I was a young, full of it, Fleet LT(JG) aboard a brand new greyhound of the seas, the USS LEFTWICH (DD-984). I was a plank owner (a member of the commissioning crew), and the Missile Officer. I had the responsibility of the NATO Sea Sparrow Missile (NSSMS) and Harpoon Weapons System (HWS). My Condition III watch station was that of the Ship’s Weapons Coordinator (SWC), where I sat the watch at the OJ-194 Console in the Combat Information Center (CIC), being the control point between the Captain or Tactical Action Officer (TAO) and the weapons systems for air and surface target engagements.

We commissioned in Aug 1979, and in late January, returned to Ingalls Ship Building and Drydock in Pascagoula, MI, for our post-shakedown availability (PSA – read warranty work by the builder after you take the ship out for 6 months of ops) and also for the Restricted Availability (RAV), which would install many upgrades not originally purchased for the hull during the intial Congressional funding. We had sailed from the shipyard on August 26th, 1979 with the NATO missile launcher installed, but the control consoles and some of the computer cabinets, as well as the cable runs, were not. None of the Harpoon system was initally installed, either. The RAV portion of our 5 months in Ingalls would put both of these systems into service.

One day, I was informed that some people would be coming aboard to discuss human factors for some of the weapons systems, one of which would be the Harpoon Weapons System. So, I went about my work until the appointed time, then went to CIC to await the visitors. An older gentleman in regular civilian clothes came in and introduced himself, then asked me if I had any suggestions on the controls for the HWS. I sat in the SWC chair and proceeded to demonstrate one design flaw I particularly thought was stupid. The AN/SWG-1 Harpoon Shipboard Control Launch Control System (HSCLCS) was mounted perpendicular to the SWC console, so you had to turn to your left in the SWC chair to operate the controls. That wasn’t the issue. The power switch was located on the upper left of the console, but underneath a cover plate that had a screw to hold it closed. Still not bad. The procedure for launching included powering the system up (duh!), then securing the cover over the power switch, and you would go about entering the aim point and cell(s) for launching. On the command to shoot, you would rotate the ITL (intend to launch) switch handle (on the lower right of the console) clockwise about 45 degrees and hold it there. At this point, your first visual check was to see if the indicator light for the boosters went from “Safe” to “Arm.” Herein comes the rub. Along with some maintenace lights and switches, the Booster Safe/Armed indicator was also in the well that held the power switch. The cover plate, which was also anodized aluminum, was, quite obviously opaque. So, when you were shooting the bird(s), the first indication to validate was the safe/arm light and it was now obscured.

My sage comment to the visitor, while I sat with my torso twisted markedly to the left: “Whoever invented this was a real bonehead” I stated with the confidence of a fully SWO qualified hot runner, while I demonstrated the problem with now having to open the cover plate to do the job. His very polite (and possibly amused) response: “That was me.”

Ok, so now I find out he’s a retired admiral, now working for Boeing, conducting this human factors/ergonomics survey, and…he had been the first Harpoon Program Manager. Well, that was a moment to pause and shut up and dig no deeper. He was gracious and, as he scribbled on his note pad, he said something like “You’re right, we need to fix that.”

Lesson learned: Just be professional.

Moving right along from Part IX, I advance to the later part of 1986, where I not only played with computers, but also managaed to stand watches in the Med from Jan to May, while we bombed Libya from north of the “Line of Death.” Details of that story are in the series “A Journey Into History” (Part I is here). One of the other details not previously discussed in either series, is I began “offline blogging” back in those days, as I began to write “Life Between the Catapults or What I did on My Indian Ocean Cruise.” Unfortunately, I have lost the 5 1/4″ floppies that contained my musings, but, I do recall it was a daily writing effort for while. At some point, some of those adventures will become part of the the weekly (on Wednesdays) Ropeyarn Sunday “Sea Stories” and Open Trackback postings, like the story of USS FAKEFISH.

We returned from that cruise and were tasked with some tactical R&D effort for the Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile (TASM). Rather than retype it all here, click over to this post and see how I used the Mac 512K to take the edge off the rather extensive data reduction and report writing. It was Apple that saved the world (notice how Apple computers are prominent in so many movies these days, many of them about hi-tech stuff and svaing the world?)

Apple Mac SE

From that job, I headed to school in Newport. While enroute, I found out my sister’s company that sold lab equipment had added the Mac SE to their line, and that she would purchase one for me. I got settled in in Newport and the SE arrived. When I unboxed it and plugged it in, the supplied keyboard didn’t work. That turned out to not be a problem, as using the mouse and a Apple Menu item named “Key Caps,” I was able to click on a graphical keyboard, then select the typed text and copy and paste it. I set up the entire system, including several layers of folders using the mouse alone. A few days later, a new keyboard arrived and thigs were great.

The Mac SE was my first system with the “ADB” (Apple Desktop Bus). This was a serial interface that allowed you to “daisy chain” items, such as the mouse and keyboard and other input devices, in line. Sounds familiar? That was 1987. Now we see it in the form os the “USB” interface, but, once more, Apple enigineers were out ahead of the pack. I out the SE to good use for the later part of 1987, and into early 1988. It was very handy when doing those class papers, and I could graphically maneuver the page margins and font size to make my paper fit the magical 8 page standard. It was great if you were short on what to say, and also if you had too much to say.

We formed an Mac club and also succeeded in converting most of the local Apple ][ users group to Mac users, because we could. I tried my hand at editing a newsletter for club. I used Aldus PageMaker and one of the other page layout programs, and I learned about kerning and leading and linking columns across pages. I learned a lot more, too.

Once more, I pulled Excel out and developed two logistical problems we had to solve. It took 20 hours over the weekend, but I’m sure it would have taken much, much longer by hand. I brought it into class, and passed out the handouts. The Air Force Col, who was one of our moderators flipped through the spreadsheet and said: “I’m not going to ask any questions because you’ll probably point at one of these numbers and make me feel stupid.” Well, it was a good briefing and I have to admit I gained a lot of respect for the “loggies” as I spend the time at home trying to figure out how to get a few divisions and fighter wings, along with all their equipment loads, into Kuwait very quickly (this was in late 1987).

Next time: Mac IIs, 256 colors, 8 bit sound editing and color business cards.

Vought VE-7

1922 – Lt. Cmdr. Virgil C. Griffin, in a Vought VE-7SF makes first the takeoff from a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, USS Langley (CV 1) anchored in York River, Va.

From the Richmond-Times Dispatch:

On Oct. 17, 1922, as the Langley lay anchored in the York River, Lt. V.C. Griffin’s Vought VE-7SF biplane took off from its deck, the first takeoff from a Navy aircraft carrier. Griffin is believed to have flown the plane back to Norfolk, where it had been loaded onto the Langley, Forrest said.

Lt. Cmdr. Griffin was attached to the “Bounty Hunters” of “Fighting Two” (VFA-2 is the present name for the squadron and it is still commissioned).

Interested in more aircraft carrier aviation history? Here’s your link.

Gee, I can’t believe I scooped SteelJaw Scribe and Far East Cynic (both CV aviation guys, but since they are VAW and not VF/VFA types), and Instapinch! I’m letting Capt Lex have a pass, since he’s doing the “I’m here from da gov’ment, and I’m here to help!” thing with forward deployed forces right now.

Part VIII is here.

In the fall of 1986, I also purchased an Apple ][gs. The short story of the acquisition is the Surface Forces, Atlantic Officer’s Wives Club had a scholarship and annually held an auction to raise money. We were *ahem* encouraged to find worthwhile items to donate for this endeavor. I did track down a few items that did make some money for the scholarship in the silent auction part of the evening and later, a ][gs went up for the main auction. I, being the hobbyist I was, lusted after the 128K of the newer version of the workhorse, the new mouse “pointing device” and it’s early graphical user interface (GUI). They brought it out and wanted to start the bidding at $900. No one raised their hand or spoke. It was a great item, but no one seemed rich enough. Finally, after much cajoling from the CNSL Chief or Staff’s wive, we began the bidding. I think someone first said $600. Anyhow, the “battle enused” and I won at $825. My evil plan was to put it in the paper and make a few dollars, as I couldn’t really afford it at the time. As I walked out to the car with my prize, one couple said they wanted it and asked if I’d take $850. I turned them down politely, and the next day put my ad in the paper.

One call came that week, and, after the initial fact finding by the caller, and I guess the attempt to see how little I’d take, I never got another call. I sold it to my sister for what I paid for it the following week. I will admit to having pulled it all out of the boxes and booting it up for a few hours, before I reboxed it for shipment.

Somewhere in this time period, I got a look at a program by Owl Software named “Guide.” I can’t find any links to it, but I saw it running on the Apple ][ series. It may have been at AppleFest in 1983 (held in Boston). Anyhow, I was intrigued for you could mark a section of text and when a user clicked on it, another document would load and be displayed. You could use it for acronyms, of more detailed info on a topic, and there seemed to be no limits to the “depth” of the linking. I thought you could generate a document coveinr all aspects of a topic, to the very minutest level of detail, yet the reader wold only have to dig in as far as necessary to make sure they followed/understood the writing. Of course, now we know this as HTML, but, if you’ve followed the series, this is my second encouter with software that used the methodolgy of the Wolrd Wide Web, years after I had seen it.

Also in this time frame, probably around early 1986, I convinced the spouse we should upgrade to a Mac, now that used ones were on the market. I do recall seeing the 1984 SuperBowl commercial for the Mac, and then kept my eye on the development, but it was too expensive. I finally found one two years later, when someone else was upgrading their system, and I bought their Mac 512K, complete with the single external 400K 3.5″ floppy.

Now, about 4.5 years into owning computers, I moved from 1Mhz (8 bit words)/48K/134K (storage) to 8Mhz (16 bit words) /512K/400K (storage) Moden spped had moved from 300 bps to 1200 bps over the same time frame.

From here I began learning about “object oriented programming” (OOP) from a program that was part of the Mac purchase (if new) or $30 if purchased separately with HyperCard ( I bought it when it came out in 1987). It allowed you to manage data and pictures and place buttons all over the background, and you could “program” on a set of cards, much like having a rolodex, and each card was a new surface to work on. Not only did you do much of the work graphically, you cold then attach code to any of the “objects” on the screen. I, once more, figured out some things I wanted to do and then figured out how to make HyperCard do it for me. I hacked up someone else’s public domain address book, and I transmogrified it so I could also keep track of who I send Christmas cards to each year, and also for the current year, where I made it print out all my mailing labels for the year I was working on them.

I also found out it was much more fun to create a “this is everything” letter for Chritmas, then I’d cut and paste each one going out, depending on how much contact I’d had with the friendd/relative that year. Ah, the magic of word processing…

Next “expose:” Retreading other serial posts, the HyperCard in Navigation and 4th Dimension helps lay out a long range project.

Sikorsky YR-4B (HNS-1) in NASA wind tunnel testing

1943 – The Navy accepts its first helicopter, a Sikorsky YR-4B (HNS-1), at Bridgeport, Conn.

Click on the picture for more history of this helo from Fiddler’s Green.

How about this for deck quals?:

H Frank Gregory, now a Lieutenant Colonel, subsequently demonstrated the XR-4 from a platform mounted on the tanker SS Bunker Hill. in May, 1943, 24 landings and take-offs being made. Additional tests were conducted in July 1943 with the XR-4, and the first YR-4A, operating from a stern platform on the troopship SS James Parker. In the course of this 20-hour test, the two helicopters made 162 landings and take-offs.

That was before they had NWP-42!

To my former shipmates from HC-6 (LCDR Al Jacka), HSL-32 (LCDR “Buzz” Buzzell) and HSL-44 (LCDR Marty ??? (age…sorry)), this one’s for you!

Part VII talked about getting ready for the deployment to the Med/North Arabian Sea.

I packed the Apple //c, the 9″ green screen monitor and the ImageWriter ][ in a footlocker (with padding) and off went. I know the computer was moved by VERTEP (vertical replenishment) (meaning it was on a pallet with other stuff, staged on a flight deck and picked up by a helicopter (usually CH-46D Sea Knights)) from a rolling, pitching deck, and deposited on another rolling, pitching deck of another ship 9 times. Yes, that’s right: NINE times.

And that little Apple “portable” kept on operating. It’s “operational availability” was 100%. We also moved a few more times by hauling the equipment down the ship’s gangways and up others a few times, too.

I had gotten reasonable proficient with the integrated suite of programs of Appleworks (which, still exists for the Mac today) because of this cruise. As the Combat Systems Material Officer, I was responsible for helping the ships stay at the highest level of readiness possible. As equipment failed, and the ship’s submitted their reports and parts requests, I was on the hook to figure out the status and keep the Commodore on the status of the repairs and parts availability. I set up a database in AW for tracking the repair parts and the estimated time the repairs would be effected.

I formatted a letter, where the body of the letter contained the current status of all casualties to the ships assigned to us. AW took care of inserting the most up to date data at printout time. All I had to do was maintain the database file when new information arrived. This sounds pretty mundane and routine for the current sate of the art of software and office suites today, but my point is in 1985, Apple had produced a very effective program to do this. I’m not sure if AppleWorks was the first of it’s kind (see the Wikipedia article linked above “one of the first”), but as far as I can recall, it was. Another milestone development, from which many other companies have gone on to “emulate” and market very well, but it was Apple software vision that most likely paved the way for all the other developments of Office software with integration.

Back in those days, Apple made the hardware and software. Years later, the software department of Apple was spun off as it’s own company, Claris. Certainly the great advantage of writing software application within the company lead to exceptionally smooth operations for the end user.

We were standing “port and starboard, chow-to-chow” watches, which meant two teams of us traded the watch when each mealtime came around. While on watch, if an update to a part status came in, I could hand annotate the info on page 1 (the casualty report status letter) of the Staff Watch Officer’s Notebook. As soon as I got off watch, I would go and make any changes, then printout a fresh copy of the letter and go back to the watch station and replace the outdated page.

The trend of my learning, documented in this series, is that I learned programs and systems more effectively and quickly when I had to face a real challenge of my management time. I then would have excellent motivation to sit down and focus on the documentation for the program I needed to get the job done.

Next time: Owl Software’s “Guide” program and stepping up to a Mac

I’ve been thinking lately about the empire building of Google. Taking the capitalistic way is sure proving “fruitful” for them.

So the acquisition of YouTube had me crank up the way (not way, WAY) back machine and consider a trend I have noticed.

About a year ago, I recall discussions over on Little Green Footballs on Google not accepting the ads a conservative organization wanted to place. Other comments around that time mentioned some conservative ads not being accepted, either. The people who had tried to advertise there did not ads for gay and lesbian and leftist groups showing up.

Later, it seemed some people noticed the results of searches left out topics specifically discussed or posted on some of the larger conservative blogs. Interesting…

Then, Google responded to the Chinese Government’s request to block content headed for China by doing what China wanted: Censoring.

Michele Malkin, most noticably, recently noted some of her YouTube postings, all very right wing in nature, were dropped from that site. Other video clips, such as the recent lampooning of the Clinton Administration’s policy carried out with North Korea over the development of nuclear weapons, has been blocked as “offensive.”
Update: A rather embarassing YouTube post of Harry Reid hanging up in an investigative reporter has been pulled. “Copyright infringement.” Yeah, right. Take a look around YouTube and thousands of clips from movies or TV are there.
This “educational video” regarding the aftermath of the physics of missile attacks on Red Cross Ambulances in Lebanon has also been removed, and the poster threatened with having his account shutdown on YouTube.

Why does this matter?

Google owns Blooger Some of you may have heard of this site, and a few of you may even use it…:)

What if one morning, you get settled with your cup of coffee, and click on the link to your blog’s control panel and get a message like: “404 Site Not Found?” Then when you check email, you find out your entire blog has been deemed offensive and therefore deleted….

I hope I’m wrong, but, for those using a free service, with a demonstrated propensity of denying access to conservative content, you have been warned….

I don’t really have any objection to a business setting standards, after all, they aren’t the US Government, obligated to let you have your free speech. I just am not sure the path they seem to be headed down is one I think will tolerate conservative and Christian content much longer.

(Hint: if you’re serious, get your own domain and hosting…it’s not that much)

Plenty of others have beat me too this post, but, I’m not one that likes birthdays much anyhow.

But, to the only service that has a mandate to Congress to be constantly authorized, 231 years of fine service to the Nation, at home and aboard.

Much has changed, an back in the begining, the CHENG was the Deck Deparment Head.

There were no aviators to sit in the wardroom and complain thay had seen all the movies already

There were wooden ships and “Iron Men.” We still have one of those two commodities.

Submariners were a “Navy of One.”

The Navy was a “wet” one. It took a politician many years later to make it “dry.”

Deployments could last much longer than 6-8 months.

There was no “Trade School” for officers; you learned by an apprenticeship type program.

No evaporators, so no complaining about “water hours.”

No “twidgets,” but no cool electronic gadgets, either.

Anyhow…just a few thoughts on this 231st occasion of the Birth of the US Navy.

Eagle1 posted, as did others, in rememberance of the the attack by a small boat on the USS COLE (DDG-67) in Yemen.

At Linda Sog’s blog, she has posted pictures of the 17 shipmates we lost that day.

We can take solace in knowing the USS COLE, as are all other vessels attacked in the the ramp up to the GWoT, returned to sea service and were not lost, a tribute to the crews we entrusted with these large vessels.

From the The Canton Rep:

CANTON – When 1st Lt. Aaron Seesan died in combat on May 22, 2005, in Iraq, his parents did not know he had written a prescient poem, “Eulogy of the Common Soldier,” as a high-school senior six years earlier.
[…]

Here is the poem:

EULOGY OF THE COMMON SOLDIER

All mortal beings, which God brought forth, die the same
Man is not exempt
All will inevitably end as the dust from whence we came
It matters not of age
Do not mourn me if I should fall in a foreign land
Think this of my passing
In a far-off field a finer soil mixed with the foreign sand
A dust that is American
A dust that laughed, cried, and loved as an American
On this plot there shall be
A little piece of America, a patch for the free man
Which no oppressor can take
From this soil grows grass shimmering a little greener
Brilliant emerald ramparts
A Breeze whisping White Poppies with scent a little sweeter
Flowers towards heaven
Mourn not my terrible death but celebrate my cause in life
Viewed noble or not
I would have sacrificed and gave all that I had to give
Not to make man good
But only to let the good man live.

— Aaron Seesan

H/T: Old War Dogs