I’m checked in after a long drive and three family visits enroute, and will be heading to Fran’s Restaurant tonight for the pre-MilBlogging Conference join up, but more importantly, to shake a few hands and say a few words of thanks to our service personnel, while trying not to interupt their free steak dinner.

LCDR and Mrs Smash will be here, and I think one other tagged with being a navy type in the list of attendees. I’m looking forward to getting to know some of the people I have read much of over the last two years.

I was hoping Capt Lex would make an excuse to make a cross country, but….he’s busy, I guess, becoming an systems engineer….

If you’re not already briefed in on the furor over Fran’s lease not being renewed, go here, read and chase the links. Hilton boned this one up (even the MSM is writing negative things!). Fran is also looking to set up a fund to keep the dinners for the wounded personnel from Walter Reed going. If you have a few spare $$$, that may be a good place to drop them.

More later!

Dear sirs:

A caller to a radio talk show today reminded me of a man from history that should be your role model. The problem is, you all have now gotten out, and can’t pull this off. Sucks to miss the opportunity to rush through a salinet and tear up the rear of the enemy, does it?

Sorry, I digress, so to my point, three words: GENERAL Billy Mitchell.

I received a comment on my A Journey into History – Part IX that discussed my participation in Operation El Dorado Canyon 20 years ago.

The author of an upcoming book about the mining of the USS SAMUEL B ROBERTS (FFG-58), Bradley Peniston, left me a note indicating that 18 years ago today, the retaliation for the attack on the ROBERTS was conducted. That was Operation Praying Mantis.

Brad’s book, No Higher Honor, tells the story of the crew of the ROBERTS, led by the Captain, CDR Paul X. Rinn, in their efforts that saved the ship from sinking, despite having a broken keel. The book is due out in June of this year.

Excerpt:

At twenty-five knots, the sea came on quickly. Its surface, wrinkled and opaque, rushed toward the warship, split against the steel prow, and became a fleeting trail of foam pointing back toward Kuwait.

Four decks above the waterline, Seaman Bobby F. Gibson leaned over the forecastle rail and twisted the focus knob on his binoculars. His metal chair, bolted to the main deck just behind the bow, afforded a panoramic view of the central Persian Gulf. The 19-year-old from Walkertown, N.C., took in the scene one small circle at a time.

Looks like a pretty well written beginning…

Part I, Part II, Part III,Part IV, Part V, Part VI,
Part VII, Part VIII

As you might imagine from the previous posts, we were busy. For this set of ops, each CVBG would handle one target each, so deconfliction would be pretty easy. Having been in the Med since January and assigned to chase a subsurface threat that never materialized, this time the ASW Commander’s Intentions message speculated there would be no opposition in that area. Not only did the Libyan’s show little interest in coming out to sea to try to get a torpedo off at us, the Soviet subs had largely been replaced with surface ships over the last month, which we assumed was a strategic move to limit the possibility of one of their subs being engaged. Not only did the SOVREMNNEY DDG and KARA CG become our “tattletales,” they had made it a point to stay on the north side of the formations, but always within visual range of the carrier.

Our CVBG had been in the western Med, at port visits. We had gotten underway and directed to steam to the north of Sicily. We “parked” up there, and then in the late day of the 13th, we were ordered to plan for a modified EMCON “A” transit of the Strait of Messina, that narrow passge between the boot of Italy and the island of Sicily. we would have to proceed single file, and with all our military radios and radars off. We would keep our navigational lights on.

THe Strait of Messina is a challenge, even in the daylight, because there is a ferry to the island and the captains decided they have the right of way over all others. There is plenty of other traffic, such as vessels coming from Naples and heading south and east, and then throw in the fishermen. Now, envision this all happening on a dark night, with a low, solid overcast, so any moonlight is eliminated as an aid to the lookouts and bridge watch teams.

In amongst all this planning, we heard the USAF was going to participate. The air wing weaponeers then had to shift their work to set up a two carrier strike on Benghazi, while the Air Force would take out the targets in Tripoli. Side note: The Libyans have renamed their city to Tarabulus from Tripoli. Thankfully, my staff didn’t need to be flexible over this issue, so we settled in to set up planning the screening ship stations for the transit.

I don’t recall what time we departed our staion north of Sicily, but it was well into the night. We took off at high speed fro the Strait of Maessina, and I was thankful that I would be able to sit back and watch my SWO counterparts in the BIDDLE’s ship’s company sweat out this exciting transit of the Strait. To the east, the glow of Mt Vesuvius could be seen in the night sky. The surface traffic of many types of commerical and private vessels in the vicinity was quite dense and I’m sure the conversations between the bridges, lookouts and CICs were all too busy that night.

Successfully transiting the Strait, our battle group reformed on itself and headed into the Ionian Sea (central Med). I swear it almost was like a cartoon, as we rushed at top speed down there, then put on the brakes hard, as the strike package began the launch. The operations were going as planned, at least from where I was able to listen, and now it was time to settle back and let the aviators do what they had been trained to do best.

Different from the previous operations in this series of showing the flag to Col Khadaffi, we had believed there would be subsurface activity. When we pronounced that, based on intelligence estimates, there were plenty of reported “goblins.” The confidence in these contacts was usually the lowest confidence, but we still needed track them. We used DRT tracing paper over the charts of the Med, in addition to recording position reports in JOTS, and we constantly analyzed “time, speed and distance,” to check and see if the postion was a new contact, or continuation of a prior ASW prosecution. This time, no one reported any subsurface contacts at all.

I made this observation about this night: Everything anyone did, who I had contact with, whether it be the radio communications or face to face discussions, was absolutley professional. Proper radio-telephone (R/T) and internal communications were crisp, and properly formatted. Call signs and codewords were used exclusively. Conversations were not any longer than necessary. We had the strike frequency put up in our CIC Flag module, so we could hear what was going on miles to our south. The data links were running exactly as they taught you in the school house and team training. Somehow the focus on conducting real world ops against a real enemy really focused the entire battle force.

Since I don’t directly recall, I’ll rely on the Operation El Dorado Canyon entry at Wikipedia, which says the strike happened at 2AM local time. I recall the “feet dry” call from the Navy Strike leader, and then it was dead silent a few minutes later as the planes cleared the beach and headed back to us, taking their nose count as soon as they called “feet wet.” We heard each plane answer up. We then listened to the Air Force go feet wet and check for all planes. The count went well for a while, then when one number was called, there was no response. They called the pilot several times, then announced one plane was not with them. It was a sinking feeling.

Anyhow, the deed was done, 20 years ago tonite. I was there. It is my only claim to combat operations, and I had a seat near the head tables for all of it. One day I’ll wrap this all up with some of the tactical things I observed/learned. I guess the most interesting thing for me in having participated was when I later went to the Naval War College Command and Staff course in Newport, RI, was how the Maritime Ops
trimester focused almost exclusively on this operation. There was an EA-6B backseater named Ed in the same class with me, and we were the only two who had bragging rights about being in there. Many times, the class would get asked a question about operations and they alluded to situations/conditions/ops that were highlighted by the Gulf of Sidra ops, and we felt like kids who had been given answers to the test at the beginning of the school year. On the other hand, we’d answer questions with real world solutions we had seen, and we would be told “that’s not doctrine!”

One day, I was asked to model the operational chain of command for a three CVBG, with a USAF component. I went to the chalkboard and commenced to begin drawing the “who would work for who diagram. Our moderator keot commenting from the back of the room, where he had gone as I went forward, “that’s not in accrodance with DOCTRINE!” I finally looked at the Navy Capt and said “Well, sir, it worked fine for Adm Jerimiah!” then I turned around and went back to drawing.

Anyhow, suffice it to say, it was an experience!

My video was no where near this good, but here’s one to follow up on my earlier post…

Bonus video of an F-117 flying by..

It’s getting downright depressing when your “leadership” bails, then puts on suits and ties and whines like spamked little boys. On the other hand, it puts a smile on my face to see the all of a sudden (left wing) supporters (who used to think anyone in the military couldn’t get a job in “real life”) somehow believe the complaints of 6 former generals will cause the President to move aside the SecDef. That’s hilarious.

I can’t say every day in my 20 years was the way I would have done it. On top of that, I thank God it wasn’t sometimes. I worked for some excellent officers who had plenty of practical experience at the profession to help guide me along. I enjoyed my time, overall, but a few days I’d like not to remember.

My first real choice came in 1980. I was coming to the end of my obligated time based on the acceptance of an ROTC scholarship. By then, I had served aboard two ships and had made one forward deployment and what seemed like on, due to the time spent out of homeport on a newly commissioned vessel (and most of it wasn’t in some exotic overseas ports, but in beautiful Pascagoula, MS, in the shipyard). I thought several things could be done better and I made a choice. I could get out and complain, and have no real power to effect change, or I could stay in and work towards what was better than the existing conditions. I stayed.

I was sent ashore to a training command, where I had the chance to improve on the training I had received, for the new crews coming through my office. With the tutoring of many fine men in my shop, we, together, produced some outstanding results, which were widely complimented and recognized to the top levels of a major training facility.

I spent a tour as a Department Head. I had great role models from when I had been a Division Officer, but there was room to improve. Once more, with a fine crew supporting me, and two great captains, we did some spectacular things.

On a sea going staff, with a commodore who never saw a tasking, for us or anyone else, he wasn’t willing to say to “my staff can do that!” I’ll say this: The positive part was we got our fingers into all sorts of exciting things. The negative part was there wasn’t many minutes (I chose that word carefully) left in the days to sleep. The personal management at this period of my career left somethings to be desired, but we all lived, even if the wives had separate plans to reduce our workload. I see a microcosm of the desrciptions of Secretary Rumsfield being a hard man to work with in that time of my life, under one commodore. We had to have done our homework and you better be on top of what was going on, or we got asked where we got our SWO pins from (you guessed it, the answer was provided many times: A cracker Jack box). Was it pleasant? Nope. Did it make a point? When it was over, was it recognized as a “teaching method” that worked? Yep. Would I use it? Nope (well, one time in a particular situation I did). I blended the message with other teaching/mentoring styles I had been taught, and I think I was effective.

As I worked my way up the “increasing responsibility” ladder, I had several occassions to either complain, or work to fix “it.” In 1988, I did just that, and ended up actively working a side project for 5 years. Along the way, I had the opportunity to look some of my seniors in the eye and tell them they were making it essentially impossible on the fleet sailors and officer to comply, while I had to fail ships at inspections. My option was to roll up my sleeves and do something, while telling the big boss’ staff to extricate body parts and rewrite directives. One four striper in particular, didn’t like what I was trying to say at all. One weekend, I spent about 20 hours making an Excel sheet to graphically depict what I had been talking about. When he looked at that, he agreed and became the biggest proponent in getting it all changed. I didn’t care he was presenting it to the Admiral as his plan, the fact of the matter was he understood and then was able to fix things. There are days I realize it sure didn’t help me make the last few career steps, but in the end, the fleet did get relief and sensibilty applied.

There were times in the downsizing of the shore based training and inspection teams I was tasked to plan how to do it. I had plans submitted that were “modified” to the point of not being effective, but I said my peace, then saluted and gave a cherry “aye, aye!” and made it happen with what I had left.

I never made flag, but all I can say to the generals is I’m pretty disgusted and I expect more. Thankfully, no one I worked for has ever shown such bad manners. Sirs, if you didn’t like what was happening, I say it was your duty to stay in and constructively argue your point, but to know when it was acceptable to try someone else’s way to get it done. If it ever got so bad as to be intolerable, then it was your duty to submit your resignation, citing the issues clearly, but not to keep your mouth’s shut until you can cut a book deal.

Well, it’s over today. Yep, the 2006 Sun n’ Fun Fly In is seeing the last people leave today.

Here’s a quick outbrief, but not with pictures of the actual event…those come tonight.

On Thursday evening, I drove Jim, Sr. (Valiant Glider Pilot of who flew under the Eiffel Tower fame) (the link is to part 1 of three…links to all parts of the antics of Jim and his glider buddies contained therein), to have dinner with those of the Stinson aircraft type (for he flew a Stinson L-5 under the tower).

They were not only gracious, and, having established earlier contact, had name tags for the two of us, and then proceeded to eat BBQ, and listen to Jim’s tales of days gone by with great interest.

Due to other scheduling issues, we didn’t get back to the Fly In until Sunday afternoon. We wandered about, found an SNV aircraft, which Jim referred to as the Vultee “Vibrator.” They went from 120 HP Stearman trainers, to the 450HP Vultees.

I went off to see the F-22 Raptors and Jim got talking to another gentleman, who turns out, flew from the same field as Jim, only a year apart. They did a little reminiscing.

I got my 6 o’clock shot (yep, static, but I can’t afford the gas bill to chase one) of the F-22, as a follow on to this post over at Neptunus Lex.

We wandered among the many palnes of various ages, me finding a Twin Beech, with a passenger door, which conjured up memories of jumping at Covington, LA in 1980 from said equipped aircraft. It’s amazing how 10 people could actually build formations from those without being spread across two counties on exit. I got my SCR, with the jumpers there building an “8 Way” around me. Saw a C-47 (jumped one of those at Perris Valley), and then a few T-34Bs.

The “Legacy Fly By” was to be a TF-51, and F-15, and the F-22. I got a good spot by the fence and waited for the take off. Due to low clouds, they could only hot dog so much, but the F-22 didn’t use a lot of runway. Next the F-15 made a bunch of passes, having to go to burner a lot, but a great low altitude presentation. To the south, the F-22 played about, just under the clouds about 2000′, doing Cobra manevuers, until the TF-51 joined with him. Then the fun began.

The two aircraft commenced to do a little “DACT” (dis-similar air combat training). The F-51 turned some tight circles, with the F-22 matching him in speed and turn diameter. Impressive for a large jet to do that. The, the LtCol must have gotten bored, for on about the 10th circle, he vetored thrust and functionally cut across the circle on a spoke thru the middle and quickly joined on the wing of the TF-51, while the prop plane was still in the same turn. That’s impressive to watch!

The F-15 finished it’s passes and then joined the two other aircraft to make a three ship formation. From there, they conducted two “Heritage” passes, the TF-51 in the lead, the Eagle to port and Raptor to starboard. I did get a vido of the first fly by, without framing my subjects well….gotta love new equipment.

Next the Raptor pilot did his passes, most of the time without his afterburners on, and was just as impressive as the Eagle. Then he came in low and vectored the thrust to begin a vertical climb. It looked like someone grabbed the nose and shoved the tail underneath to get vertical. I’d not like to be on the business end of that maneuver.

Ok, I’ll try to get the pictures up tonight.

Chap has encapsulated, in his thoughts on career “circumstances” of his own, a lot of insight for the rest of us. Well, let me clarify: He seems to have said what many of us have felt. See the comments for thorough understanding of this.

We all entered knowing the struture we work within is a pyramid. We, at the subconscious level, know only one person is at the top at a time. Some of us don’t make it there (what a blinding flash of the obvious!). He discusses that type of issue, with far more clarity than I.

Read his post and be rewarded with a very honest monologue about military life.

Part I, Part II, Part III,Part IV, Part V, Part VI,

Part VII, Part IX

So life, the evening of March 24th and wee hours of the 25th were exciting. Quite honestly, it was also the closest I personally ever came to combat during my career, and then it turned out to not even be that at all. In this case, it was the closest I ever came to being connected (directly) to a major international incident.

As the sun rose later on the 25th, at least two of Khadaffi’s Navy ships were transmogrified into mobile targets for the battle force’s SUCAP. Later in the day, I recall a ship’s company sailor poking his head into our watch station area, proudly holding a black and white 8×10 picture of a smoldering NANUCHKA gunboat. He asked if we wanted a copy. I would have loved one, but then I thought back to a story one of my CO’s had told me of a story about pictures.

Gary Voorheis had been at a Wardroom party many years before, at the house of one of the ship’s officers. He told us of being ushered upstairs, where upon he and a few other officers were shown pictures of the USS BELKNAP (CG-26) just after she had collided with the USS KENNEDY (CV-67) in 1975. These were photos taken by the officer, with his own camera, and he had held onto him for several years. Back in “the OLD Navy,” the Navy’s policy was every, yes, you read that right, every picture taken aboard a vessel was Navy property. The common convention was, short of some major situation, no captain bothered to have all photos developed and examined for possible useful content, however, the regulation was in place. In this case, these picture of the post-collision damage fell under this regulation. To shorten the story, shortly after the party, I believe the Naval Investigative Service paid the officer a visit and confiscated the photos, and I recall significant (read career ending) repercussions followed for withholding evidence from the collision investigation board.

In light of that story, and not being certain of the possible classification that may be assigned to the photo of the unlucky gunboat, I declined. About two weeks later, when the stateside mail caught up with us, there were copies of US News and World Report, with the very picture of the flaming evidence on the front cover.

We gave Khadaffi’s boys a big black eye, taking out a couple of SAM radars and at least two gunboats. My understanding is a thrid Nanuchka, with a little brighter skipper, was zig zagging between the ROCKEYEs lofted at him, and while he made it to port, the shrapnel left enough damage behind for the ship to sink pierside from progressive flooding.

The SARATOGA CVBG, taking ADM Jerimiah and the CRUDESGRU EIGHT staff back to the US. Just the CORAL SEA and AMERICA CVBGs remained. My staff transferred from the SARA back to USS BIDDLE (CG-34), and resumed our watches in the staff area in the Combat Information Center. The CORAL SEA CVBG began preps to turn over and OUTCHOP, too. Our last scheduled port visit was Benidorm, Spain (for the USS BIDDLE). On the last day of the port visit, we were informed we had been extended in the Med. That was quite a shock, but, orders are orders.

Side note: While we were involved in this series of operations off Libya, we began to receive mountains of mail from the States, courtesy of Operation Dear Abby. The history of that operation, which continues today, began with a letter from a BIDDLE sailor, even before we had left for the cruise. Early in my blogging days, I discussed the special support we received thru this project.

I also recall one day on watch when ADM Jerimiah was out on the Flag Bridge of SARATOGA, he beagn laughing and called us to come out and “see this.” We pulled the curtain back to see a small commercial jet, which had been chartered by a news crew flying over the CVBG, and an gaggle of different Naval aircraft were all tucking in beside an behind it, trying to get on camera. I suspect that was the time the famous picture, of a crew member of an EA-6B Prowler was holding up the sign “SEND COOKIES” for the camera, that was widely published.

As we headed back to sea, and the planning began to rapidly develop for a Navy strike on Tripoli and Benghazi, one night, the USAF sent a “natiional asset” our way to recon the target areas. The SR-71 flight I blogged about last year, was what I saw, and my post discussed how I found out who the pilot was, LtCol Brian Shul, quite by accident.

Due to time constraints, I’ll edit this post later (most likely tomorrow), to record my view of the events 20 years ago today. Those events were the bombings of Tripoli (actually named Tarabulus by the Libyans) with USAF FB-111s and Benghazi with Navy A-6s. The event was named Operation El Dorado Canyon.

The blogger known as the Southern Air Pirate, now on active duty and part of the GWoT, realizes his father was in the same fight, but, there where I was 20 years ago today….and his dad went “feet dry” with VA-85.

Stay tuned for the details from my view!

One of Matt’s guest bloggers, Laughing Wolf, has a post about the Army banning the use of personally purchased body armor. Admittedly, this has to have been a tough call for the chain of command and I’m sure there will be some backlash from parents, spouses and the media, claiming the Army really wants the tropps to die. Not true at all, but it’s a hard thing to comprehend.

An example I ran across back in the late 80s had to do with blankets (like the kind you use on your bed blankets). I was XO on a ship and had to put the word that all personal blankets were to be removed from the ship and henceforth only the Navy issue wool blankets were authorized. As cold hearted as that sounds, it was actually a way to preserve the lives of the sailors aboard the ships. Here’s why:

Essentially all blankets you can buy at the store on the beach, short of ones of natural fibers, use some sort of synthetic material for the fabric. This is fine in the house, but not on a ship because, when the “civilian” blanket burns, it produces toxic fumes. So, you retort: “Yeah? SO?, here are fires in houses, too!” Yes, there are. I reply: “And when your house is burning down, you run outside and get away, which puts you in an area of lots and lots of fresh air, which would dilute the toxic fumes. When your ship is burning, you have to attack the fire (enter the berthing space) and therefore go into an enclosed space, where the heated fumes boil down from the overhead, along with the smoke.”

By getting the blankets off the ship, we decreased the risk of serious lung injury to our men. That’s all about protecting the crew from harm.

Add to that discussion of blankets to the situation where a sailor dies in a shipboard fire, but from burns, but suffocation, and the autopsy showed the death was due to toxic fumes in the atmosphere? When that happens, the law suits will make the $400 hammers and toilets seats of days gone by like an a walk in the park. The public would be outraged, and I would submit, rightfully so, for the chain of command didn’t make sure the sailors were safe.

All manner of things are tested extensively, before being allowed for use in the Fleet or field, such as such simple things as ear plugs. Stuff bought off the shelf may or may not help keep your hearing intact, and it would be nice to know. The testing required by the Armed Forces is to make sure we are getting our money’s worth, and the new item is capable of doing the job we asked it to. But, even more important than the research to make sure the product work, is the sacred trust the service members have in their Government to take care of them.

One only has to look at the fallout of such issues as the use of Agent Orange without proper precautions to realize how vital this ban is, until the civilian companies equipment is proven to be effective. It may even come to pass that the civilian items of a particular manufacturer are better than the stock items, which will then get that manufacturer on the list to buy from at the Federal Government level. Back in the late 80s, my Commodore went from his staff job to being the assistant to N6 (the office in charge of all the Navy’s computers. Wes Jordan was instumental in running tests that showed that the extra cost of verifying Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) computers was a waste of the taxpayers money. I saw a video tape that was done where they put an HP-9020 computer and monitor in a 19″ rackmount and proceeded to run the Grade A shock test (considered a replication of the force of a nuclear blast), with a modification. They raised the hammer to it’s maximum height, not just (I think) 8 feet high. On the 20th drop of the hammer, the monitor flicked off and the equipment, which had already exceeded qualification for Grade A worthiness (I think it was three drops to qualify – and from 8 feet, not higher), appeared to have been bested. Upon examination, the power switch for the monitor had been damaged, and upon replacement, the unit came up and the computer display was still there. THE HP-9020 itself took the licking and kept on ticking.

The analysis was that even commerical clients were demanding computers and peripherials to be built to survive some rough handling, and HP, for one, was putting a product off the end of the assembly line that met MILSPEC standards, without each unit having to receive extra testing. Net result: We (the Fleet) got good COTS stuff for use in all sorts of tactical applications and the taxpayers reaped the benefits in big dollar numbers. The boost in our ability to detect and identify hostile targets, and then engage them with confidence in our targeting, was dematically changed, as our detect to engage times went from hours to minutes in one particular system I directly worked with.

With luck, our groud troops will be benefactors of such an investigation, and we, as taxpayers will also see savings.