AW1 Tim, a salty aviation warfare operator in the P-3 Orion platform, has turned his virtual pen to virtual paper: “Orion” is the title. The inaugural post is available here.

Review of “Intro:” Well written and makes me want to keep on top of any future chapters coming down the pike.

…in my chosen profession. It was a Monday and I had checked in the prior Saturday night while the USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2) was moored on the southside of Pier 2 at Norfolk Naval Station. LTJG George Parrish, the Ship’s Navigator was the CDO that Saturday night. He ended up being the first one I carpooled with from the Virginia Beach area to our normal location at NOB.

But on Monday morning, I began real work, after many years of study and almost a year of directly related schooling.

My assignment was to be the Combat Information Center/Electronic Material Officer (CIC/EMO). I met CDR Dave Martin, the XO, LCDR Frank Mueller, the Operations Officer, LT Randy Rice, the Communications Officer, CAPT Richard Wright, the Commanding Officer, and, shortly after lunch, ET2s Mike Krutsch and Craig Johnson, when they needed a set of initials on a CASREP Update. The officer I was relieving was on leave, so I didn’t meet him for a few more days.

But the highlight of the day, was OSC Michael P. McCaffrey. USN, inviting me to the Chief’s Mess for a cup of coffee.

It was a day full of good sea stories, another one was about the schooling of mine being put to work.

It was not my choice to end up on MILWAUKEE, which, was the oldest ship I served abaord at 8 years when I stepped aboard, I got there by failing to make it through the Salvage Diving Course, but it was a blessing in disguise at about the 14 year point in my career.

Sometimes it takes that long to see what’s the right path in a career path, beyond what you thought was good at 22 years old.

My other shipmates I can recall off the top of my head at the moment were LCDR “Doc” Seibart, CDR Karl Kline, and Engineering Duty Officer who was pushing for EDOs to serve aboard ships as Engineers, ENS Harry Watkins, LTJG Cliff Barnes (DCA), LT Pat Wahl (2nd Div), LCDR Leo Pivonka (1st LT), OS3 Tom Mazzula,and many, many more in a crew of about 450 on a 653′ ship that carried 6M gallons of F76/DFM, 2.5M Gallons of AV GAS and later F44/JP-5, 600 tons of cargo ordnance, and then chow and spare parts.

That part of the Navy is now all in the hands of the Military Sealift Command (MSC), but I was lucky to have begun a career as a Naval Professional on a ship where the main mission was seamanship based.

Via backchannel, a request to highlight the “signature” wound of the current war: Traumatic Brain Injury.

March is Brain Injury Awareness Month for the Brain Injury Association of America.  Pass the Word, please, as you can and know this is a very probable issue with our injured Vets.

For those who have long supported the Soldier’s Angels Voice Activated Laptops for Our Injured Troops (VALOur-IT), this is one of the things the program has been addressing, along with the coputer contact with the world, by providing GPS Units for those wounded service members who are getting out and about. The reason: TBI has an associated symptom of loss of short term memory, and the GPS Units help remind the driver where they were headed.  (Note:  You don’t have to wait until this November to donate to VALOur-IT…SA will be happy to accept donations all year long…even today to help this great cause)

Below is the article Chelsea asked if I could post to help get attention to the cause:

Traumatic Brain Injuries in the Military

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is becoming a common wound of modern warfare. It has even been coined the “signature wound” of the War on Terror. While TBI is becoming more prevalent in wartime activity, many service men and women continue to go undiagnosed. Institutions, like the US Department of Veterans Affairs, are working to make quick and accurate diagnoses in order to prescribe appropriate and effective treatment.

TBI is caused by forced trauma to the head, either by being shaken or hit. The severity of a TBI varies from case to case, but symptoms range from mild concussions to a debilitating state. The majority of TBI’s acquired by military personnel are classified as mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI). Initial symptoms of MTBI consist of loss of consciousness, disorientation, loss of memory, headache, and temporary loss of hearing and vision. They are often partnered with anxiety, irritability, difficulties processing information, limited concentration amongst other problems experienced down the road. While MTBI is most common amongst the men and women of the armed forces, more severe cases of TBI are happening much more frequently and often require the victim to attended specialty rehabilitative nursing centers, like CareMeridian.

The most common cause of a TBI in the military is due to blasts. There are three degrees of blast injuries where a TBI is common; Primary (due to blast itself), Secondary (due to objects being propelled by a blast) and Tertiary (due to a collision with a third party object). According to the Veterans Health Initiative, active male members of the military from the ages 18-24 are hospitalized with a TBI at a rate of 231 per 100,000 and females 150 per 100,000. Based on military force projections this would mean that 4,141 military personnel are hospitalized on average each year with a TBI, and these numbers often rise during wartimes.

The best prevention for veterans to avert the long-term effects of a brain injury is to recognize the symptoms of a TBI. Once the symptoms are identified an individual should take basic precautionary measures in order to begin the healing and recovery process until a more specific diagnosis can be made.

Service men and women give so much to protect this country and they deserve to come home to a happy and healthy life. Creating awareness about TBI will help ensure their long term health. By helping our veterans, their friends and their families recognize the early warning signs of a TBI, treatment can be sought as early as possible.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Canadian military releases brain injury report (ctv.ca)
• The Invisible Wounds of War (edkimmd.blogspot.com)
• “Mild” TBI and the “Silent Epidemic” (edkimmd.blogspot.com)
• What Is a Concussion and How Bad Can It Be? (bleacherreport.com)
• Brain Scans Reveals Invisible Damage Of PTSD (huffingtonpost.com)
• Traumatic Brain Injury and Learning how to Love and Accept Myself Part 7 (secondchancetolive.wordpress.com)

Received for distribution:

The crew of the USS FRANKLIN (CV-13) will hold their 2010 reunion from the 18th to the 21st of March, in Branson, MO.

Specific location:  Lodge of the Ozarks.

Special event:  Memorial service morning of 19 March.  This will be held on the 65th anniversary of the attack off the coast of Japan.

Registration closes 1 March, 2010.

Contact for Questions:
Sam Rhodes  772-334-0366 or
Beth Conard Rowland (daughter of crewman) 740-524-0024  (please leave message)

These men who went to war, preformed well, suffered a horrible blow, yet sailed their ship home may not be around much longer to share their stories.  If you’re close by, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind a visitor or two who would thank them and listen to a story of two for history’s sake.  Take your camera and notepad and post the things you learn!

More information on the USS FRANKLIN (CV-13):

The story of the day the ship was struck by a kamikaze off Japan is “Inferno.”

As a warm up to getting your hands on “Inferno,” SteelJaw Scribe provided an excellent synopsis of that horrible day in his 2008 post:  “The Crucible.”

LCDR Joseph T. O’Callahan, USN, ChC was awarded the Medal of Honor for his action on 19 March, 1945.  LTJG Donald Gary, USN, of the Engineering Department served heroically below decks to save his ship and shipmates.  He also was awarded the MOH.

Seaman 1/c Omer Dee Simms, USN died that day, after saving 12 of his shipmates, by relentlessly working to free them from the internal compartment they had been trapped in by damage and fire.  After he led them to safety, he re-entered the skin of the ship to save more people.  He did not survive.  His son graciously shared with me family photos and letters to enable me to post some personal history of the battle not otherwise published.

He walked slowly through the tables, as I stood to gather my backpack full of stuff and leave.  An older gentleman, wearing a blue ball cap bearing the title of this post’s title.  As I stepped into the room, rather than to the door, my two friends, neither of them vets, looked quizzically at me, but I kept moving, standing a respectful few feet, while he reached for the chair back, indicating he was at the table of his choosing, I stepped up and asked to shake his hand and thank him.  He smiled and allowed me to do so.

Making the basic assumption that he was one of the few and the Proud, but not set on it, I asked what he had done there.  He said “Amphibs.  I took the Marines ashore.”  About this time, another gentleman, also elderly arrived beside us and reached out to shake the first man’s hand and said with a smile on his face, not to large, but more of a knowing one.  He said “5th Marines.”

So there I was, thanking one man for his service at that difficult battle, and I managed to be able to thank two of them.

From the USS BOSTON (CA-69) Blog (click to get there)

We chatted for a few moments.  He had joined the Navy in 1940, was assigned to a destroyer (I missed the name), was a radioman and had been in the Battle of Midway, screening the USS ENTERPRISE (CV-6), and later commissioned USS BOSTON (CA-69).  What ever his assignment was in 1945, he took that Marines ashore as said “I was on Red Beach.”  I handed him my card as I told him a week from today, the old war horses would gather for breakfast and to talk and enjoy each other’s company, and I’d be happy to give him a lift (he doesn’t drive any longer).  He rattled off a list of the campaigns he had been in and they were the many big ones.  He did his time all in the Pacific, all on sea duty, all in the fight.  He mentioned, but only in one sentence, that he spent 20 some years in the Air Force.

I then asked if the lady sitting at the far end of the table was his wife, and he said yes, of 56 years, proudly told me.  He then added a story of how he bought her engagement ring in Pearl Harbor, and then carried it in his shirt pocket, in case the ship sank, until he could mail it home to his mother.  It took two months to get there, and his mom slipped it on his then fiancee’s finger, I believe he said at Christmas, and they were married in 1946.  I went over and thanked her for sharing him with me so patiently and let her, and his daughter know about this coming Saturday.  His daughter, whom he pointed out had been an Air Force Nurse, said, “Dad, I think you’d really enjoy that.”  I made sure she had my card, too.

And, in doing a little homework for links here, I found, via the USS BOSTON Blog mentioned above, that a son of one of the Plank Owners, William Kelly, a Signalman, wrote a book based on their Father’s story:  “A Bird’s Eye View.”

We’ll see….oh, and that night, I met a 21 year Army Vet, a Green Beret, who flared up when I mentioned Khe Shan, commenting how they didn’t believe the Special Forces Camp really had tanks in the wire…..

When the enemy thinks they can stall peace talks, how do you respond?  With a diplomatic tools that “communicates” beyond the Paris meeting room.

On this day in 1972, Linebacker II, the largest air campaign since WWII began, with Air force and Navy planes filling the skies over North Vietnam.

For 11 days, the fury of America was unleashed over their capital and sea ports. On this day, 189 bombers (B-52D/Gs) and 39 support aircraft from the 7th Air force, and Navy and Marine Corps assets (EB-66/EA-6B/KC-135s/F-4/A-6/A-7/F-111/F-105), as well as SAR (Search and Rescue) aircraft took to the skies for a night attack. This mission targeted airfields and warehouses.

3 B-52s were shot down, and three more heavily damaged. One F-111 was also shot down, as the North Vietnamese put and estimated 220 SAMs in the air.

This afternoon, I attended an MOAA lunch and one of the men there reminded the MC to mention the history of today. It turns out that gentlemen had spent time in a B-17 over Schweinfurt, B-29s over Korea and B-52s over Vietnam. I suspect he was in the cockpit for this operation, but I did not have the opportunity to speak with him, as the room was full of living history.

I have been alerted of this recently begun project by FedEx to created a “Digital Wall,” to honor those service members who died in the Vietnam War.

Impact: Huge.
Ease of execution: Easy. Take up to three pictures of those any of the FedEx/Kinko’s offices to be captured for history.

Do you have friends/family members who died in that war? Get them out and stop in. You have until May 13th, 2010 to do this.

No excuses. No cost, just a few minutes out of your day.

Thanks, FedEx, for continuing to honor those who have served, in particular the ones who perished.

I attended a cake cutting ceremony Saturday morning, with the local heroes. Over of the establishment funded the early in the day meal as his thank you to some old war horses, and some of the rest of us who wore a uniform who sit around and tell sea and war stories, and we all take them in stride. None the less, thre is some evidence here. And those who have eagle eyes, will know what they know, others: Enjoy the picture!

The Oldest marine was cutting the cake, began in 1942 and flew PBYs for the cause. The next one over, the youngest Devil Dog started in PBJs, and still has the first 75mm shell he fired from same…chromed, full of change.

The guy in the orange T flew something called Slicks for the Army…was only 4 hours short of the one year tour for combat hours…but he thinks these guys are heroes.

I’m a really lucky guy.

Today, after a bit of a hiatus, another “regular” post.

First note of interest: In case you’re not aware already, the annual fund raising drive for the Soldier’s Angels VALOur-IT project has been underway since the 26th of Oct, but…the good news, it runs through 11/11. In other words, you can still contribute!

If you’re in the mood (even a little bit helps), the widget to the upper right of the blog page here (the thermometer looking dodad) is clickable and will get you to the right place to chip in a few bucks.

Now, on to some meat for the day in Naval History: 42 years (and three days….just found this) ago, one then LCDR Charles B. Hunter, USN, flying with VA-196 off the USS CONSTELLATION (CVA-64) and his BN performed a mission that earned now RADM Hunter, USN (Ret) a Navy Cross. Here is the citation:

Hunter, Charles Bryan

Commander, U.S. Navy
Attack Squadron ONE HUNDRED NINETY SIX (VA-196), U.S.S. Constellation (CVA-64)
Date of Action: 30 October 1967

Citation:
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Commander [then Lieutenant Commander] Charles Bryan Hunter (NSN: 0-584531), United States Navy, for extraordinary heroism on 30 October 1967 as a pilot in Attack Squadron ONE HUNDRED NINETY-SIX (VA-196), embarked in U.S.S. CONSTELLATION (CVA-64). Exercising exceptional professional skill and sound judgment, Commander Hunter, planned and executed an extremely dangerous, single-plane, night, radar bombing attack on the strategically located and heavily defended Hanoi railroad ferry slip in North Vietnam. Although the entire Hanoi defensive effort was concentrated upon his lone bomber, he flawlessly piloted his aircraft to the target area and commenced his attack. Seconds before bomb release, six enemy surface-to-air missiles were observed to be tracking on his plane. Undaunted by this threat to his personal safety, Commander Hunter took swift and effective action to avoid the missiles and then proceeded to complete his attack, releasing all weapons in the target area with extreme accuracy. After release, he guided his plane through the intense anti-aircraft-artillery fire and four additional missiles which were fired at his aircraft. In spite of this intense enemy opposition, Commander Hunter completed his mission and was directly responsible for dealing a significant blow to the North Vietnamese logistics efforts. His indomitable perseverance and conspicuous gallantry were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

He’s a humble man, just one of the guys at the table.  I’ll be having breakfast with him this coming Saturday morning, along with several other vets of some significance from WWII on.

I have posted many times about not only this specific day, but 10/25 in military history.

Let’s begin with my post the day the “Small Boys” put on full rudder, flank speed and headed into the midst of 4 Japanese battleships, 21 cruisers and many destroyers, including IJNS YAMATO, carrying the largest naval guns put to sea in all of history: 18.1″, at the Battle Off Samar. The largest US Naval guns there to oppose the Japanese force were 5″/38 caliber guns, firing a 54 lb projectile against massive steel plated ships. Lopsided as it was, the American sailors and their aviators overhead attacked back like they could win the day, and they did.

The best book I have read on this topic is appropriately named “The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors” by James Hornfischer. Not only was it an excellent book, which brought many first person accounts to light, it is a well written report of the battle that day at the tactical and strategic levels.

I had the honor of spending an afternoon with Richard Rhode, who had been a Radioman aboard USS SAMUEL B ROBERTS (DE-413) a few years ago.

I had the honor of serving aboard a ship named for GM2 Paul Henry Carr, USN, the Mount Captain for MT 52 aboard the “Sammie B” that day. He died, fighting to the end, and he did give his last full measure.

Beyond the Battle Off Samar, I have found Oct 25th is a day across history of several significant battles, all connected to well known stories of heroism.

Please click on the links to my prior postings and read of a day when sailors did their duty and men rose to a challenge against odds that were impossible, and became a part of the history of the US Navy, the US Armed Forces and the spirit of those who serve the cause of freedom.

And don’t forget the heroes of today, who have also sacrified for us, as the sailors did on 10/25/1944 and please consider supporting the Soaldier’s Angels Project VALOur-IT. Details on how to donate, beginning 10/26/2009 are here. You can donate to the project through the widegt in the upper left of this blog, too (the one that looks like a big thermometer