Paint your own cammies
September 21st, 2009 | Life at Sea Uniforms | Posted by Andrew Scutro
A sailor with paint-spattered coveralls (right) compares his trousers to the new Navy Working Uniform. //Photo by Sheila Vemmer, Navy Times
Check out this photo taken aboard the cruiser Anzio in the Middle East. Good to know that if you can’t afford the new Navy Working Uniform (which was designed to hide grease and paint), a bucket of paint and a set of blue coveralls will do the trick.
So wait … the Navy spent $226 million to field a new uniform, just to have it look like another uniform it wants to hide?
The first of many videos from 5th Fleet
September 14th, 2009 | Life at Sea Pirates The Middle East | Posted by Andrew Scutro
Scoop Deck recently returned from a month in the 5th Fleet area. We were lucky enough to ride the Norfolk-based cruiser Anzio from the pier in Bahrain to the counterpiracy patrol area off the coast of Somalia. Check out this video from Anzio as the ship finished its transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
Gas with cookies (updated)
September 11th, 2009 | Life at Sea Military Sealift Command | Posted by Andrew Scutro
The cruiser Anzio tops off its fuel loads courtesy of the fleet oiler John Lenthall on Aug. 18 off the coast of Somalia.// Sheila Vemmer/ Staff
The cruiser Anzio was clearly not the first replenishment at sea for the fleet oiler John Lenthall, seen here off the coast of Somalia. Quite a few ships have met up with Lenthall for a rendezvous before.
Observing a ship's tradition, Anzio tied a bag of cookies to the nozzle for the Lenthall crew.// Sheila Vemmer/ Staff
The crew of the Anzio however, had the decency when it was over to tie a bag of fresh chocolate chip cookies to the nozzle which the Lenthall crew could retrieve and enjoy after the ships parted ways.
The view from the bow
September 2nd, 2009 | Carriers The Middle East | Posted by Andrew Scutro
It's hard to tell from this photo, but it was was incredibly hot Aug. 9 aboard the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan. // Sheila Vemmer/ Staff
After entering the Persian Gulf aboard the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, the ship passed several dhows nearby and was followed by a speedboat that kept up for quite some time. Among the crew watching the watchers was this sailor, positioned in the bow, just off the flight deck.
Smugglers!
September 2nd, 2009 | Life at Sea The Middle East | Posted by Andrew Scutro
Smugglers sped with their illicit cargoes across the Strait of Hormuz // Sheila Vemmer/ Staff
Scoop Deck was lucky enough recently to do a daylight transit through the Strait of Hormuz, out of the Persian Gulf, aboard the Norfolk-based cruiser Anzio. While passing islands off to the Oman side, these smugglers dashed toward Iran. They were really moving fast and went across the bow to avoid the big warship’s wake. Speculation on the bridge was they were hauling booze and cigarettes.
A horse sailor
September 2nd, 2009 | individual augmentees The Middle East Uniforms | Posted by Andrew Scutro
Navy leadership says IA tours will be a fact of life for some time, even with the expected withdrawal of forces from Iraq.//Photo by Sheila Vemmer/ Staff
Here’s one that might throw you off. From a distance you’d think “soldier,” but in fact Scoop Deck found this sailor in Kuwait turning in gear after an individual augmentee assignment with the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division.
According to the latest information from 5th Fleet, there are 4,950 IAs throughout the Central Command area.
Make it Pop-Tarts and khat for Somali pirates
August 25th, 2009 | Pirates | Posted by Andrew Scutro
According to a Somali-born linguist, ship hijackers here are perpetually stoned and not too bright yet rich and popular in the small towns and villages. Flush with ransom money, they have their pick of women despite existing local ties.//Photo via ethiopianreview.com
ABOARD THE CRUISER ANZIO OFF SOMALIA — It’s always a good idea to know some of the local language and culture, no matter what or where. In recent years U.S. forces have had to rely on native speakers in Iraq, Afghanistan and on missions like this one off the Horn of Africa.
A Somali-born linguist (he requests anonymity for protection) has come aboard as Anzio steps up its counterpiracy mission. He shared a few relevant Somali terms:
pirate: burcad badeed (thugs of the sea)
folding stock AK-47: dabalabab
RPG: bazooka
automatic rifle: faal (German-made G3 specifically)
coalition sailors: cridank-bada (soldiers of the sea)
ransom: “There is no word. This is new to us.”
He has nothing but contempt for ship hijackers. “Some of them wouldn’t know the difference between a warship and an oiler. That’s how dumb they are,” he said. “They have money and the small towns and villages welcome them. Everybody helps them. They’ve got multiple wives. The youngest most beautiful girls, they will select them.”
The sudden influx of loaded thugs does not bode well for local suitors. “If she is waiting for a poor boy from the next village, and there’s a pirate, that love is broken.”
The ship hijackers are also boozers with an overpowering taste for the leaf-borne stimulant khat that’s popular in the region. “If they run out they’ll go back . They are under the influence always. Not just khat,” he said. “Some of them are drunk.”
As for chow? “You can’t cook on a skiff, man. But they love Pop-Tarts. They [stick them together and] eat them like a sandwich.”
Somalis point to years of rampant factory fishing off their shores as the genesis of today’s situation but the linguist isn’t the only one with contempt for ship hijackers. The Islamic militants Al-Shabaab operating around Mogadishu will cut off a poor man’s hand for stealing bread and have no tolerance for stealing ships, he said, “Al-Shabaab are bad ass.”
‘Stand and Fight’
August 25th, 2009 | Historical The Middle East | Posted by Andrew Scutro
Navy
ABOARD THE CRUISER ANZIO OFF SOMALIA — We set out from Bahrain on Aug. 16, embarked on this, the flagship for counterpiracy Task Force 151. With extra staff and special personnel, just about every rack is taken, to the point where the junior officers are living in forward ops berthing, former lair of the boatswain’s mates. Two female hospital corpsmen from an embarked surgical team got the medical department racks. This ship does not have the female berthing modification, so there are no enlisted women in ship’s company.
The task force staff is combined with British Royal Navy officers and sailors. There’s also a Somali interpreter from the Midwest and a Coast Guard team from Galveston, Texas.
Military Times photographer Sheila Vemmer has been posting just a fraction of her photos here and here.
The ship is named for one of the most brutal battles of World War II and communications over the ship’s 1MC are often closed with the ship’s motto: Stand and Fight.
Terms like ”hero” and “warrior” and others too long to list here are thrown around with alarming disregard today. But the passageways of this ship are watched over by Medal of Honor recipients from the early 1944 showdown at Anzio. Their efforts, as the allies stood and fought ashore in Italy, were shockingly brave. If you need a reminder about that war, or the Americans who were thrown into it, look up the history of the battle and the MoH citations of men like Pfc. Alton W. Knappenberger, Capt. William W. Galt and 2nd Lt. Ernest H. Dervishian. There are 19 more names, several of them among the 7,000 allies killed in a few months there in 1944.
Life on an oil tanker: Pirates and hecklers
August 20th, 2009 | Life at Sea merchant ships Pirates | Posted by Andrew Scutro
Capt. Baig, of the oil tanker M.T. Dorado, said he has dealt with ship hijackers off Africa and radio hecklers at sea. //Sheila Vemmer, Navy Times
ABOARD AL BASRA OIL TERMINAL IN THE PERSIAN GULF — If there is one thing that really scares mariners these days, it’s the risk of hijackers off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden. For Capt. Baig, the Pakistani skipper of the 21-year-old Korean-built very large crude carrier M.T. Dorado, his list of responsibilities include the ship, its cargo, his crew and even protection of the marine environment. “Everything is connected to each other,” he said. His ship was tied up at ABOT filling up with oil before heading to offload it in India when he explained the modern dangers.
“Transiting Somalia is a big question now,” he said. “They have a mother ship.” If attacked, he said, “”We use the fire hose, some manuevering techniques and call coaliton forces.”
His chief officer, Sarvar Patankar, said seagoing colleagues stay up all night when passing the east coast of Africa for fear of hijacking. “My friends have been through it and they say it is really like hell.” An ominous poster in the passageway shows creepy seagoing bandits sliding onto the deck of a ship at night. It would give a child nightmares.
Mariners like Patankar and Baig contend with the same issues at sea that the U.S. Navy does, and in this area that includes the mythical radio heckler(s) known by the collective but derogatory handle, ”The Filipino Monkey.”
Baig said the verbal skirmishes last all night. “This part of the world, they still have a long way to go to be civilized. What is right is right. What is wrong is wrong.” He tells his crew to not get involved in the silly fracas. He tells them, “You are fighting on the VHF. There is no point. You don’t know who the man is.”
As captain, Baig has a four-month contract then gets to go home in Pakistan for a few months until he gets another ship. He has mixed feelings about being at sea. The pay is good. “But on the family life, everybody suffers, because our family life is disturbed. Attention from father, this we cannot give,” he said. “You don’t get everything you want, you know. You have to be lucky.”
Fried COD
August 13th, 2009 | Aviation Carriers The Middle East | Posted by Andrew Scutro
A C-2A Greyhound, commonly known as a COD, stops for gas at an airbase in the Middle East before proceeding to the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan.//Photo by Sheila Vemmer, Navy Times
Everybody who rides CODs (carrier on-board delivery) surely has a story. The rumpled DV kid who barfed, the two-hour orbit over the carrier, the guy who acted just like the annoying guy on a normal airplane who would not stop talking despite the industrial noise levels. Et cetera. Don’t get us wrong. CODs are deceptively cool aircraft for the reliablity and durability factors. We are grateful for the ride.
But on a recent flight in the Middle East several pax woke up from a woozy sleep with the sensation that their feet were on fire. Sure the plane was over the desert but far above the desert. The once cool breeze of air from overhead nozzles was replaced by pizza-oven levels of heat. No joke.
It turns out that a petite chief selectee passenger was seen shivering under the cool air the rest of the pax were enjoying, but rather than offer her an extra layer, we understand an aircrewman had the guys in the cockpit turn on the heat. Nice gesture. But my sneakers felt like they were melting.