Yeah we went through storms but nothing like the ones we went through in my younger days.
You seldom hear of ships going down in heavy seas now days because the technology is better and the ability to get the word out and pick safe tracks is much better in these times.
Anyway, that is my sea story for today. I owed a good post after taking a few days off from posting.
August 17th, 2007 -- Posted in Internet, Navy Stuffs, Pets |
Last night when I got home I found that Skype was still having problems and there was a statement on the net about how they had a software problem and would be back up as soon as possible.
We went ahead and did everything via chat until I think about 8:30 – 9 PM when it finally game up, though it was still a bit iffy and kept dropping from time to time.
This morning when I got up it was down again and their site had an updated message saying it should be up sometime today. So hopefully when I get off work it will be back up.
Laila and I have been using it for so long that I forgot how to configure some of the others so I hope they have it fixed. It seemed odd playing the game without discussing what was going on while making our moves and all. Also it means having additional chat windows open which for me is distracting.
Last night again I was so tired. I almost fell asleep a few times before 11 PM rolled around and I went to bed. Then when I did go to bed about 12:15 AM the dogs started barking and going wild. I went ahead to make sure no one was trying to break into the house or the next door neighbor’s house but it turned out that they were barking at the neighbor’s cat that we are currently cat sitting for. She has finally gotten brave and now ventures around the house checking things out and is now starting to play with the other cats and all. I guess she just had to get used to things.
Anyway I guess that is about it for now. I will try to blog over the weekend if I am not tied up with stuff.
Well I am back with a little time before getting out of here for the weekend. Earlier today I saw something that brought back some bad memories. As I was on my way in to work this morning I heard a ship’s whistle sound one long blast which either meant they were testing it or they were getting underway.
Later while looking for someone I went to the break area and sure enough someone got underway as well as a few others. It seems they will go out and play with the Marines next week so they will pull out and head up the coast over the weekend to pick up Marines at Camp Pendleton. The only one I saw pull out was USS Tarawa (LHA-1) but some of the amphibious ships I saw on the accompanying piers were gone too, so they must have pulled out earlier.
I used to hate that, pulling out on a Friday and pulling in on a Monday. When you are on a ship at sea every day but Sunday is a work day. If something is broke Sunday is also a work day. Also every day you have to stand your watches and all. So pulling out on a Friday when you were looking forward to the weekend is always a bummer. The same can be said with pulling in on a Monday, because you have already missed the weekend and have the full work week to look forward too.
Then of course local operations are the pits because most of the time you are located right off the coast. You can see San Diego, Oceanside and all from at sea and sometimes it can be hard to be so close but yet so far.
At night though on all the ships I was on we usually went out to do what we call “Pump and Dump”. That is where you go out greater than 50 miles from the coast to pump bilges and dump trash. We would usually pick a grid or to on the charts and do what we call, steaming in the box, where you would go ahead and just try and keep 5 miles away from and contacts while staying in your box.
So anyway, I just remembered having those feelings of losing a weekend and kind of felt sorry for the sailors on those ships.
I hope everyone has a great weekend and I will try to have a great weekend myself.
August 16th, 2007 -- Posted in Internet, Unification Wars, Work |
Yesterday our federation leader resigned from the federation and when into long term vacation mode. As many college students, the game takes away from study time and also having a somewhat normal life. As his time available to play grew less and less, he lost track of the normal goings on in the federation and sometimes would disrupt things a bit, but in the long run he did a very good job while there, and we look forward to his return when he has more time to play.
Last night was ok, a few of us ironed out some misunderstandings and the game went on though I was somewhat tied up in the chat and wasted taking advantage of my turns. We got everyone taken care of and then since all fed business was done for the night I went ahead and went to bed early, even before the 11 PM news comes on.
Just before going to bed last night Skype started giving us difficulties and it was totally down this morning. I forgot how to use trillion and yahoo for voice so Laila and I just used text chat this morning for stuff. I hope Skype will be back up when I get home tonight. If not I will figure out how to get the other stuff running for voice.
I am wondering if it had anything to do with the earthquake in Peru last night because that is about the time Skype started acting strange, or it might be the typhoon going through Manila last night causing problems.
Today at work I almost finished the antenna classroom stuff and will finish it up tomorrow. I also watched Petty Officer Kelly move one of the workstations today. The new antennas we installed are a lot bigger than the old ones and when one set of them were rotated if they were in the wrong position could hit the workstation so he moved it.
Other than that life goes on and I will again be glad when the weekend arrives as I feel a bit beat up this week.
August 15th, 2007 -- Posted in Pets, Work |
Well I have to say that yesterday afternoon and last night were very entertaining. In the afternoon after the class left for the day Petty Officer Kelly probably the one guy at work I am tightest with, was taking care of a problem which needed to be done with one of our two antenna systems. It consisted of replacing an antenna control cable. When he first took the cannon plug off the cable we didn’t have the proper pin removal tools and so the connector was destroyed, but we had spare connectors so he decided to replace it.
When he first started placing the pins in the cannon plug he used the little plastic pin insertion tools that came with the connector, but the plastic pin tools are junk and they get chewed up fairly easy, and that was what happened. He remembered seeing a high quality tool kit for replacing pins in one of the old classrooms where they are removing equipment and getting ready to install new stuff, so he asked Senior Chief if we could have the kit as they were just going to dispose of all the stuff in the room. Senior of course said yes, so we got the kit and he installed the pins and we test operated the antenna. Everything worked great, and then he had to put the backplane on the connector and dress everything up.
That was where the trouble began. The new connector didn’t come with a new backplane and he assumed since it was the same connector that he could just use the old backplane. Well the two pieces were threaded differently and so all that work was wasted. This morning he went from lab to lab and finally found the right backplane for the connector and then did all the work. Anyway yesterday when eh was trying to get the old backplane to fit Senior Chief and one of the other Chiefs were giving him a hard time and it was really funny watching them get on his case. Everyone knew it was all in fun so no feelings were hurt.
Anyway after that I went home, but on the way I had to get a book of stamps at the post office and they sold me this really gay looking stamp with a heart and love written on it. Well as long as the bills get paid I guess it is all cool.
Then the next order of business was that we were asked by our next door neighbor to cat sit while they are on vacation. Judy has two female cats and this one is a female so no problem, or that’s what I thought. The first thing that happened was the cat attacked Judy and scratched the heck out of her. Then the cat would not move away from the front door so that we could close it. I reached down to pet her and get her settled down and she scratched the heck out of me. I finally got a broom and kind of pushed her away from the door gently and then she went into the down stairs bathroom and would not come out. Judy went ahead and put her cat box and some food and water in there for her and we hope that she will get over being frightened soon.
This morning was interesting. I was starting to teach my favorite area, when all of a sudden it was time to fill out what we call dream sheets so that took up some class time. A dream sheet is what the students fill out to send to the detailer. The detailer uses the dream sheet to assign the students to their first permanent duty station so it is a very big deal for them.
They have to select what is most important to them, Shore Duty, Sea Duty, or Overseas Duty. They will rank these 1, 2, and 3 with the most desired being 1. After that each section gives them three choices for type of duty and three choices for location again prioritized. So we had them fill them out, and then take them home with them to think about where they want to go and discuss it with family and all. Then we will collect them tomorrow and send them off. The students will receive their orders in the first part of October.
After that I taught antennas for a while, but then got word that the class has to go to some safety brief at 11 AM, so I finished up the topic I was teaching and sent them off to the brief. My boss then had a meeting with us during lunch to set up evaluations and iron out leave schedules and all. I already have my evaluations done and we had already agreed that I would carry over the vacation days for the good of the job. After that I did some maintenance on a transceiver and now I will be entering grades next because someone accidentally eraser the grade sheet. And no it was not me. Actually somehow the grades for the last class are showing up with the names from this class. I will just keep a separate file and copy it via zip drive vice doing it on the grade drive. This is not the first time something has happened to the grades data base, so I will just keep mine here and backed up.
Well speaking of that time to get moving on it.
August 10th, 2007 -- Posted in Navy Stuffs, Training |
Wow, Friday is finally here and none too soon. This week has been so busy at work that I have really been jumping. Most of the week has been spent in Lab with has meant installing faults and repairing things that break while they are troubleshooting. Anyway, they are done for today and I finally have a few minutes to rest up a bit before hitting the road for home.
Well to continue my ship stuff the third ship I was assigned to was the USS Vancouver (LPD-2). This was the first ship I was stationed on as an officer and it was a very good tour.
In between Bronstein and Vancouver I had been stationed at Surface Warfare Officers School as the chief in charge of simulator maintenance as well as several collateral duties. One of my collateral duties was command career counselor and one day when I was trying to advertise some of the advancement programs the Executive Officer there told me that he wanted me to apply for the LDO/Warrant Officer. He kept asking me on a daily basis to submit a package so finally to get him off my back I filled out all the forms and got everything together to submit a package.
I never figured anything would become of it because I had not served in any really high profile duty stations, though I always excelled in all my previous assignments. Well the results came out and I found out that I had been selected.
I then had to call the detailer and get a set of orders. All I was offered was ships on the east coast which was not acceptable to me at that time. I did find that I could get the USS Sterrett (CG-31) which was home ported in Subic Bay, Philippines and was due to return to San Diego within six months so I selected that but continued to call the detailer each week to see if something closer to home was available. A few months later I found that the USS Paul F Foster (DD-964) was available and its home port was Long Beach so I selected that one instead. I still continued to call each week and was finally offered the Vancouver.
I attended officer indoctrination is Pensacola, Florida and reported to the Vancouver in March of 1989 about 1 month before deployment. One thing that was very nice about the Vancouver was all the room. My spaces were huge unlike my previous duty stations.
I did two deployments on the Vancouver with the second deployment being part of the amphibious group fighting in operation Desert Storm. Our marines hit the beach at Al Mishab, Saudi Arabia, hung a right and went into Kuwait.
One of the great things about Vancouver was that I was able to knock out all of my qualifications such as Combat Information Center Watch Officer, Officer of the Deck Underway, and Command Duty Officer. I also had probably the best group of ET’s that I have ever worked with while stationed there.
I also had the best Commanding Officer I had ever worked for in the person of Captain Clarence Burke. He had been prior enlisted and had been in the navy for over 40 years. He was really good at getting you to do things for him out of respect and not just because it was your job.
When we got back from desert storm I was contemplating extending on board but they decided to decommission the ship so I called to find where I could go next. I was offered the USS Ranger, USS Cape Cod, and USS Acadia. I flipped a coin and it came up Acadia because I was not going to go to an Aircraft Carrier. I’ll write about the Acadia next time.
All in all I had a great time on the Vancouver, made several long term friends and learned ship handling and leadership from one of the best captains I have ever served for. I still keep in touch with some of the guys from the ship.
August 8th, 2007 -- Posted in Navy Stuffs |
I was going to blog about my third ship today, but on the way to work listening to the radio something caught my ear that gave me an idea on a subject to blog about. It seems that several college campuses around the state want to ban military recruiters from attending career days and things like that. There is another group that says if they are banned then the schools should lose their federal funds. I agree with the second group.
There is no one forcing these kids to choose a career in the military. Yes recruiters can get aggressive as any salesperson does but you do not join until you sign.
There are a lot of requirements that must be met before you join. Many of the people that protest the recruiters being on campus would not pass the initial requirements. I know as I attended college both during and after my military career. First all applicants must pass a drug test and a placement test. That is the first downfall for many of these youngsters that would try and apply to join as drugs are a problem for this generation. The placement test is where they determine what fields you are best suited for. There is a minimum score that must be met or you will not get in.
You must pass a background investigation to make sure you are not seriously in debt or have outstanding warrants. You must pass a physical to insure that you a physically able to get through basic training safely and that you meet the minimum physical requirements for weight and body fat.
Surprisingly enough many of the people on high school and college campuses would not qualify under today’s standards. And also since the force is an all volunteer force, I don’t know why they are upset.
I joined back in 1974 right after they stopped the draft and went to the all volunteer force. Most of my high school friends thought I was crazy to join, but I did and I see where I am and where they are as far as earnings go and all and I can’t complain. The military gave me lots of opportunities I would not have had as a high school grad and my family did not have the money to send me to college.
I went to college during my career and after my retirement on both tuition assistance and my GI bill. These were some of the benefits that the military provides sort of a payback for the long hours and the many months you spend away from your family.
I now have cheap medical care for the rest of my life, there is a small yearly premium that I pay each year. I also have commissary and exchange privileges for life which helps me keep down my expenses.
When I see hear about these people saying the military only attracts the poor and the disadvantages I have to say they are so wrong. The kids coming into the military are smarter than the average high school and college students. They are more dedicated towards their studies and their advancement than their counterparts on the outside. They are generally more responsible than the counterparts on the outside.
I for example was a straight “A” student in high school and qualified for any program the Navy offered when I took the entrance exams. I was also being considered for an appointment to the Coast Guard academy upon graduation, however my step-father talked me out of it.
One thing that was brought up was the fact that these protesters offer no alternative. They could maybe have the Peace Corps or something like it offer something similar to what the military does, but I would include the drug testing and the background checks.
Our people in the military are the brightest and most highly trained military in the world. They protect the people’s rights to protest against them. They are not war mongers and in fact many do not like war. They do know that sometimes war is required to protect this country. I didn’t like seeing my ship firing missiles in anger, but in today’s world with the terror attacks and all it is much better to fight them there than on the streets of your hometown.
So yes I would love to see all federal money pulled from campus’s that do not support military recruiters. Let their rich liberal staff and alumni pay the bills. Remember, freedom is not free and we have to have the ability to locate young people to replace the retired vets like me.
August 7th, 2007 -- Posted in Navy Stuffs, Training |
Yesterday I blogged about my first ship so today I will blog about the second. I served on the White Plains from November 1975 until November of 1978 and then after a brief stop in Orlando, Florida for recruiting school where I was dropped prior to enrollment after breaking my arm in three places and not being able to attend the school I played around at the Recruit Training Command for a while awaiting orders.
I received orders to Great Lakes as an instructor and after a great tour of instructor duty I received orders to the USS Bronstein (FF-1037) homeported in San Diego. I left Great Lakes in February 1982 and attended Petty Officer Leadership and the AN/WSC-3 maintenance course before reporting on board in June, two weeks prior to a Westpac deployment.
When I got there I was not ready for the nightmares to come. I had relieved someone who had been a Ground Control Radar Technician. He was having difficulty making Chief because he had no sea time so he asked the detailer to assign him to a short sea tour and he was assigned to Bronstein during a yard period.
I did not have a chief so I was going to be the one in charge. The first order of business was to try and get through a 3M re-inspection as they had failed the regular inspection. They also failed the re-inspection pulling the whopping score of 35%.
That was just the first of many things that were not up to par when I first got there. The calibration program was in the toilet as they had only 21% of the test equipment calibrated. There was broken equipment all over the place and the first response to any problem was to call for assistance. I only had two “A” school graduate’s one being a Crypto Tech and the other was a loser that was not allowed to touch any equipment.
I went ahead and started trying to get things corrected and after each work day I held classes in the shop to teach the non school grads electronics. I did the best I could during the deployment, keeping things working and when we got back to San Diego after the deployment I was able to get everything straightened out and running right.
When we got ready for the next deployment we passed the 3M inspection with a grade of 98% and the test equipment program was at 97%.
Also I had the best technicians in the destroyer squadron by then. The next deployment was a dream as we hit all the ports in the north like Hong Kong, Manila, and Subic, then we went on a Southpac hitting the Solomon Islands, Australia, New Zealand and several others.
I reenlisted for a school just before departing the ship at the end of my tour and also gained my Enlisted Surface Warfare Qualification just before transferring. I was the first blue shirt to get that qualification on board. Just as I was leaving in August of 1985, I found out that I have made Chief Petty Officer which I put on when I got to ET “C-7″ school on my way to my next duty station Surface Warfare Officer’s School, Pacific in Coronado, Ca.
All in all the tour was hard, but it made me grow as both a leader and a technician. It was my first chance to either excel or fall on my face and I feel I did a good job that set me up for a good future.
Anyway that was ship number 2 and I will blog about ship number three tomorrow.
August 6th, 2007 -- Posted in Navy Stuffs, Training, Unification Wars |
The weekend is over and another Monday is here. Hopefully it will be a quiet week. I did get back to Stargate Warriors last night and so now hopefully I will be able to convince some of the fed members to start working towards a goal of having us all at about the same PR level to save turns and for better protection.
I have been playing around a bit with the My Space account. It is almost the same as this one here on Blogdrive and I am just going to copy the posts I make here as I am lazy and already maintaining two blogs.
It is easier to post pictures on Blogdrive maybe because I have a premium account. Anyway I actually blogged over the weekend as you can notice. It was fun blogging about Navy stuff again so I was thinking of posting some more ship stuff. I just don’t have the ability to get on the Internet at work to download some pictures. So I will find pictures and post them when I get home.
For the regular readers of my blog some of this may be a repeat, but it will be good for the new folks to catch up with things about me. It will also give me a chance to make my blog a little more interesting I hope.
After I joined the Navy in 1974 they sent me off to boot camp in San Diego and then a few schools in Great Lakes, Illinois. I attended Basic Electronics and Electricity, Electronics’ Technician Class “A” School – Radar, and Interior Communications Technician Class “C” – CCTV Systems schools. I completed all my schools by November 1975 and then left for my first ship, USS White Plains (AFS-4) homeported in Yokosuka, Japan.
I was nervous about going to my first ship and even more nervous knowing it was homeported in another country, but all in all it turned out to be a great duty station and I saw a lot of the world while being stationed there.
I reported as a young ETR3 (Electronics Technician Radar Third Class Petty Officer) and was immediately assigned to the ship’s closed circuit television station as the maintenance man. The system was not fully installed and the ship was in the yards for overhaul so my first task was getting everything put back together.
The White Plains was an underway replenishment ship and was designed to deliver food and whatever else was needed to ships at sea. We spent a lot of time operating out of Yokosuka and Subic Bay, Philippines since that was where we picked up our supplies. We operated in the area bounded by Australia to the south, Guam to the east, Japan in the north, and the Straits of Hormuz in the East, so it was quite a big area. It was also a hard working ship and everyone used to have to take part in loading supplies and working somewhere during our underway replenishments.
I was first assigned to the Cargo Control Office where I kept track of how many pallets were delivered to the customer ships, but was later moved to the bridge where I kept a record of course and speed changes. It sometimes resulted in some pretty long hours of standing during the replenishments but I learned a lot about ship handling and all that came to help me out later in my career.
I had a lot of fun there and it tested my technical knowledge as well as my patience because as a junior petty officer I was assigned to all the various collateral stuff that junior people are assigned to, like compartment PO, Laundry PO, Damage Control PO, and others. I did manage to make ETR2 while I was there and I saw a lot of the world, made some good friends, and gained a lot of experience.
So there you have it, my first ship and a little about myself.
Real quickly one of my friends had something nice happen to him over the weekend. My buddy Petty Officer Kelly was supposed to go to Africa to be part of the UN Peacekeeping forces earlier this year but was excused for medical reasons, nothing major, but it disqualified him. When he received his orders he moved his wife and family to the Bakersfield area so they could be closer to family and has been visiting them on weekends.
Friday on his way to visit he had a blowout on his motorcycle and was helped out by a couple of older motorcycle riders. He had his blowout at night in the Los Angeles area. He was walking the bike to an area where there were tire stores and motorcycle shops when an elderly man, he said 71 years old rode up and asked him what was wrong.
Kelly told him what had happened and the guy got him to a hotel to go to bed for the night. The next morning the guy and another buddy of his helped get the bike towed to the motorcycle shop and got the tire put on. They even paid for the new tire and got him on his way. When he tried to pay them back they just said next time he is in the area they would like a navy ball cap and they thanked him for his service to the country.
I love it when I hear stuff like this after you see the troops humiliated and marginalized by the press. Contrary to the press people do appreciate the sacrifices and all made by our servicemen and women.
Anyway, back to work now.
August 5th, 2007 -- Posted in Navy Stuffs |
The other day while driving home from work I spotted this ship down at the Naval Base.
It is the USS San Antonio (LPD-17), the Navy’s newest LPD. It was very noticable as the superstructure looks so much different from this one, USS Vancouver (LPD-2) that I served aboard.
While the first ship of the class has been plagued with problems it could be a pretty cool ship when they work the bugs out.
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