The tensions finally rose to the point of exchanging cannon shot on this day in 1861, when artillery batteries on Morris Island (which is not much more than a sandbar, manned by Cadets from The Citadel, led by Cadets Hainesworth and Pickens, fired on a supply ship, the Star of the West, that was entering Charleston Harbor to bring supplies to the Union troops at Ft Sumter.

The troops had all consolidated into Ft Sumter, having abandoned both Ft Johnson (on the SW entrance of the harbor) and Ft Moultrie (on the NE side). More info on this “opening day” is posted at Eagle Speak.

Star of the West Monument at The CitadelThere is plenty of history in the epic struggle our country faced so many years ago, yet as I checked the Citadel’s for some history, one of the first links came up as the Star of the West Monument, and a listing of the cadets who have won the Star of the West award for the Corps best drilled cadet each academic year.The competition an elimination of hundreds who try out and the winners are truly excellent at drilling with a weapon, in those days, it was the M-14 rifle that was the standard issue weapon for us. To see the concentration and precision of these men was remarkable.Besides my classmate being there, the 1972 award went to “A.D. Griffin.” Who was this man? “Dave” Griffin, ’74, graduated with a commission as an Ensign in the US Navy. He left Charleston and headed to Basic Underwater Demolition School (BUDS), he became a SEAL, later commanding the East Coast Parachute Demonstration Team, the “Chuting Stars,” before transferring to Naval Aviation and becoming an F-14 Tomcat pilot. Dave is no longer with us, as he died in a crash while returning from a night exercise over North Carolina. I understand they thought it was a case of vertigo, and the plane crashed in Back Bay, Virginia Beach, making recovery of the airframe from the boggy area exceptionally difficult.While at The Citadel, Dave was a larger than life character, tough as nails, with an air of terminal seriousness about him. He had been a member of the Junior Sword Drill, the Summerall Guards, and ran from the campus out to the Citadel beach house on Isle of Palms when he was bored (about 20 miles). I heard he was also the first person to max out the score on the pre-BUDS test for any colleges in the South East part of the country.

The Junior Sword Drill team was one that you didn’t get on without 14 nights of running, push ups, sweating out most of the liquid in your body, but having to keep showing you were learning the drill routine and ignoring the sore muscles and sheer exhaustion. That process of qualifying is now long gone, due to a few who took advantage of the trying out the following year by some serious hazing incidents. Like so many other things, the few ruined it for the many. Summerall Guards tryouts were tough, but didn’t approach the level of those who were on the Sword Drill team.

He was on Regimental Staff his senior year and had the reputation of never striking anyone, but if you needed some correction, he PTed you to exhaustion, with him doing it with you most of the time. I don’t recall which company he had come up from, but I believe it was one from 3rd Battalion, which had a reputation for being very military minded companies. 1st and 4th Battalions is where many of the athletes ended up, so there was a distinct difference in philosophies at times on how to do things, but that’s a another long discussion.

So, I thought I’d take a moment and document some history of Dave Griffin, who had a reputation that he could back up. I’ll also say I was disappointed when he got command of the Chuting Stars, with 7 jumps (all static line military) behind him to run a freefall exhibition team. I had over 200 freefalls at the time, but he had a qualification I could not achieve: Special Warfare. He broke his leg on his first jump with his new team, trying out his “square” canopy, and had a cast on for four months of his 12 month assignment

Citadel Cadets have had the history of the opening battle of the Civil War drilled deep within them by using the threat of not getting anything to eat if you didn’t know your “mess facts.” Maybe that’s why it has stuck with me all these years, but I will say I missed few meals for a Cadet dating my sister gave me a few bits of wisdom to chew on the summer before my arrival at the North Sally Port of Padgett-Thomas Barracks.

As far as my knowledge of Dave the upperclassman: I knew to stay out of his field of view, and obviously, he was well known on Campus.

Tracked back @: Eagle Speak

It’s the 11th of the month. Do you know how the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have been wounded and can’t type are doing?

You don’t have to specifically know, but you know what the news is saying and this post is to remind you that the V(oice)A(ctivated)L(aptops) for OUR-I(njured)T(roops) program surely can use a few dollars to get laptops into the major military medical facilities for their use. The laptops help bring them back into communicating with family, friends and their units. It’s a blessing all around.

Here’s the link No excuses, huh? Get to it!

Tracked back @: Yankee Sailor

Sea stories? You want “sea stories?”

Once upon a midwatch clear….(to be continued later today). The topic? VERY large formations doing “TIC TACs.”

In the meantime, link your best, current, or currently best posts!

There we were, the leadership of the ship massed on the bridge, late in the evening, on a clear (on the surface), but moonless night. A Carrier Battle Group (CVBG) comprised of us and escorts and the USS SARATOGA (CV-60), if memory serves me well, had “joined up” with the Standing Naval Forces, Atlantic (STANAVFORLANT), consisting of several frigates and destroyers from the Continent, and one of our ships so assigned as her deployment) and their supporting oiler, in this cycle, courtesy of the Royal Navy.

For what ever reason, the British Admiral of STANAVFORLANT was in tactical command of us all and had ordered us into a large circular formation, of three concentric circular ranges. We, being a Fat Ship (USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2)), in company with one carrier and at least one other oiler (the Brit) were assigned a “point” station (a fixed bearing and range from the guide ship of the formation) and were on our way through traffic to get there.

Shortly before arriving on station, the, as we called it back the, PRITAC (primary tactical) radio crackled to life and a very long coded signal was clearly sounded out in all its phonetic glory from ATP-1, a standard signal book used by we and our allied nations. I can’t tell you what it was, but it had a change of station component, followed by the alteration of the axis of the formation, followed by a course change. The signal was passed as a “delayed executive” type, meaning a separate command would be sent to execute the directions at a future time.

As Officer of the Deck (OOD), I diligently plotted the new changes on a Maneuvering Board, calculated our course and speed to the new station assignment and showed it to the CO. He concurred and I briefed my Junior Officer of the Deck (who was conning the ship, too) on what to do when the signal was executed.

I recall we arrived in our station on that moonless night, nestled among the combatants, who would patrol the seas to keep us and the CV safe from enemy attacks, and we reported “Alfa Station” smartly as we ordered speed reduced to match the guide’s speed. Within moments, PRITAC came to life once more and, spewing forth a fairly long string or letters and numbers, followed by “Standby, EXECUTE!”

The JOOD clearly announced the the Helmsman and Lee Helmsman the rudder and engine orders for us to slip, ever so relatively to our new station, with a new axis on the formation (I think it was almost a 180 degree axis change to match the reversal of the formation’s course. And the 40,000 tons of steel and people and liquid cargo commenced to swing crisply (well, as best we could imitate a destroyer with less HP per ton). Now consider this “M” with new “A” in both the forward speed and the rudder standard (15 degrees) input, while traveling about 15 kts. As we smiled in the dim red glow of the low level illumination of the bridge equipment, several of us, the CO and XO and OPS, as well as I on the bridge wing, noted the relative movement of the running lights of the other ships of the formation would indicate they were not in a bold course change to the right, they were more like, well, to put it plainly essentially still headed the same direction they had been going before the long, but…you guessed it, not wholly ordered signal.

A new voice was heard over PRITAC, with a distinctly English (the Queen’s not American), sending a new communication and, but the “call up” portion of the message, only addressed to our call sign. The “we’re real Surface Warfare experts” aura fading. No, evaporated, as the words sunk in “(MILWAUKEE), Your movements are not understood.” Being the practiced crisis management experts we are resulted in the almost instantaneously blurted out comment by several of us “KEEP THE RUDDER ON!” We then realized of the extensive signal sent, only a portion of it was directed to be carried out, and there were other portions yet to be executed. Those parts are pretty obvious.

The speed increase and right standard remained on, as we cut a 360 degree wake into the black water, before resuming the station we were not supposed to have left yet. The CO said to keep the speed on, but to report “Alfa Station” to the Officer in Tactical Command (OTC), we did and after “Roger,” the remaining portions of the long signal, to include the new course change, so all we had do was put the rudder back on and head for our new station.

At least it was a dark and windy night….

Welcome, LGF readers! Enjoy and feel free to comment…

I heard this morning that the DA’s Office in North Carolina has dismissed all charges against the three Lacrosse players. Two new prosecuters who took over the case after Michael Nifong recused himself (under threat of disbarment), said there was many, many discrepancies with the allegations and dismissed all legal charges.

In the heat of the current affairs regarding Don Imus, one of the players said in the news conference yesterday “he stole our joy.”

Don Imus went on Al Sharpton’s show to apologize. Good move. Don also is going to meet with the Rutger’s basketball team. Better move.

Not to dismiss anything as “not important” or proclaim it’s OK, consider the acrimony over the three lacrosse players, some of it lead by Al Sharpton:

[…]
REV. AL SHARPTON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: I think that there are certainly a lot of racial factors. Whether it is directly in the case, we’ll see, because some reports said that there was racial language used. But I think that when you look at the racial atmosphere, when you look at the fact that there again were the allegations of racial statements, when you look at a lot of people feeling that they have been treated differently, where this girl has basically had a character charged in the media, there is a lot of racism that’s in the air. Having said that, I commend a lot of the blacks and whites who stood vigil and to come together in that community to stand up for this girl. So I think in the midst of this, there is some good.
[…]

(from an interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News 4/19/2006)

If it was bad for Don Imus to steal someone’s joy, is it also bad to steal someone’s life, future and education, in addition to making their families put out thousands of dollars. More than joy was stolen, not only from the 3 young men, but of an entire team, the coach included, and the reputation of the very school who had 88 faculty members condemn before evidence was looked at with the quality we expect from our legal system.

This issue will follow these three young men for many years to come. Check out an employment application and note that most likely they will have to disclose they have been charged with felonies, regardless of the outcome, the question usually lists “been charged with, convicted of, plead no contest to a felony” as conditions of filling out the response to a criminal history. It will show up on background checks, also. Hopefully the NC legal system will drop everything and expunge the charges immediately, due to the long term nature of this case and the high level of interest it generated.

So…I’m just waiting for Al Sharpton, who has positioned himself as a voice for his community, and had strong opinions on the subject, to invite the entire Duke Lacrosse Team to his show and apologize. I think it would do well for many people, in the media and at the school to seek some private meetings as well. All in the name of what Martin Luther King was after for us all.

Would that be expecting too much?

Update: In response to the so far two comments left, I don’t have a category for “Satire” in my database yet, but this is some politics and then, you guessed it a “Walking in a Wishful Wonderland” type of moment. I’m sure not blue in the face yet, nor do I expect to get there.

Tracked back@: stik N stein

T-Shirt siting:

“Born Without the Motivation Gene”

Sad, but at least he was motivated enough to walk from his car into the Starbucks, where I was waiting in line to get a caffeine fix.

My brain color? I thought gray, but that’s the science in me…

And thanks to another take a moment quiz on the net:

Your Brain is Orange

Of all the brain types, yours is the quickest. You are usually thinking a mile a minute, and you could be thinking about anything at all. Your thoughts are often scattered and random – but they’re also a lot of fun!You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about esoteric subjects, the meaning of life, and pop culture.

What Color Is Your Brain?

Heh! It said “random.”

I like to think that’s me, but then it was only a few questions…

More news on the news of the British sailors and marines:

It seems the head British Military Chaplin thinks the Iranians were quite polite in their handling of the hostages.

From the UK Telegraph:

Fury as bishops back Iran
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent Nicole Martin and Brendan Carlin

he Roman Catholic bishop who oversees the armed forces has provoked fury by praising the Iranian leadership for its “forgiveness” and “act of mercy” in freeing the 15 British sailors and marines last week.

Bishop of the Forces, the Rt Rev Tom Burns
Bishop Burns said Iran demonstrated ‘faith in a forgiving God’

The Bishop of the Forces, the Rt Rev Tom Burns, said that the religious beliefs of the Iranians had played a large part in their decision to release the hostages after holding them for more than two weeks.

His words were echoed by a leading Anglican figure, the Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, who said Iran had acted within the “moral and spiritual tradition of their country” and contrasted this with Britain’s “free-floating attitudes”.
[…]

What has happened to Winston Churchill’s England?

This is beginning to look more like a late night infomercial about Ginzu knifes that an international incident. Now do we just sit back and see the MoD’s version of “British Sea Service Idol?”

I know some around the net, including some of my professional serving peers indicated we should sit back and listen for the truth behind the Iranian-British hostage situation before passing judgment on behavior, but this takes the cake:

“Fury as the Hostages Sell Stories” from the UK based Times Online.

It seems the MoD has authorized an exception to the ban against military members making money off their service experiences.

The 15 British military captives who were released by the Iranians have been authorised by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to sell their stories.

MoD officials claimed that the move to lift the ban on military personnel selling their stories while in service was justified because of the “exceptional circumstances” of the case. The hostages are expected to earn as much as £250,000 between them.

The story of Faye Turney, 26, the only female among them, is expected to be the most lucrative. She could profit by as much as £150,000 from a joint deal with a newspaper and ITV.

The MoD bracketed the hostages’ 13-day captivity in Iran — including appearances on state television by some to admit straying into Iranian waters — with winners of the Victoria Cross.
[…]

What can I saw but I think I’m not going to think the best of these 15 members of the Queen’s Own any longer. Even the one who “didn’t break,” for he think he should get more than the others, except he knows the female angle will take the largest purse.

I’m sure two retired Colonels will have more to say about this shameful money grab.

I’m glad we had our Adm Stockdale’s, Senator McCain’s and Captain Lance Sijan’s in our history, and those three names are but a few of the many who have honored us with their resolve recently and in the past conflicts we have had.

But this story of greed begs the question: Will the President of Iran get personalized, signed copies of each book for his collection? Oh, and I wonder how big the promotion will be for the Middle Eastern book signing tour? will the MoD grant them extra leave, or make them wait until they have completed their service time?

I’m a little steamed about it all myself.

Oh, and don’t forget to check eBay regularly in the next few days for your chance to win the auctions on the items from the goodie bags they received as a “thank you” for stopping by present.

Besides being a sad statement of military good order and discipline, it sure lends itself to a range of comedic scripts…more on that later.

H/T: Little Green Footballs – “British Hostages Sell Stories for Big Cash”

Tracked back@: Third World County, 123beta, Stuck on Stupid, Blue Star Chronicles

I found the .pdf files for one of my commands, courtesy of the taxpayers dollars!

Naval Ship Histories has the CNO mandated monthly history reports scanned in for some ships. I got the see some of the formal submissions I wrote!

There isn’t every ship, but your’s just might be one of them.

Also, as a bonus for reading this post, thanks to Eagle Speak, I found out the DoD publishes a “Bloggers Roundtable”, where there is material to address some of the issues and news in the blogs:

Welcome to the archives of the “Bloggers’ Roundtable.” Here you will find source material for recent stories in the blogosphere concerning the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Global War on Terrorism by bloggers and online journalists. Where available, this includes transcripts, biographies, related fact sheets and video.

Today, above the fold, main section, New York Times:

Photo: Tyler Hicks/New York Times
Caption: “Dutch soldiers, who stress reconstruction over combat, with a member of the Afghan National Police recently in Qala-e-Surkh, Afghanistan.”Could the parenthetical statement “who stress reconstruction over combat” have been left out and still conveyed a message? I think so, but I guess any set of words can be used to convey a bias when you really want to get the point across….

In the meantime, why are there no pictures like this of the SEABEES? They have been stressing not only reconstruction, but also construction over combat for their entire existence. Prominently displayed on their home page the words: “With compassion for others, we build – we fight for peace and freedom.” Not only do they build and fight, they have been known to build while they fight!

I guess the Dutch have issued camo and M-16s to carpenters.  I suggest they outsource their work to the Navy.