Can’t find it on the web yet, but the news on radio about 30 minutes ago said the judge decided to award $8M to the 15 families of the USS COLE (DDG-67) casualties in their case against the government of Sudan.

Report said the request was $100M. I’m sure details will be around the MSM/net soon…

Update 7/26/2007: Here’s a story, but not from a “big” MSM outlet. Hmmm…

Corrections: 17 families, not 15 and the original demand was $105M

One day, open trackbacks will actually get some good reading links here. Until then, suffer from my story telling (that’s your cue to link in and get some distracting links to be clicked on…).

I can’t recall the transgression, maybe something like the Quarterdeck not rendering honors to a senior officer driving down the pier, but “we” did something wrong. I don’t recall the details of why my division (OI) was detailed to carry out the “punishment,” but needless to say, it happened.

It seemed that retied ADM Arleigh Burke, USN, was in town and would be spending the day at sea on a greyhound of the fleet. Those familiar with the Norfolk Operating Base (NOB) know the layout and the way to/from sea, and where the fat ships, vs the small, sleek combatants moor. So, on the appointed morning, I assembled my division of operations specialists (OSs) and electronic technicians (ETs) on the spacious flight deck aft (we were port side to, bow in) in two ranks, awaiting the transit to sea of some DD with ADM Burke aboard.

The ship came into view, and others ships south of us could be heard rendering honors on their topside announcing circuits, finally we came to attention, saluted and dropped the salute in accordance with the whistle signals over our speakers.

With ADM Burke safety beyond eye shot, as they headed north up the southern branch of the Elizabeth River towards the Hampton roads area and to sea, I executed a sharp about face in accordance with FM 22-5 and directed my men to face left in my well practiced command voice from just about a year before, having actually marched units around parade fields for three years. They did the left face fine, then I turned right and commanded “Forward, MARCH!” They got this right also.

Picture us now, about 20 sailors in two columns, having been centered on the centerline, now marching towards the starboard side of the flight deck. I watched the approach to the safety nets, gauging when to issue the next order, also from FM 22-5, to avoid an officer induced multiple man overboard situation while in port.

“Column Left, MARCH!” Well, the deck edge was close, and the command was apparently not well practiced. The two columns began to disintegrate, as the front men stopped, and the middle and rear ones kept coming, but allowing for the “stoppage.”

I gave up, and dismissed them. They easily found their way to the watertight door on the side of the helo hanger that led below to berthing.

So much for trying to march sailors.

As requested by VA Joe, I’m passing the word:

From Aug 5th thru the 20th, VA Joe is taking votes for military support organizations. The winning organization gets $1000 added to the coffers from VA Joe’s website….2nd, 3rd and 4th places get some bucks, too!

Get moving! VOTE HERE!

If you’re not a VA Joe member, sign up…it’s a free registration, and get on with helping support the troops and their families!

(and check out the site while you’re there for the other info that’s posted!)

About two weeks ago:

Stopped at the video store to return movies. There is a bench on the sidewalk, adjacent to the drop slot. The lady sitting on the bench asked “Letters from Iwo Jima?” No, sorry. “My husband is inside at the counter waiting to see if one comes up in there.”

Redundancy, and, willingness to help bag the war movie for the hubby. Good team, I’d say.

Almost 39 years ago (7/28/1968) in a land far away, a Navy Corpsman gave his life, so his Marine shipmates could live. IN doing so, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor:

Hospital Corpsman Third Class Wayne M. Caron, United States NavyFor conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 28 July 1968 while serving as Platoon Corpsman with Company K, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division during combat operations against enemy forces in the Republic of Vietnam. While on a sweep through an open rice field in Quang Nam Province, Petty Officer Caron’s unit started receiving enemy small-arms fire. Upon seeing two Marine casualties fall, he immediately ran forward to render first aid, but found that they were dead. At this time, the platoon was taken under intense small-arms and automatic-weapons fire, sustaining additional casualties. As he moved to the aid of his wounded comrades, Petty Officer Caron was hit in the arm by enemy fire. Although knocked to the ground, he regained his feet and continued to the injured Marines. He rendered medical assistance to the first Marine he reached, who was grievously wounded, and undoubtedly was instrumental in saving the man’s life. Petty Officer Caron then ran toward the second wounded Marine, but was again hit by enemy fire, this time in the leg. Nonetheless, he crawled the remaining distance and provided medical aid for this severely wounded man. Petty Officer Caron started to make his way to yet another injured comrade, when he was again struck by enemy small-arms fire. Courageously and with unbelievable determination, Petty Officer Caron continued his attempt to reach the third Marine until he himself was killed by an enemy rocket round. His inspiring valor, steadfast determination, and selfless dedication in the face of extreme danger, sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

HM3 Caron was outstanding young men who enlisted while America was enganged in a conflict:

Wayne Maurice Caron was born on 2 November 1946 in Middleboro, Massachusetts. He graduated there with multiple honors from Memorial High School in June 1966. On 12 July of that year, he enlisted in the U. S. Navy in Boston, Massachusetts. He advanced to hospital apprentice on 23 September 1966, to hospitalman on 1 April 1967, and to hospital corpsman third class on 16 January 1968.

Hospital Corpsman Third Class Caron underwent recruit training at the Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois, and was the Honorman of his company. He attended Naval Hospital Corps School, also in Great Lakes, and then received further training at Field Marine Service School, Marine Corps Base, Camp Pendleton, California. In July 1968, HM3 Caron joined 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Reinforced), Fleet Marine Force, and served as a platoon hospital corpsman with the 2d Platoon, Company K in the Republic of Vietnam.

On Oct 1st, 1977, USS CARON (DD-970), was commissioned. CARON was in service 24 years, stationed out of Norfolk, VA. Most of her career was spent attached to DESRON TEN.USS CARON (DD-970) saw action in several major operations during her time at sea. She was at Grenada for Urgent Fury, providing Naval Gunfire Support. Present in the Gulf of Sidra, she sailed across Khadiffi’s “Line of Death” in 1986. In 1991, she fired Tomahawks in support of Operation Desert Storm.USS CARON was sunk off Puerto Rico 12/4/2002.

It’s taking a little time, but I think I have the flow for the photo-editing.

So far, I’m working through all the pictures of MEGEN Pinch took on his Norfolk, VA area tour. You can see them here.

Suggestion: Download them, print them out on a full sized piece of paper, then “pose” your favorites around for others to see, and also for photos of your own “Virtual MEGEN.” If you take some, contact me for the FTP site to send them to me.

I’ll keep at at and will get on AW1 Tim to ftp me his shots from Bath/Brunswick, ME.

Marines coming ashore at Agat Beach on Guam July 21st, 1944: A joint operation landed both Army and Marines on two different beach heads, one to the north of Orote Point at Asan, the other to the south at Agat, both on the west coast of the island. The landing forces cut straight across the island to divide the Japanese, then headed north and south to complete the liberation. From the 60th Anniversary Celebration website, a little background:

[..]
The first European ship to arrive here was under the command of Ferdinand Magellan, who discovered the island of Guam and this quiet bay in 1521.

His arrival led to Spanish colonial rule, which lasted until 1898. At the end of the Spanish-American War, Guam – along with Puerto Rico and the Philippines – became an American territory.

During the Spanish period, a small village emerged along the bay, and today Umatac remains a serene community accented by the spire of the local church honoring San Dionisio. Nearby is the Magellan Memorial, commemorating the discovery that changed the course of Guam’s history.

The island’s first inhabitants were the Chamorros, expert navigators and adventurous seafarers who had left Southeast Asia and crossed the sea in open canoes. No one is certain exactly when the Chamorros arrived on Guam, but scientists estimate their first landfall to have been about 5,000 years ago.

From Magellan’s arrival until today, Guam’s location in the Western Pacific has made it strategically important. Part of the Marianas group, it lies 3,800 miles west of Hawaii and 1,500 miles south of Japan. From north to south, the island measures about 32 miles in length four to eight miles in width.

Guam’s strategic importance was dramatized on December 10, 1941 – just after Pearl Harbor – when Japanese forces overpowered the U.S. garrison and took control of the island.

It remained under Japanese occupation until July 21, 1944, when U.S. Marines and Army troops, supported by Navy and Coast Guard vessels, carrier-based aircraft and special units such as the Navy Seabees, began the battle to liberate the island.
[…]
When organized resistance was declared at an end by U.S. military commanders on August 10, the operation had resulted in nearly 7,400 U.S. casualties, of which almost 1,800 were killed.

Runways were built as soon as the island was liberated, and almost immediately long-range B-29 bombers were taking the war directly to the Japanese homeland.
[…]

Some extra details come from the 50th Anniversary website:

The Liberation
The American air raid on February 23, 1944, signaled the return of the Americans on Guam.1 [a number at end of sentence refers to the endnotes] This sign was what the Guamanians had been waiting for. The Japanese Americans, but the Japanese insisted to the Guamanians that the Americans would not come back. The Japanese also told the Guamanians that the Japanese were actually winning the war. July 21, 1944 marks the day the liberation forces landed on Asan and Agat beaches to free Guam from the more than two years of Japanese occupation. Three hundred planes dropped 124 tons of bombs over the 14-mile coastline from Agana to Bangi Point. 2 The island was burning from one end to the other, and the flames were non-stop. The invasion of Guam was the most symbolic step yet taken in the Central Pacific campaign up to this date; it was also the largest land they had yet set out to conquer. 3 Guam’s recapture was significant because it would return an important possession to American hands and provide a forward supply base for future operations in the Pacific.4 The Americans also felt a moral obligation because of their earlier hold on Guam and the Guamanian loyalty towards them.
[…]

Of note on the 50th Anniversary website is a discussion of the half century plus disagreement over the control of Guamanian land. It has been an important issue all these years, and I’m sure hasn’t been completely resolved.

Four men won the Congressional Medal of Honor in this operation:

• Pfc LEONARD MASON, USMCR
• Pfc FRANK PETER WITEK, USMC
• Pfc LUTHER SKAGGS, JR., USMCR
• Captain LOUIS HUGH WILSON, JR., USMC

The “Liberation – Guam Remembers” website has some very compact, yet interesting items, discussing the occupation life, and the liberation/post-liberation people and situations on Guam. One of the historical “nuggets” of information I just gleaned was that Guam was the site of the War Crimes trials.

One of the long standing stories of surviving behind enemy lines is that of RM1 George Tweed, USN, who escaped the Japanese wand was safeguarded, with much danger to, the Guamanian people, who heroically sheltered him until he was rescued by the USS McCall on July 10th, 1944. “Robinson Crusoe, U.S.N.” is George’s autobiographical report of his time avoiding captivity.

I spent 3 1/2 years on Guam. I have dived off the beaches, found left over artifacts of the battles, including some live ordnance (the largest being an 8″ projectile laying in the jungle laying on a slope on the perimeter of the Orote Point airfield while on a Boy Scout camp out), and hiked the interior of the island. The island has become an even more prominent base in our strategic siting of military power since the closing of the US Bases in the Philippines. My post from yesterday describes my conflicted view of this day in history as a result.

Guam – Where America’s day begins, was witnessing a new beginning this day in 1944.

Yep, it was a historic day, the pinnacle of our space program, put together with men using pencils, notepads and slide rules. They got three men all the way to the surface of the moon, with few casualties along the way.

Steeljaw Scribe’s Flight Deck Friday post (a regular attraction, in case you didn’t know – every Friday) pays tribute to this spectacular event of 1969.

To me, I was on the other side of the date line, so this all happened on 7/21/1969 for me. Oh, yeah, the Guam Daily News didn’t mention it until page 4. You see, it was the 25th Anniversary of the Liberation of Guam, so they were a little preoccupied with celebrating a special day for those who lived through the Japanese occupation.

Get over and read what SJS has to say about this day so many years ago.

Read all the way to the end of this excerpt from an editorial from across the water by Ron Liddle in the TimesOnline:

Another important blow struck in the war against terror. A rather dippy English lady called Jane Felix-Browne has married Osama Bin Laden’s son Omar and intends to live with him in Saudi Arabia. Felix-Browne, 51, who also uses the name Zaina Mohamad al-Sabah and is plainly as mad as a snake, says Omar, 26, loves his dad very much and misses him dreadfully but they “disagree about tactics”.

According to Felix-Browne, Omar hasn’t spoken to Osama since – er, when was it? – 2001. Well, we’ve all had a bit of a problem getting hold of him since then, haven’t we. Maybe he didn’t pay his phone bill in Tora Bora, who knows.

The two lovers met, incidentally, while Felix-Browne, a grandmother who has been married five times before, was having a look around the pyramids: it was love at first sight, for her. The name Bin Laden gave her no qualms at all, she said. Any more than if it had been Crippen or Gadaffi, I suppose.

This is the way forward, though. Never mind the cluster bombs and Challenger tanks, the way to defeat Al-Qaeda is to dispatch legions of barking mad Englishwomen to mate with them, thus seriously compromising the jihadist gene pool and perhaps destroying the terrorists’ resolve and even their will to live.

Wow…several points to grasp and laugh about in that bit of reporting/commentary/observation on the effect on family relations when you can’t manage to pay your utility bills.

But in case you think Ron is rather one dimensional, then there is this end to the writing:

Keith Best, the boss of the Immigration Advisory Service, reckons that immigrants are “better” citizens than those of us who were born here – which has a nicely counter-intuitive ring to it.

There’s a nasty perception at large in the country that all too many immigrants scarcely have time to complete their citizenship tests before suddenly feeling impelled to strap on the Semtex and head for a nightclub or transport hub. Many people complained about Best’s statement, pointing out that it is we second-rate citizens who pay the £13m a year it costs to run his organisation.

Best was once Tory MP for Anglesey before being sent to prison for dodgy share purchases – so perhaps he intended his comments in a purely personal sense.

At least we can relax and know we still have our ties to the mother country in the form of unbridled, rampant immigration whack jobs.

H/T: Chapomatic

Open trackbacks….who could ask for anything more?

“Sea stories?” Yep, a sailor always has a few at hand….

Yes, I was politically incorrect, before we knew it was politically incorrect….

In September, 1980, I reported to my first shore based assignment at Fleet Combat Training Center, Atlantic. After two sea tours, I was looking forward to the assignment.

As a Lieutenant, I was put on the Base’s Command Duty Officer (CDO) watchbill, with a rotation of 1 in 30, the time being measured in days, not hours. So, once a month, roughly, I’d have to go to the XO’s office in the morning with the off-going CDO and do our turnover with him. Most of the work day was still spent working, but with a pager on your belt, in case something arose.

After work, you had various duties to attend to, such as sampling the meal at the mess hall, taking a drive around the base to spot check the buildings being locked, checking in the the Quarterdeck watch in Taylor Hall and generally ensuring the calm atmosphere, and being ready to answer the emergency calls.

Considering the sea duty I had come from, as well as most of my peers there,  consisted of inport watch rotation being 1 in three days, and underway watches being port and starboard (a watch period on, then one off, then back to watch) of 4 (hours) on, 8 (hours) off, it was a holiday for us “Fleet Lieutenants.”

The watchbill consisted of all W-2s and -3s, and Ensigns to LTs. W-4s and LCDRs were exempted from the CDO Watch standing duties. Having more than 30 people in that category, after 32 more people of those ranks arrived, you would be freed from the rotation. Depending on the time you arrived, you may be on the watchbill 12 months, or maybe out to 18 months, it was all determined by the “Blind Watchmakers” at the Bureau of Personnel. For Unrestricted Line Officers like myself (those with the path to commanding a vessel or air squadron), that time frame comprised 1/2 to 3/4 of your two year shore duty assignment, normally coming after 3 years in the Fleet. We also had a number of “General Unrestricted Line” (“GURLs”) officers assigned to the base. These officers, with rare exception, were females, not being able to be sent to sea (this was before women were assigned to ships). Their tours, generally beginning at the rank of Ensign, were three year assignments. Their time on the CDO watch bill, at the worst, would span about 1/2 of their time, and no more.

I had been standing the CDO duties for just about a year, and I was due to roll off within about two months, when the command received a new Executive Officer. I don’t recall his name, but he was an aviator, and had been a POW in North Vietnam.  After he had been in the saddle about a month, he asked the Senior Watch Officer why so many fleet experienced Lieutenants came to his office for CDO turnover, when he kept running into masses of Ensigns and Lt JGs who seemingly were all over the base, but off the rotation.  The LCDR told him how the “membership” for the CDO list was set up and the XO apparently uttered some impolite words, indicating his displeasure. He then directed Rich to get out the linela number list (the precedence order of all Naval Officer) and put the 32 most junior qualified people in the rotation. It seemed the XO objected to post sea tour O-3s holding down the fort, when more junior officers were available.

Rich dutifully reworked the list and got it approved, then held a meeting of all officers in the W-2/3/O-1/-2/-3 range. I remember it pretty well. Certainly there was the aspect of “orders is orders” but not without the “happy sailors” doing what “happy” sailors do regarding a wide range of things, in this case, the fact that some people would be returned to standing watches that had “done my time.”

One junior LT, a GURL, commented loudly that “this is unfair!” I turned in my seat, and looked her in the eye and said words to the effect: “When you’ve got three years of sea duty behind you, standing 1 in 3 watch rotation, and I don’t mean days, I mean 4 hours on and 8 off, for months at a time, on the far side of the world, maybe you’ll see how spending the night on a base once every thirty days is pretty much a picnic.”

It got quiet. The meeting resumed, with direction from the Senior Watch Officer on implementation, and I don’t recall any more comments from any of the GURLs in the room before we dismissed.

I rolled off the watch bill after my next watch, not because of someone reported to the base, but because I was senior enough by lineal number to not have to do it any more. Net result: My lineal number saved me one duty day. I think that was the last time (and the first) my lineal number actually came into play in my career.