Gassing in the night …

Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Billy Ho aboard the cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61) caught this scene of an SH-60 of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light (HSL) 48 about to lift off into an Arabian Gulf night on July 21, 2013.

One warm night while conducting exercises in the Caribbean Sea, USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) became involved in a Search and Rescue operation conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard. All these years later I remember only that a small boat was missing, and the Coasties had air and sea assets looking for it.

Our role in the operation was relatively small: first, while carrying on with our orders we used our eyes and electronic sensors to look for the boat, and secondly, as we were handily located in the middle of the action, Burke served as a gas station for those searching helicopters.

The Navy lost some money on that deal, I can tell you.

I just love her, sir.

For a while, officers departing USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) received a very special farewell gift from their peers in the wardroom. It was a coffee mug decorated with the ship’s crest and a photo of the Sailor who had been the departing officer’s biggest leadership challenge.

I never got one of the mugs because the practice of bestowing them died out as time passed after  commissioning and the ship’s operational tempo picked up. But I know which of my Sailors would be on the mug; in fact, I’d probably need a few mugs to cover them all.

One of my good friends on Arleigh Burke was the First Lieutenant, who was in charge of the Boatswain’s Mates of Deck Division. Deck was responsible for deck equipment, mooring lines and anchors, operating the ship’s small boast and upkeep of the ship’s exterior surfaces. That last part’s a fancy way of saying the Bosuns oversaw chipping and painting the weather decks — salt water and the metal surfaces of a ship don’t exactly get along so removing old paint and/or rust and applying a fresh coat of paint is a never-ending job. Never. Ending.

Sense, the Stones and Seger

I have a somewhat sketchy memory, which drives my wife in particular nuts. I can recall certain dates from history or who wrote and sang the theme song to “Welcome Back, Kotter” with no problem. But what she asked me to add to the grocery list this morning … ah, more eggs? Greek Yogurt? … Yeah, big problem.

I’m also simply terrible at remembering people’s names; the medical term is prosopagnosia, which is likely the only thing Brad Pitt and I have in common.

Interestingly enough, I also have a couple “sense triggers” in my memory banks. These are sounds or even smells which cause people to recall events or even other sounds or smells from their past. Like the smell of turkey reminding you of Thanksgiving at your Grandmother’s house. (Click here to read more about the link between the senses and memory).

Cold-blooded

A few days ago a friend I met playing Call of Duty: Black Ops online suggested I check out a video showing two U.S. Army Apache helicopters attacking a group of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan who, the video’s label tells us, were maneuvering to attack a U.S. Special Forces patrol.

The video, included below, doesn’t break any new ground for anyone who has seen this type of footage before, but all the same this particular entry in the canon of combat videography evoked a strong reaction from me.

There is an appropriate warning before getting to watch it, but the truth is the violence is detached, with an almost video-game like quality to it. The glowing white figures that represent the bad guys are recognizable as men — armed men, with rocket launchers and assault rifles — as are the unfortunate donkeys grazing around them, but there are no faces to look at or into, no blood to see.

At one point during the attack, one of the glowing white figures is prone on the ground, rolling back and forth and evidently injured. Meanwhile, above him, the crews of the helicopters calmly discuss repairs to a broken gun while one of the Apaches carefully maneuvers into position for another round of cannon fire. “Oh yeah, got him,” says the airborne American after white blooms of explosions finish off the man below.

It is that calm, dispassionate voice, discussing weapons status and relaying the information of the man’s violent death with the detachment of a casual comment on the weather, that cold-blooded voice that sent me back in time.

Reflections on “my war”

For a time, I thought of the 1990s conflict in the Balkans between the Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks as “my war.” Having recently read and reviewed Sean M. Chandler’s novel The Notice, a captivating look at the fear and violence from the inside, I remembered how much I thought that war might be the last great conflict my generation would see.

Foolish and naive of me, of course, but then who in the post-Desert Storm euphoria imagined 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq? Or for that matter, Rwanda, Kosovo, Chechnya, and Darfur?

I missed Desert Shield/Storm, sitting out the conflict in Maine as a member of the pre-commissioning crew USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51). At one point a call went out for volunteer supply officers to augment the logistics build-up and I eagerly sought the permission of my chain of command. The ship’s captain denied my request and I, like most everyone else, watched the war unfold on television.

The Secretary of the Navy takes pleasure in …

Rummaging through the closet the other day, I came across a brown padded envelope that emitted a small tinkling sound when picked up. Inside were my large medals, mounted and ready to be worn on an appropriate ceremonial uniform. The medals were not up-to-date; there is some expense involved with getting medals mounted so I did not bother having them redone every time a new one was added.

Ribbons representing the medals, as well as those of awards which only come with ribbons, are worn on service dress and daily uniforms, but not on working uniforms. Perhaps the first thing any officer or Sailor does when meeting another for the first time is to glance at their ribbons; much can be learned about where the other person has been and what level of performance they accomplished.

In 1984 as a second class petty officer, I encountered U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant General Alfred M. Gray, who would go on to earn a fourth star and serve as Commandant of the Marine Corps a few years later. General Gray’s ribbon “rack” extended from the top of the pocket on his starched class C shirt to the top of his shoulder; I’m not sure I ever saw that many ribbons on another individual.

When Pie and Fuel Oil Don’t Mix

One of my favorite Navy memories involves a cherry pie and an Italian oil tanker. It happened while I was the Supply Officer of USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) during an underway replenishment or UNREP, in the Adriatic Sea.

Much of my time in the Navy was spent doing paperwork;  I enlisted as a Yeoman, the Navy’s version of an administrative assistant, and later was commissioned into the Supply Corps, the officer community that styled itself as the “Navy’s business managers.” As such, I always enjoyed the opportunity to do something real, like an UNREP. Regardless of the commodity being transferred from one ship to another — people, fuel, stores, food or ammunition — I got a kick out of watching it unfold.

As an enlisted sailor my UNREP stations included being a phone talker on a sound-powered circuit linking various stations like the bridge and engineering, and being a line-handler. When I was a division officer, I served as the safety observer on a fueling rig; moving up to department head meant I spent UNREPs observing from the bridge wing with the commanding officer.

“There was this one time …”

All war stories are true, even the ones that are not. That’s the premise — greatly boiled down — of award-winning author and Vietnam veteran Tim O’Brien in The Things They Carried. Never read it? You should, along with Dispatches by Michael Herr, A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo and A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan. I highly recommend all of them.

Sea stories are a lot like O’Brien’s war stories. Many are probably true, even the ones that aren’t, and every Sailor with more than a month of service can tell a few — some that are their own experiences and some that aren’t.

Usually sea stories are told to make the teller seem smart, funny or squared-away, and that’s where they often stray from truthfulness. Dialogue is added, people who really weren’t there are suddenly part of the story, and events change or are added from other stories to serve the greater purpose.

Sea Story: Unexpected Passengers in the Med

Deployment is the high point in the operational cycle of a U.S. Navy ship. All of the training, inspections, exercises, load-outs and maintenance periods are over. Deployment, with port visits to exotic foreign cities, is the reward for all that hard work and preparation.

Even so, the daily routine for most Sailors is no different on deployment. The same watches must be stood and the same jobs accomplished whether in engine rooms, Combat Information Center, bridge or galley.

But everyone is aware that the ship is now taking part in what the Navy likes to call “real world” operations, and could be called into action in support of national policy.

Sea Story: The Sinking of the ex-USCGC Evergreen

With the late-November pre-deployment fleet exercise completed, the ships of the carrier battle group scattered to enjoy a round of port visits at various sites around the Caribbean.

Most of the ships, that is.

Instead of heading to San Juan, Puerto Rico, as planned, USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51) was given a new assignment: to sink the target hulk which had stubbornly refused to go down despite being repeatedly bombed by the carrier’s air wing and hit by 5-inch shells from several surface ships.