Orange and Maroon Effect Day

But it wasn’t. In a microcosm, it is a lesson about history. In a bigger sense, a scenario to consider thoughtfully.

4/16/2007:
“Dad, he’s alright. Have you seen the news?”
“No, but that’s good to know.”

Later, same day:
“We’re [the four roommates] all fine. XXXX got stuck in the lock down for two hours, but he’s here now. Everyone we know is OK.”

4/18/2007:
“How was the service?”
“It was wonderful and so full we ended up in the football stadium and the entire place was on their feet and chanting at the end.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s doing OK. He skipped his class that morning, but his friend went. The class was in the building next to where the shootings were and they are sure they saw him [Cho] walking around in there before it happened.”

The history? Well, you aren’t able to analyze it instantly. With time comes more information, in this case, a chill up the spine moment is revealed, for my son’s sake and those of the students in the business classes one building from the horrible event.

The post deployment “stand down” was truncated because the ship with the commitment couldn’t sail.

Getting a vessel to see is not like taking your 26′ boat out for a spin. Yes, the trailering and jockeying for a position at the boat ramp is exasperating, but no where near the level of effort to get out to a multi-ship exercise.

Communications plans are needed, the Engineer has to make sure he has fuel and water and other valuable consumables, such as lube oil. The 1st LT makes sure all the topside equipment is ready for use and loose gear stowed. The Combat Systems Officer makes sure his crew has sufficient munitions for the events scheduled, and any mandated operational loads. The Navigator has to pre-plan the transit from the pier to the sea buoy, and then to the rendezvous point, carefully checking the safe passage planned and setting a time frame to request the tugs and harbor pilot, so you can arrive at the exercise area as planned. Never late. It’s walking the dog back to make sure you’ll make it and not exceed any defined “speed limits” for transits that are in place for overall fuel economy. The quartermasters double check the work of the Navigator and also make sure the latest corrections for the nautical charts have been marked onto the charts to indicate missing navigational aids, dredging operations and other changes worth paying attention to. The Combat Information Center (CIC) gang has lots of work to make sure they know the schedule of events for the transit and exercises, the designated operations areas and the restrictions that may apply to those areas. On top of that, if any shore based services are required, they need to draft and send coordinating messages to other units to make sure what’s needed is there.

The general process when I was in for the post-deployment stand down was for 1/2 of the crew to go on leave the first 15 days and then the second half was off the last 15 days, then you came back and got back into the swing of things.

In this case, the “get back into the swing of things” happened during the time people were on leave, so it was people shouldering the extra work for those gone, or some coming back early or on some days off, in order to be ready.

This was not just any ship. It was one with 6 months of Earnest Will convoy escorting work. As the second senior command in the Persian Gulf at sea, this ship was regularly assigned the duty of Convoy Commander for oil tankers going one direction, while the Destroyer Squadron Commodore, the ranking commander, was Convoy Commander for a group of vessels going the other direction. The ship had all of it’s duty, plus the duty to manage a herd of merchant vessels, keeping them from harm, while keeping in contact with higher authority, and directly managing the other “assets” in the region to assist. The DESRON Commander had his assigned staff, but then the ship they were riding was left to just perform their duties, and not those responsibilities of commanding a convoy.

The net result of this extra effort for the ship will come to factor into their operations later.

Tracked back @: Yankee Sailor, Third World County

Another email regarding the VT tragedy:

From the President of the Loudoun County, VA chapter of the VT Alumni Association, who received it from headquarters of the Alumni Association.

“Virginia Tech family members across the country have united to declare this Friday, April 20th, an ‘Orange and Maroon Effect’ day to honor those killed in the tragic events on campus Monday, and to show support for Virginia Tech students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, and friends. ‘Orange and Maroon Effect’ was born several years ago as an invitation to Tech fans to wear orange and maroon to Virginia Tech athletic events. We invite everyone from all over the country to be a part of the Virginia Tech family this Friday, to wear orange and maroon to support the families of those who were lost, and to support the school and community we all love so much.”

They had returned from their maiden cruise on the 22nd of March, 1998. The first operational deployment now in the past, but they had done the mission the class had been built for: Convoy escort.

Home and enjoying some leave after the 6 months in the Persian Gulf, the tasker arrived in mid April, ordering them to sea on the 31st day after they had returned. The 30 day post-deployment leave and stand down, while by the numbers looked good, was not that, as gearing up to head to sea for fleet operations is not a small undertaking, and not easily handled by half the crew. Some ship, that had been stateside was unable to meet her commitment and this ship was to stand in as the escort for the USS JOHN F KENNEDY (CV-67) as she conducted anti-submarine training off the East Coast.

More to follow, as a tale is to be told of three naval combatants, and the intersection of their crews, is a story sparsely told. I will provide what I can to fill out the details of what happened.

Return often for the next few days, as the posts will provide the background to the setting.

Part II

Tracked back @: Yankee Sailor

Received via email:

Our last speaker was Nikki Giovanni, a huge poet at our school and she said what the hokie nation needed to hear. Also they have this on our website.

“We are Virginia Tech.

“We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

“We are Virginia Tech.

“We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

“We are Virginia Tech.

“We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

“We are Virginia Tech.

“The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

“We are the Hokies.

“We will prevail.

“We will prevail.

“We will prevail.

“We are Virginia Tech.”

It reminds me of another school that suffered a large loss of their classmates and staff. I reviewed the movie “We Are Marshall” earlier. I can pray the VT family will use the example of Marshall to lead them forward.

Tracked back @: Yankee Sailor

Today is “Pork Chops” for lunch and Sea Stories. Oh, post your trackbacks here. Not at Yankee Sailor…You guys are overloading his blog.

So, there are “pork chops” and plain ol’ “chops” and sometime just “lamb chops.”I spent 9 months in Newport getting my “PME” (Professional Military Education), courtesy of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, passed in 1986. One of my fellow students was a Supply Officer named Diane. She was pretty bright and we both were headed to Charleston after our school. I promised I’d give her a tour of the frigate, as she was going to the USS SIERRA (AD-18), which was, despite it’s important mission, not very “warlike.”

My two “chops,” LT Wayne Aiken and the “lamb chop,” LTJG Reich, were both excellent officers and the type of chops who knew their only reason for being was to keep us in parts and groceries. They were good at it and also good to the Supply Corps Manuals, so they kept us straight. They lacked one thing to “round them out,” that being the newly approved warfare “pin” for their staff corps community, the Surface Warfare Supply Corps Officer (“SWSCO” – called “swiss-co”).

I regularly asked the two men how far along they were in their completion of their qualifications. The “regularly” given answer was “XO, we’re too busy for that!”

Then, when I had been aboard for the better part of a year, Diane finally called to take me up on my offer of the tour of the ship. I obliged, seeing the opportunity. The day she was to come over and have lunch and then get her tour was when the Captain was on leave. That day at lunch, I sat at the head of the table, with my guest, the LCDR Supply Officer from the destroyer tender, sitting next to me, while the two supply officers sat at the other end of the all too short table for this day, as Diane had completed her qualifications, and was wearing her SWSCO pin on her working uniform. I certainly made a point of complimenting her on her accomplishment and noted how I believed it would be a big plus for her career, while Wayne and Jim sat quietly eating. They did, however, renew their interest in making progress towards getting their SWSCO done after that day.

Well, maybe you had to be there, back in the day of male dominated combatant wardrooms, to fully appreciate the foil I was using that day.

Tracked back @: Yankee Sailor

Keep Cash is a daily compilation of deals around the net. Not just for computer stuff, but there’s plenty of that there, too!

A day of blog silence is planned as a memorial for the Virginia Tech shootings on 30 April, 2007.

Click the picture to get to the blog established.

I posted a few days ago about the Navy Together We Served portal and mentioned there was a Marine version that had led the way.

Since that post, my site meter is full of hits with the search words for TWS, and many of them “modified” to include “Army” or “Air Force,” so I sent an email to the N-TWS admin address saying there seemed to be a lot of activity. The response is that they are working the Air Force Together We Served site now, and there will be an Army Together We Served site following that.

So, be patient! Your time is near, non-sea service personnel!

Update 4/21/2007: The Admin at TWS says the set up for the sites for the USAF and Army will take time to get the databases together. Yep, that sounds right, but says the sites should be up this year. He said they would be getting the addresses to the sites up soon, at least with a banner to welcome you and let you know those other two services will be around.

Keep checking for an airforce.togetherweserved.com and army.togetherweserved.com to arrive on the net!

In researching a little bit of info today for a post, I bumped across the WikiProject Military History page. It seems the Wiki community recognizes there is lots of open ground here and are asking for inputs. Maybe you MilBloggers (or soon to be MilBloggers) have some things to contribute, so that there is some online content from fthe first person perspective, without having to write and publish your own book!

It looks like 600+ people are actively working the project now, with a list of inactive members, too.

Hey! Go for it!

Tracked back @: < ahref="http://www.yankeesailor.us">Ynakee Sailor