Just Call it ‘Can-Do Kung Fu’
March 31st, 2010 | Navy NECC Seabees The greenside The Middle East | Posted by Lance Bacon
Seabees assigned to NMCB 74 participate in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. (Photo by MC2 Michael Lindsey)
The Seabees of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74 can really pack a punch.
When they catch a break from ops in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan, they focus on hand-to-hand and close-quarters combat techniques taught in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program.
Two Seabees endured three months of gruelling, accelerated training to become instructors. One is EA2 Erik Kennerson, who wants to award at least 18 tan belts before rotating this summer. You can read about their efforts here.
The tan belt requires two hours of training a day, four days a week. Students learn punches, throws, chokes, weapons of opportunity and knife /bayonet techniques.
So you better think twice before you try to take that bulldozer for a joyride.
Solution to the smoking ban?
March 31st, 2010 | Life at Sea Morale Navy Submarines | Posted by Lance Bacon
Fewer than 24 hours after Navy Times broke the news that a smoking ban on submarines is in the works, folks in the smokeless tobacco industry have fired up the marketing machines.
First out of the gate is Smokefree Innotec, Inc., which provides “smokefree alternatives.” Its press release offers “the world’s first totally smokefree hi-tec cigarette.” And they aren’t just blowing smoke. This cigarette-like nicotine delivery device contains the nicotine and aroma equivalent to one regular cigarette.
The company hopes its product will keep the smoking lamp lit (but smokeless) for the foreseeable future. And with good reason. The military sold $611 million worth of tobacco in 2005 alone.
A day aboard Truman — departure
March 30th, 2010 | Carriers Life at Sea Maritime operations Navy Personnel | Posted by Lance Bacon
Scoop Deck blogger Lance M. Bacon just completed a 24-hour embark aboard the carrier Harry S Truman. This is the play-by-play.
Brown shirts and officers from the HS-7 Dusty Dogs prepare their Seahawks for service in anticipation of a busy day. (Photos by Lance M. Bacon)
0830
Scoop Deck is hanging out on Vulture’s Row, watching the crew ramp up for the day’s business before we catch the COD. Though we’ve spent only a few short hours with this crew, it is not hard to understand why they are back-to-back Battle E winners.
These sailors and officers will soon cover more than 40,000 nautical miles as they head to Fifth Fleet for combat operations. There’s no way of knowing what’s in store. But the last time Truman sailed the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf, it launched and recovered more than 15,300 fixed and rotary wing aircraft. Carrier Air Wing 3 flew more than 26,500 hours during 9,500 sorties, 2,459 of which were combat sorties. The air wing flew nearly 14,000 combat hours and expended 77,500 pounds of ordnance.
The crew expects more of the same, and expects to return somewhere around the 10th anniversary of the ships’ maiden deployment
Until then, fair winds and following seas …
A day aboard Truman — the Skipper
March 30th, 2010 | Aviation Carriers Chow leadership Life at Sea Maritime operations Navy Officers | Posted by Lance Bacon
Scoop Deck blogger Lance M. Bacon just completed a 24-hour embark aboard the carrier Harry S Truman. This is the play-by-play.
0600
Reveille, reveille! All hands heave out and trice up. Reveille!
Truman’s 65-ton rudders are cutting through some choppier waters. It makes for a gentle rocking motion that invites one to remain in the rack. But Scoop Deck has claimed one of the 18,150 meals that will be prepared aboard Truman today, and we plan to enjoy it on the enlisted mess decks. There’s no way we’re going to miss that.
Capt. Joe Clarkson has been at Truman’s helm since February 2009. He has has more than 3,000 hours in the A-7E Corsair, the Hornet and the Super Hornet. (Photo by Lance M. Bacon)
0730
Imagine being an NFL coach who has a team at the top of its game. It clinches a playoff spot early, only to be told to pause for six months. Then, when play resumes, the team has lost 25 percent of its All-Pro starters.
Capt. Joe Clarkson, Truman’s skipper, knows all too well how that feels.
A day aboard Truman — Lights Out
March 30th, 2010 | Aviation Carriers Life at Sea Maritime operations Navy | Posted by Lance Bacon
Scoop Deck blogger Lance M. Bacon just completed a 24-hour embark aboard the carrier Harry S Truman. This is the play-by-play.
2200
“Taps! Taps! Lights out! All hands return to their racks and maintain silence about the decks. Taps.”
Scoop Deck makes one more trip to Pri Fly to see how the evening’s quals are going. So far, so good. Tonight, the pilots will wrap up two days of carrier landings. Tomorrow, they will shift into cyclic flight operations, which are mission oriented.
We’re about 50 miles east southeast of the Outer Banks. As such, the fighters will take advantage of the target ranges at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C. They will conduct some bombing runs and close-air support. “That’s important because that’s a lot of what’s going on in Afghanistan,” said Capt. Joe Clarkson, Truman’s skipper.
2300
Scoop Deck has retired to the “St. Louis” stateroom to get a little work done. Just a few feet above me is the jet blast deflector of Catapult 1. The rack rumbles as one Hornet after the next throttles to full power. Suddenly, the catapult accelerates the aircraft from 0 to 185 mph in under two seconds. Each launch concludes with a jarring thud as the shuttle’s spear-tipped piston plunges into a water brake at the end of is its 300-foot shot, and the jet launches off the bow of the ship. Moments later, the next contestant takes position.
This is scheduled to continue well past 0100 – and Scoop Deck couldn’t be happier.
A day aboard Truman — Biggest Losers
March 30th, 2010 | Carriers Life at Sea Morale Navy Personnel | Posted by Lance Bacon
Scoop Deck blogger Lance M. Bacon just completed a 24-hour embark aboard the carrier Harry S Truman. This is the play-by-play.
2130
Walking through Truman’s passageways, it’s not hard to see that today’s Navy is fit. The hanger bay’s dozen treadmills are in constant use. The “seaside gym” has a dozen other machines in near-constant motion.
In the medical department, the ship’s physical therapist combined the push for fitness with a cultural hit and challenged the sailors to be Truman’s “Biggest Loser.”
Cmdr. Denise Milton launched the program Dec. 5 – just in time for the holiday crunch. It started with 115 sailors, and 22 made it all the way through. This was no crash course in dieting – the goal was healthy weight loss. Participants were required to keep a daily log of exercise and intake, and could not miss more than two weigh-ins.
The winners were Lt. Cmdr. Mark Garrigus for the men, who lost 4.1 percent of his body weight, and ET2 Olga Seoanes for the women, who lost 2.9 percent of her body weight. Other sailors lost more weight, but didn’t do all the required tasks. As such, they were not eligible for the grand prize: A stay at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott.
But as an added measure, the ship’s XO said he would give a 72-hour liberty to any sailor who lost a higher percentage of body weight than him. Capt. Meier lost 3 percent, and five sailors exceeded his mark.
A day aboard Truman — the XO
March 30th, 2010 | Aviation Carriers leadership Life at Sea Navy Officers Personnel The deckplates | Posted by Lance Bacon
Scoop Deck blogger Lance M. Bacon just completed a 24-hour embark aboard the carrier Harry S Truman. This is the play-by-play.
Truman’s XO knows it’s the sailors who make the difference, and he has some strong initiatives to take care of them, their families and their Navy. (Photo by Lance M. Bacon)
2030
Fresh out of the metal shop, we sat down for a one-on-one with the XO, Capt. John “Oscar” Meier. Most of our discussion will be used in a forthcoming story, so keep an eye on Navy Times. But Scoop Deck can tell you this: Meier is someone who will go the distance to protect his sailors and protect his Navy.
We’re exactly like every other Nimitz-class carrier. We’re 95,000 tons of steel, technology, two nuclear reactors – the only thing that makes this carrier a Battle E-winning carrier is the crew and the leadership on this ship.”
He along with the skipper have some pretty strong initiatives in place, from family readiness to curbing alcohol abuse to overcoming the transfer of one-third of the qualified crew when Big E pushed the fall deployment back by six months.
Don’t be surprised if you see Meier get command of his own flat top in the near future.
A day aboard Truman — Unsung Heroes
March 30th, 2010 | Aviation Carriers leadership Life at Sea Maritime operations Morale Navy Shore duty The deckplates | Posted by Lance Bacon
Scoop Deck blogger Lance M. Bacon just completed a 24-hour embark aboard the carrier Harry S Truman. This is the play-by-play.
1800
Scoop Deck has laid down the challenge. We have a couple of open hours, and we want to spend them with some deck plate leaders, some sailors who are never in the spotlight and some petty officers who are making a big difference.
MC1 (SW/AW) Denise Davis of the public affairs office answered that challenge well.
A warbird materializes in the Conch Republic
March 30th, 2010 | Life at Sea Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
Deactivate cloaking device: The littoral combat ship Independence is moored in Key West for a stop on its way to Norfolk, Va. // NAC2 Nicholas Kontodiakos / Navy
KEY WEST, FLA. — By every outward sign, it’s just another bustling afternoon along Duval Street here on this coral outpost in the wilderness of turquoise. A man who tried, and failed, to become Robert Plant 15 years ago is singing 80′s ballads at Sloppy Joe’s; the middle-schoolers are filing into Ernest Hemingway’s house up on Whitehead and asking to be reminded who he was; and the your-name-on-a-shell-inscription industry, by all appearances, is booming. There is one thing out of the ordinary, however — the alien bird-of-prey docked down on a long pier known as the Outer Mole.
The cabdrivers know about it. You can’t go far along the main drag without seeing a newsstand on which the Key West Citizen features an enormous bow-on shot of it, with the headline: “It may look NASA, but it’s Navy.” It’s the littoral combat ship Independence, and it definitely does look extraterrestrial compared to the ordinary fauna in these waters: glass-bottomed boats and boxy white cruise ships and the day-trampers bound for the Dry Tortugas.
Surface Forces commander Vice Adm. D.C. Curtis has called it a “Klingon warbird,” the warship of choice for the bad guys-turned good guys in the “Star Trek” franchise. Key West Citizen reporter Timothy O’Hara said it arrived “looking more like an imperial battleship from ‘Star Wars’ than a traditional naval vessel” — although we know what he meant was Imperial Star Destroyer. The only problem for locals is that Independence isn’t open for tours on this stop in its trip up to Naval Station Norfolk, Va., so Key Westians can only try to steal looks at the ship and hope it doesn’t open up with its death ray.
You, however — Scoop Deck’s legions of international readers — will be going aboard, and you’ll be getting a first-hand look at the workings of the Navy’s $711 million, all-aluminum trimaran through the magic of the blogular arts. You’ll also be able to read all about the lives of Independence’s crew in coming issues of Navy Times. Keep watching the skies… so to speak.
A day aboard Truman — Pri Fly
March 30th, 2010 | Aviation Carriers Maritime operations Navy Officers Ships | Posted by Lance Bacon
Scoop Deck blogger Lance M. Bacon just completed a 24-hour embark aboard the carrier Harry S Truman. This is the play-by-play.
Cmdr. William Bulis is Truman’s new Air Boss. He’s the one who keeps the chaos under control. (Photo by Lance M. Bacon)
1715
We’re one deck above the bridge, and six stories above the flight deck, in a tight space called “Pri Fly” (short for Primary Flight Control). This is the nerve center for flight ops on the carrier. From his chair the Air Boss, Cmdr. William Bulis, controls the launches, landings and patterns of aircraft flying near the ship. He also controls all movements on the flight deck, which remains one of the most dangerous places on earth.
A host of commanders are hovering inside Pri Fly. Some are ensuring their guys get squeezed in the rotation. Others are checking the qualification status of their pilots. The Air Boss, who is fairly new to the crew, is taking their requests in stride and making this look easy. So easy, in fact, that he is giving Scoop Deck a crash course (no pun intended) with every spare 30 seconds that he can find in the cycle.