So, last week, there we sat, we salty sea dogs, the question posed and we all awaited an answer from the “shore based” component that worked in our shore based offices.

I figured I had figuratively placed the DC plug in the gaping hole that was causing figurative water to flood our hull. Feeling quite smug, but for only a very few brief seconds, she responded: “When is the next one (Combat System Assessment)?” Not to be outdone, I said “I’ll let you know.”

She left, the atmosphere was different. We, the guys thought we were gonna chalk one up on the score board and it was, at the moment, a draw, or at the least, undecided.

Russ, my trusty LDO LT was given the task of calling the USS WAINWRIGHT’s (CG-28) XO, who had been his Weapons Officer on his prior ship to see if we could bring along “our XO.” The answer was, sure. Well, minor issue, XO, our XO is a “she.” “No problem, I’ll be off at school so she can use my stateroom.”

Boy…the train was leaving the station at full throttle and here I thought the “girl” would just be quiet and go back her office and make sure our travel arrangements were on track.

Anyhow, a Combat Systems Assessment (CSA) was a 36 some hour trial of a ship, where we usually arrived around 0700-0730 and sat down in the Wardroom to to introductions, lay out the game rules and shake hands. Yes, we were there to help, and yes, they were happy to see us. From there, my team of 12 to 20, depending on how complex the ship’s equipment, went off to review the paperwork for various programs and do some safety checks. During this period, the ship was getting underway, or in some cases, clearing the sea buoy and heading to the “OPAREA.” The ships under DESRON SIX routinely went to sea the day before we arrived to practice, and we’d ride a tug boat out at Oh-Dark Thirty to the vicinity of Ft Sumter to meet them.

In most cases, by the time lunch was wrapped up, we were meeting to listen to the ship’s company Combat Systems Training Team (CSTT) brief the two sets of exercises to be run in the late afternoon and early evening. The first drill set was before evening chow, the second after chow. By about 2200-2300, we were sitting down to listen to the CSTT critique the drills. The purpose here was not to see if the crew passed, as much as to determine if the CSTT was able see mistakes and record them, so they could plan to train to correcting them next later on. If they saw what we saw, then it was a good chance the ship could train into the future.

After we listened to the crew’s debrief, then my team would meet to discuss the day’s events. Provided there were no glitches along the way, like correcting safety issues, of making sure all the equipment was propeorly configured for training, we might get into our assigned vistor “pits” by 0100 or 0200.

At 0600, we usually were on deck, walking around Combat Information Center (CIC) to observe the preparations for the “DTE” (Detect to engage), where a contracted Learjet would fly, pretending a very slow cruise missile (since it couldn’t make .9 Mach) would fly in, while the crew exercised their detection and engagement systems. By late morning, the DTE would be wrapped up, for better of worse, and my team and I would gather to grade the performance. The ship would head towards port. In some cases, we’d manage to get the debrief in before entering port, and other times, we’d do it upon arrival pierside.

Our command’s vehicles would be waiting for us (when in the Norfolk area), and we’d depart, sometimes with good feelings all around, and fortunately not often, to snarls and cold glares. By then, it was usually the end of the work day ashore. The 36 hours was almost straight through.

The team’s normal work schedule? Monday/Tuesday – CSA (as above), Wednesday – Fly somewhere in a Naval Air Logistics Organization (NALO) C-9, Thursday/Friday – Do it again, Friday afternoon, fly to back to NORVA. Next week? Rinse and repeat. If we were doing ship’s in other ports, the NALO pilots and aircrews were happy to haul our butts there, beginning at about 1330 Sunday afternoon.

Oh, yeah…we were on “shore duty.”

Next week: LCDR Hobbs rides the USS WAINWRIGHT (CG-28).

Skippy San will add dollars to ValOUR-IT – Navy/Coast Guard Team if you guess something..

Check it out!

Come on, there are wounded troops counting on us!

Technology, in and of itself, like money, is morally neutral. It’s all in how we use it. For instance, ValOUR-IT, using the computer technology brought to us by the space race, has been lightened and miniaturized to the point that our wounded troops can use it to communicate. The fund drive is still on…donate (button at the top of the page to help you out).

Anyhow, a few years back, I posted about data ports being put into vehicles. Those ports have become much more used than just for the shop to run diagnostics on your car….sit back, do a little reading and see what I mean.

Anyhow, technology, like legislation, also has it’s “unintended consequences” in our daily lives.

Update: Just found this info on EZ-Pass and privacy.

BTW, Fred Fry International is a great site for current maritime (meaning other than naval) news!

In September 2005, Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo said that he would not be happy so long as the Flight 93 Memorial still included the giant crescent. He has kept his promise. The crescent is still there, and Tom Tancredo is NOT HAPPY.Alec Rawls has just received from Representative Tancredo a letter of complaint that Mr. Tancredo sent to Park Service Director Mary Bomar this afternoon. It notes the continued presence of the crescent:

Unfortunately, it appears that little if any substantive changes to the most troubling aspect of the design – the crescent shape – have been made.

And it calls for scrapping the crescent design entire and starting anew:

And while I regret having to contact the Park Service again about this issue, I sincerely hope that you will direct the committee to scrap the crescent design entirely in favor of a new design that will not make the memorial a flashpoint for this kind of controversy and criticism.

Thank you Tom Tancredo! The full text of Mr. Tancredo’s letter is pasted below.

G Gordon Liddy is on it

Alec Rawls will be on G Gordon Liddy’s radio show tomorrow morning (Tuesday) from 11-12, talking about the many Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the planned memorial. The show should be a blockbuster.

Tom Burnett Sr. is going to call in. Tancredo or his press secretary TQ Houlton may call in.   And YOU can call in:

1 800 GGLiddy

Streaming audio and broadcast stations here. Podcasts here. For the full expose, see Alec’s Crescent of Betrayal book, available for free download until the print edition of the book comes out in February.

A crescent and star flag on the crash site

For those who are not familiar with the memorial debacle, the original Crescent of Embrace design would have planted a bare naked Islamic crescent and star flag on the crash site:

Architect Paul Murdoch’s job is to work with symbols. He did not plant an Islamic flag on the crash site by accident. But even if this were somehow coincidence, it would still be wrong to build the memorial in a shape that the hijackers claimed as their own.

Representative Tancredo was the only Congressman to state the obvious, that “the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam–and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists,” raises the possibility that “the design, if constructed, will in fact make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers.” (Tancredo Press release, 9/12/2005. See Crescent of Betrayal, download 1, page xiii.)

Two days later, Tancredo’s press secretary laid out Tom’s conditions:

… that the congressman would be happy with the changes only if the crescent shape is removed.

Nothing was changed

All the Memorial Project did was add some surrounding trees. Every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign. The crescent shape was NOT removed. It was only very slightly disguised:

The graphics were recolored, and a few trees were added outside of the mouth of the crescent (lower left). Every particle of the original crescent and star structure remains. (Click here for site plan view.)

Representative Tancredo was right to demand removal of the crescent. It turns out that a person facing directly into the half mile wide crescent will be facing Mecca. That makes it a mihrab, the central feature around which every mosque is built. You can plant as many trees around a mosque as you want and it will still be a mosque. This is the world’s largest mosque, by a factor of a hundred.

If you want to thank Tom Tancredo for keeping his Flight 93 promise and standing up again for the honor of our murdered heroes, his phone numbers and online email form are here.

Full text of Representative Tancredo’s letter to Park Service Director Mary Bomar

November 5, 2007

The Honorable Mary A. Bomar
Director
National Park Service
U.S. Department of Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240

Dear Director Bomar,

I am regrettably writing you in reference to the proposed memorial to commemorate the victims of Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. As you may know, I contacted Director Mainella in late 2005 about my concerns with the design.

The appropriateness of the original design, dubbed the “Crescent of Embrace,” was questioned because of the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam – and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists. As I pointed out in my September 2005 letter, the use of the crescent has raised questions in some circles about whether the design would make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers rather than the victims whose mission the flights passengers helped to thwart.

When I received Director Mainella’s response to my letter on October 6, 2005, I was pleased to read her assurance that the advisory committee and the architect were amenable to “refinements in the design which will include negating any perceptions to the iconography.” I was also pleased to learn that the name of the memorial was to be changed.

Unfortunately, it appears that little if any substantive changes to the most troubling aspect of the design – the crescent shape – have been made. This deeply concerns me. As I told Director Mainella in 2005: Regardless of whether or not the invocation of a Muslim symbol by the memorial designer was intentional, I continue to believe that the use of this symbol is unsuitable for paying appropriate tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam that their historic last act has come to symbolize.

I remain committed to ensuring that this memorial is a powerful symbol for the whole nation and a testament to the courage and will of the passengers of the flight – as I am sure you are. And while I regret having to contact the Park Service again about this issue, I sincerely hope that you will direct the committee to scrap the crescent design entirely in favor of a new design that will not make the memorial a flashpoint for this kind of controversy and criticism.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Tom Tancredo, M.C.

The phony redesign

To see clearly how the redesign leaves the original Mecca-oriented cescent fully intact, note that the orientation of the crescent is determined by connecting the most obtruding points of the crescent structure, then forming the perpendicular bisector to this line (red arrow):

The green circle shows the direction to Mecca (the “qibla” direction) from Somerset PA. It was generated using the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. Just place this qibla graphic over the original Crescent of Embrace site plan and the Mecca-direction line almost exactly bisects the crescent.

Looking closely at the above graphic (click for larger image), you can see that the most obtruding tip at the bottom of the original crescent structure is the last red maple at the bottom. On top, the most obtruding tip of the crescent structure is the the end of the thousand foot long, fifty foot tall, Entry Portal Wall. Here is an artist’s rendering of the end of the Entry Portal Wall as seen in the Bowl of Embrace redesign. It shows how overtly this upper crescent tip remains intact in the redesign:

The redesign only added the extra row of trees on the left, behind the visitors in this graphic. Notice that these trees are not even visible to a person who is facing into the crescent. They do not even affect a visitor’s experience of the crescent, never mind affect the presence or integrity of the crescent itself.

The concept sprang forth last year, when a lady working for Flag Gazer decided to forgo the money owed her for a day of labor.

That’s pretty magnanimous. How about take a moment to click here and read the story yourself.

Lemme see….50 weeks/yr, 5 days/week…250 “working days” for the average American work year (math made easy for bean counters before computers and it persists). Take annual earnings and divide by 250. What’s the number? Can you see your way clear to place that sum so others can have a far better quality of life?

Have you ever been hopeless? Whether for a few minutes, or for maybe years on end, consider how you might feel when you awake missing the ability to function in life easily…it’s time to make a change in the lives that are there now.

The competition continues. BUT: It’s not so much a competition, as an opportunity to affect the lives of people who still can talk, but have been disabled in a such a way as to not be able to poke at a keyboard like so many of us can.

Would I like the Navy/Coast Guard Team to come out on top? Yep. So I ask you to consider chipping in a few bucks. Can you skip a cup of Starbucks over-caffeinated coffee today and put that 4 some dollars (heck, just round it to $5!) in the kitty to help someone keep in touch with family and friends, as well as to be a capable worker when they show up to be employed in the civilian sector?

At the end of the day (or the competition, in this case), it’s not about the Navy?Coast Guard bloggers getting bragging rights, it’s about men and women, who see a person walk into their room in the hospital and give them something to get them re-connected with life. Donate to some team, or no team, just donate.

Your contribution has the real possiblity of completely changing the course of some people’s lives, and not only the wounded ones, but those lives the are connected to: spouses, children, mothers, fathers, grandparents, etc, etc, etc. You get my “drift.” You are dispensing more than your hard earned bucks with the click of the mouse or the mailing of a check: You are donating HOPE!

Besides being able to just know your contribution did that, you might even find something on the auction block that is to your liking, particularly if it’s able to be personalized to you. Check the auction page out for details.

Also, up on eBay, there are some Vince Flynn books up to help the cause. If you win, they are autographed with your message!

And for the other teams:

Navy/CG came out of nowhere (well, to be factual, dead last) last year and overnight smoked across the finish line…don’t forget it…

First off, big time H/T to Mike the EE, who pointed me to the gouge for this post. Thanks, Mike!

Other news: Eagle1’s Sunday Ship History about making ships invisible…good read!

No pictures of this man, but his name is Lewis Heermann. Born in Germany August 3rd, 1779, he later ended up in the United States, and being commissioned as a Surgeon’s Mate in the newly formed US Navy on Feb 2nd, 1802. I would assume, that meant what we would refer to as a Physician’s Assistants today. I derived this from Section II of An Act to Provide a Naval Armament, March 18, 1794.

Below this point, there are edits. I wrote this this morning, using the net as the prime (ok, only) reference. It seems Lewis Heermann, besides being in a very famous naval battle across the sea from our shores, he also kept a journal that was used by Ian Toll in “Six Frigates, ” to fill in some details of the recapture and burning of the PHILADELPHIA.

What’ is Lewis Heermann’s claim to the US Navy’s history? He accompanied one Stephen Decatur to the vicinity of the harbor at Tripoli on Feb 16th, 1804, on the mission to burn the USS PHILADELPHIA, before that captured ship could be refitted and used by the Barbary Pirates. While Decatur and other sailors entered the harbor to actually recapture boarded the PHILADELPHIA, Heermann was left in command of the bomb ketch INTREPID, which was one of several the bomb ketches there in support of the operation that had slipped into the harbor with the boarding party, pretending to be a merchant. Quite an honor for a medical service corps officer to be put in command!

From Ian’s excellent documentary:

[…]
Catalano lost his nerve and shouted to Decatur to give the order to board. The lieutenant, seeing there was still a gap between the vessels, answered firmely: “No order to be obeyed but that of the Commanding Officer.” The crew restrained themselves for a few critical seconds as the INTREPID drifted closer. The guards seemed confused – some shouted that it was a trick, but others remained uncertain.When the ketch was directly alongside, just under the PHILDELPHIA’s forechains, Decatur shouted: “Board!”

“The effect was truly electric,” Surgeon’s Mate Lewsi Heermann later recalled. Not a man had been seen or heard tobreathe a moment before; at the next they hung on the ship’s side like cluster bees; and, in another instant, every man was aboard the frigate.”
[…]

After his service time in the Barbary Wars, Lewis Heermann took some time off to travel in Europe, but in 1808, returned and lobbied for better medical care for the sailors. His work resulted in Congress authorizing the construction of Naval Hospitals on several Naval Stations.

He later served in several posts in the Navy, including as the Fleet Surgeon to the Mediterranean Squadron in the 1830 time frame.

Lewis Heerman died in 1833.

One ship has been named in honor of Lewis Heermann: USS HEERMANN (DD-532) or the FLETCHER Class destroyers.from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships:

Heermann (DD-532) was launched 5 December 1942 by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Co. of San Francisco; sponsored by Mrs. Edward B. Briggs, wife of Lt. E. B. Briggs, USCGR, great grandson of the namesake; and commissioned 6 July 1943, Cmdr. Dwight M. Agnew, USN, in command.

After shakedown training out of San Diego, Heermann joined the 5th Fleet 21 October 1943 for the assault on the Gilbert Islands, the second major offensive thrust in the Navy’s conquest of Japan’s far-flung Pacific empire. She arrived off Tarawa in Rear Admiral Harry W. Hill’s Southern Attack Force 20 November. Her guns sank a small enemy craft inside the lagoon and the next 2 days powerfully assisted troops ashore with close-in fire support. With the island secured, she returned to Pearl Harbor for voyage repairs and training which ended 23 January when she sailed in the screen of an attack transport reserve force. The ships steamed east of Kwajalein while Rear Admiral Turner’s Joint Expeditionary Force landed on that atoll 31 January. In the ensuing 2 weeks Heermann patrolled off Kwajalein and operated in the screen of escort carriers which were launching strikes in support of troops ashore. Then she steamed to Eniwetok Atoll where she joined in the preinvasion bombardment of Japan and Parry Islands, gave close fire support to the troops once they were ashore, and then patrolled off the atoll during mop-up operations.

Heermann set course first for Majuro Lagoon and then Purvis Bay, Florida Island, Solomons and reported to Commander 3d Fleet and Task Force 39, 18 March 1944. For the next month she divided her time between protecting troop and resupply convoys which were occupying Emirau Island and hunting enemy supply barges along the coast of New Hanover.

Back in Port Purvis 3 June, Heermann participated in the bombardment of a tank farm on Fangelawa Bay, New Ireland, 11 June, and then searched for submarines along sealanes leading from the Solomons towards the Admiralties, the Carolines, and the Marshall Islands until 26 June. The summer of 1944 found Heermann busy escorting Navy and Merchant shipping to rendezvous where they joined convoys bound for various ports. This duty took her to Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides Islands and Noumea, New Caledonia Island.

Heermann cleared Port Purvis 6 September 1944 with Rear Admiral William D. Sample’s escort carrier force that provided air support during the invasion of the Palau Islands. After replenishing at Seeadler Harbor, Admiralty Islands, she sortied 12 October 1944 with a fire support group for the liberation of the Philippine Islands.
[…]

Sometime in this period, CDR Amos Hathaway, USN, assumed command of HEERMANN. Some details of this man’s actions are in a prior post here.

[…]Heermann screened transports and landing ships safely to the beaches of Leyte and then joined Rear Admiral Thomas L. Sprague’s Escort Carrier Group (Task Group 77.4) which was made up of three escort carrier task units, known as the “Three Taffies” because of their voice calls: “Taffy 1”, “Taffy 2”, and “Taffy 3”. Destroyers Hoel and Johnston joined her in screening Rear Admiral Clifton A. P. Sprague’s unit, “Taffy 3” which also included his flagship F.anshaw Bay (CVE-70) and three other escort carriers.

Dawn of 25 October 1944 found “Taffy 3” east of Samar steaming north as the -Northern Air Support Group. “Taffy 2” was in the central position patrolling off the entrance to Leyte Gulf, and “Taffy 1” covered the Southern approaches to the Gulf some 130 miles to the southeast of Heermann’s “Taffy 3”. At 0645 “Taffy 3’s” lookouts observed antiaircraft fire to the northward and within 3 minutes, were under heavy fire from Japanese Admiral Kurita’s powerful Center Force of four battleships, 6 heavy cruisers, 2 light cruisers, and 11 destroyers. The battle off Samar was thus joined.

The only chance for survival of the little group of light American ships lay in slowing the advances of the enemy warships while withdrawing toward Leyte Gulf and hoped-for assistance. The carriers promptly launched their planes to attack the Japanese vessels, and the escorts promptly set to work generating smoke to hide the American ships.

Heermann, in a position of comparative safety on the disengaged side of the carriers at the start of the fight, steamed into the action at flank speed through the formation of “baby flattops” who, after launching their last planes, formed a rough circle as they turned toward Leyte Gulf. Since smoke and intermittent rain squalls had reduced visibility to less than 100 yards, it took alert and skillful seamanship to avoid colliding with friendly ships during the dash to battle. She backed emergency full to avoid destroyer escort Samuel B. Roberts and repeated the maneuver to miss destroyer Hoel as Heermann formed column on the screen flagship in preparation for a torpedo attack.

As she began the run, dye from enemy shells daubed the water nearby with circles of brilliant red, yellow, and green. Heermann replied to this challenge by pumping her 5-inch shells at one heavy cruiser, Chikuma, as she directed seven torpedoes at another, Haguro. When the second of these “fish” had left the tube, Heermann changed course to engage a column of four battleships whose shells began churning the water nearby. She trained her guns on Kongo, the column’s leader, at whom she launched three torpedoes. Then she quickly closed Haruna, the target of her last three torpedoes, which were launched from only 4,400 yards. Believing that one of the “fish” had hit the battleship, she nimbly dodged the salvoes which splashed in her wake as she retired. Japanese records claim that the battleship successfully evaded all of Heermann’s torpedoes, but they were slowed down in their pursuit of the American carriers. The giant, Yamato, with her monstrous 18.1-inch guns, was even forced out of the action altogether when, caught between two spreads, she reversed course for almost 10 minutes to escape being hit.

Heermann sped to the starboard quarter of the carrier formation to lay more concealing smoke and then charged back into the fight a few minutes later, placing herself boldly between the escort carriers and the column of four enemy heavy cruisers. Here she engaged Japanese cruiser Chikuma in a duel Which seriously damaged both ships. A series of 8-inch hits flooded the forward part of the plucky destroyer, pulling her bow down so far that her anchors were dragging in the water. One of her guns was knocked out but the others continued to pour a deadly stream of 5-inch shells at the cruiser, which also carne under heavy air attack during the engagement. The combined effect of Heermann’s guns and the bombs, torpedoes, and strafing from carrier-based planes was too much for Chikuma who tried to withdraw but sank during her flight.

As Chikuma turned away, heavy cruiser Tone turned her guns on Heermann who replied shell for shell until she reached a position suitable to resume laying smoke for the carriers. At this point plants from Admiral Stump’s “Taffy 2” swooped in to sting Tone so severely that she too broke off action and fled. The courageous attacks of the destroyers and aircraft thus saved the outgunned task groups.

Heermann retired to Kossol Passage for temporary repairs before getting underway for Mare Island and overhaul which was completed 15 January 1945. She then returned to the Western Pacific to join fast carrier task forces in raids against the Japanese mainland which helped to demoralize the Japanese people and to prepare them for surrender. During the fighting to take Iwo Jima, Heermann supported operations ashore by radar and antisubmarine picket duty. On 20 March 1945 she sank a small surface vessel and rescued seven of her crew after she went down. Seven days later she took part in the night bombardment of Minamo Daito Jima. During the Okinawa campaign she took several enemy planes under fire as she guarded carriers which provided air support for troops ashore. On 18 April wifih the assistance destroyers Mertz, MoCord, Collett, and Uhlmann and planes from aircraft carrier Bataan, Heermann sank Japanese submarine 1-56, a carrier of the dreaded “kaitens”, human-guided suicide torpedoes. She continued to support carrier operations off Okinawa until retiring to Leyte Gulf for replenishment and voyage repairs late in June. On 1 July she helped to screen the fast carrier force which devoted the ensuing 5 weeks to almost continuous air strikes and bombardment.

On 15 August 1945 Heermann was on radar picket station some 200 miles southeast of Tokyo when, several hours after the announcement of the end of hostilities, a suicide plane emerged from a cloud bank and began to dive in Heermann’s direction only to be splashed by the destroyer’s alert gunners in one of the final naval actions of World War II. In the following weeks Heermann operated in the screen of the fast carrier task force providing air cover and air^sea rescue service while General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz were preparing to occupy Japan. She entered Tokyo Bay 16 September 1945 and remained in the area to support the occupation forces until 7 October when she sailed for the United States. She decommissioned at San Diego 12 June 1946.

Heermann remained in reserve at San Diego until re-commissioning 12 September 1951. After training in local waters and upkeep in San Francisco, she departed San Diego 4 January 1952 for her new base, Newport, R.I., where she arrived 23 January. She spent the year 1952 training in waters stretching from the New England coast to the Virginia Capes, followed by intensive antisubmarine warfare and fleet problems during winter cruising in the Caribbean. She returned to Newport to resume operation along the Northeastern seaboard. After a voyage to Plymouth, England, in June and July 1953, she participated in antisubmarine manuvers between Newport and the Virginia capes.

Heermann departed on a world cruise 3 December 1953. First she sailed for Tokosuka, Japan, by way of the Panama Canal, San Diego, and the Hawaiian Islands. After a 2-day replenishment in Tokosuka, she set course for Okinawa where she acted as part of the escort for 3d Marine Division amphibious warfare landings and conducted barrier patrol in support of the exercise. After more maneuvers took her to Korea, Iwo Jima, and the South Coast of Japan, she returned to Yokosuka which she cleared 22 May 1954 to resume her world cruise, calling at Hong Kong and Singapore on her way to the Suez Canal. In the Mediterranean she visited Port Said, Naples, Villa Franche, and Barcelona before returning to Newport 17 July 1954.

For the next year and a half Heermann participated in training exercises along the Atlantic coast. On 1 February She sailed to join the 6th Fleet in exercises along the coast of Lebanon, Israel and Egypt. In April she was invited by Prince Ranier to be in port for his wedding to Miss Grace Kelly 19-24 April 1956. She furnished a 40-man honor guard for the occasion. From Monaco she joined the 6th Fleet off Greece, and then departed for Fall River, Mass., where she arrived 28 May 1956. Heermann operated out of Newport until 6 November when she sailed for the Mediterranean where she proved to be a first-rate antisubmarine ship in joint exercises with the Italian Navy. After revisiting Monaco at the invitation of Prince Ranier and Princess Grace, she returned to Fall River 20 February 1957. She served as gunnery school-ship out of Newport until 30 June when she joined Badger in the screen of antisubmarine warfare carrier Leyte for 2 weeks of air operations for the training of Academy midshipmen. She decommissioned at Boston 20 December 1957 and was assigned to the Boston Group of the U.S. Atlantic Reserve Fleet. On 14 August 1961 she was transferred on a loan basis to the government of Argentina under terms of the Military Assistance Program. She serves in the Argentine Navy under the name Brown (D-20).

In addition to the Presidential Unit Citation, Heermann received the Philippine Republic Unit Citation Badge and nine battle stars for World War II service.

One one level, it’s a cheap way for the Navy to horn in on the USAF contract for the purchase of the F-22 Raptor airframe.

At another level, it shows a disconnect between society and the understanding of our military.

But…its’ sorta like being able to “zap” an AF jet with the bad manners and planning to land on a Naval location, only we’re imprinting the youth of America with the right model of the real aviators!

Don’t even think about it, Navy/Coast Guard team!

This weekend is to do the work the big bloggers (John, Matt, Jimbo and Mrs G) won’t do – taking it to the streets.

They must just sit about, sipping coffee drinks with odd names, dreaming of victory (except for Mrs G, who might have not had her coffee and has fallen asleep at the wheel, like John the Zoomie did last year).

So, find some brew that appears to resemble the mid-watch coffee, get a full mug (borrow one from your CPO’s Mess is you’ve lost yours) and hit the bricks. Talk ValOUR-IT up something fierce, get them to nod and say (using the “repeat back” method of reinforcement): “I will go home, log on the net and contribute to our wounded service members, via the Navy/Coast Guard team.” Make them say it, without errors, three times in a row (it’s a memory thing) before you let them out of your vicinity.

Bring it home for Navy/Coast Guard!

End note: No “complaining” and whining. Get on with it. You know you’ll feel better when Monday’s number show it’s worth your effort…

Tracked back @: Steeljaw Scribe

Busy? Trying to find a quality post to read?

Here it is.

It’s a long read, but it’s about desperate circumstances and men who would not quit. Sad, yet inspiring. Our young men an women are earning their right to be our future leaders…