Shellback ceremony, circa 2012
May 18th, 2012 | Life at Sea Marine Corps Morale Navy Traditions | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
Their ship’s maiden deployment now on the homestretch to San Diego, Calif., after duty in the 5th Fleet region, the crew aboard amphibious assault ship Makin Island took a little time to mark that long-held seagoing tradition of crossing the equator, the Shellback Ceremony.
No, it’s not exactly the casting call for the next sequel to “Pirates of the Caribbean.” But from the looks of these photos, a little fun was had by the pollywogs, even the “Boss Wog.” Not as crazy as those ceremonies of years gone by, for sure, but for the sailors aboard the ship, it gives them a chance to join in the organized ritual of lighthearted shaming and teasing and provides a much sought-out break from the constant of operations at sea.
The crew of the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, which also is making its way home to San Diego, recently shared in their own fun, as you can see from photos posted in April on this online “gCaptain” blog. More are posted on Vinson’s Facebook page.
King Neptune and his court. (Navy photos on Makin Islands' Facebook page)
You want to see how the Marines, embarked on Makin Island with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, officially marked the occasion of crossing the equator? See here and here. Well, at least there’s minimal cleanup required.
A tale of two ships
May 18th, 2012 | 3rd Fleet 7th Fleet Life at Sea Maintenance Navy Ships | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
Amphibious assault ship Essex approaches its pier May 17 at San Diego Naval Base, with Peleliu berthed nearby. (Gidget Fuentes/staff) Below, sailors with Bonhomme Richard join in command exercise May 8 in Sasebo, Japan. (Navy photo by MC2 William T. Jenkins)
Let’s face it: Once you step into a new car – or even a previously-owned vehicle, as used-car dealers say – it’s just not exciting to drive older wheels. Classic rebuilt cars, the exception of course. Trading down just isn’t fun.
So we can feel for the sailors and officers of amphibious assault ship Essex, who this spring took the Wasp-class big-deck Bonhomme Richard from their home in San Diego, Calif., and swapped hulls in Japan, where they exchanged ships and even the official Facebook pages with their Sasebo-based counterparts in the Navy’s latest scheduled hull swap. The San Diego-based crew returned to California May 17 aboard Essex, while the Sasebo crew took ownership of Bonhomme Richard and prepared for upcoming patrols in 7th Fleet. Essex arrived on time, but not before colliding with the oiler Yukon as the ship prepared to take on fuel. Repairs, as well as the investigation, are underway.
The BHR, as some call it, last year completed a major overhaul, a shipyard drydock period that included upgrades to berthing areas, new advanced controls for its boilers and some reworking to accommodate the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft the Marine Corps plans to base in Japan.
Essex, meanwhile, has spent the past 12 years in Japan, where duty with 7th Fleet means shorter, but more frequent, deployments than stateside ships usually have – but without the significant shipyard maintenance periods where crews and workers can really spend time and get their hands and eyes on the ship and its innards. Recent years have seen maintenance problems cropping up even as the ship has gotten underway for patrols in the region, and Essex isn’t alone in the aging fleet in suffering from fewer maintenance dollars and high operational tempo.
The Navy decided to send one of its most updated Gators, the BHR, to replace it in Japan, and give the 21-year-old Essex its much-needed rest and repairs back in the states so the ship can continue to serve in San Diego and operate with 3rd Fleet. (The Navy also has little choice, considering the shrinking size of the overall fleet, including its amphibious Gator community that Marines rely on to get them where they need to go.)
But before that happens, Essex and its crew are slated to participate in the high-visibility “Rim of the Pacific” exercises off Hawaii this summer. Essex will be the big deck among 42 ships participating. After that, the crew will get the ship – and themselves – ready for the drydock phased maintenance availability expected to run 52 weeks. In a February interview, Capt. Chuck Litchfield, Essex’s skipper and former executive officer of BHR and, briefly, Essex, lauded the San Diego crew for the work getting Bonhomme Richard through a successful yard period and sea trials ahead of leaving for Japan, “and I expect to be successful again.” The past year was focused on preparing for the hull swap and crew taking on Essex, eyes wide open. “A new ship is something that you have to learn,” he said.
After delay, Mercy leaves fired up for a mission of help
May 4th, 2012 | Community relations Deployment Disaster response Medical Navy Pacific Partnership | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
With the “global force for good” in mind, some 400 military service members, many of them trained and skilled in the medical and health professions, boarded the hospital ship Mercy at San Diego Naval Base, Calif, on the morning of May 1 for a mission to Southeast Asia. Joining them that day were scores of civilians, volunteers of all ages from universities, nongovernmental organizations and charities who embarked on the ship for “Pacific Partnership 2012,” the seventh iteration of the U.S. Pacific Fleet’s humanitarian and civic action program that grew from the widespread disaster of the 2004 tsunami that struck South Asia. The atmosphere on the pier was one of excitement, as if a cruise ship was heading out to sea. In the coming week or two, nearly 1,000 will board the ship for missions in Indonesia, one of four countries Mercy will visit on this deployment, along with the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia.
Sailors manned the rails for the departure through San Diego Bay, a string of white uniforms interrupted by an occasional Air Force blue dress uniform or Army beret. But just as Mercy was preparing to leave her berth, and crews readied to lift the brow and toss the lines, trouble came with a faulty valve in the forward propulsion section. The crowd waited on the pier. It wasn’t long before the ship’s radar went still, and two super tugs waiting to nudge the former tanker-turned-hospital ship from the pier veered away and headed back to their berth nearby. It would be two days before Mercy, with repairs done, would get underway.
The hiccup probably did little to quash the excitement for the mission. “This does energize you,” said Command Master Chief (SW/FMF) Thomas Twigg, Mercy’s command master chief and a 21-year veteran. “Going to Vietnam is going to be a great opportunity, and the chance to visit some of the remote islands in Indonesia.” Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class (AW) Amirah Roman volunteered for the mission, a break from her regular duties at Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. She described herself as “a jack-of-all-trades corpsman,” and expects to dabble in everything from patient administration to patient care and medical education during the deployment. She’s been teaching herself a little Tagalog but can’t wait to see Cambodia. “It’s going to be amazing,” she said. “These are all new countries to me.”
Life on the 894-foot-long ship will have a different feel than her previous sea tour aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln. “It’s smaller but it’s more comfortable,” she said of the berthing spaces and lounges. “They’ve got a Fit Boss, and they even have a Fun Boss.” “It’s kind of like a cruise ship atmosphere,” she added. “You can go see things that you’ve never seen before.” There’s even a nutritionist aboard, she said. Actually, there may even be more than one. Deploying and joining her over the four months will be a wide range of health, medical, dental and even veterinarian experts with the Military Treatment Facility, along with engineers and scores of civilian volunteers, many who will go ashore for civic, humanitarian and disaster relief missions and training. Others will treat patients aboard the ship, which has up to 1,000 beds, vast medical and patient spaces including surgery, radiology and optometry lab. The ship produces its own water, even oxygen, and can hold up to 5,000 units of blood.
The $20 million humanitarian mission will start with Indonesia at the end of May, then onto the other countries for missions lasting two weeks each before the ship returns, probably sometime in September. The mission is about building relationships as much as mending broken bones, fixing teeth and teaching local providers and residents about good health, said Rear Adm. C. Forrest Faison III, who commands Navy Medicine West in San Diego. “We learned that from our experience in Indonesia,” after the 2004 earthquake and tsunami.
Nearly two dozen nongovernmental organizations, from Project Handclasp and World Vets to the University of California-San Diego Pre-Dental Society, will participate. “It’s an opportunity to serve our country in ways others can’t,” said retired Army Lt. Col. Mike Hughes, a physician’s assistant and LDS Charities volunteer who joined his wife Shari, a nurse and veteran of “PP 2010.” This larger presence of volunteers, many who will go ashore to work with military teams and train with local first-responders and NGOs, is noticeable on the ship, crewed by 70 civilian-mariners. “Our people brought a spirit to the ship,” said Dr. Irv Silverstein, the Dental Society’s director and advisor and veteran of previous Pacific Partnerships. “At first, there was a lot of skepticism. By having the civilian engagement concept, there’s less of a feeling that it was a military mission.” Cultural exchanges and training help as well. “It’s not us telling them how to do things,” he said. You can track PP ’12’s own blog here.
Hospital ship Mercy deployed Thursday from San Diego, bound for Southeast Asia and "Pacific Partnership" humanitarian and civic missions. (MC2 Eve-Maria Ramsaran/Navy)
Sleep deprived? Join the club
April 27th, 2012 | Health Life at Sea Navy Safety | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
Long, odd work schedules and cramped berthing don't make getting decent shut eye easy, as these sailors faced aboard the submarine Virginia. (Navy photo)
Apparently it’s not just the Navy that has a sleep problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 41 million American workers aren’t getting enough Zzzzs. That’s nearly one in three workers.
“Not surprisingly, workers who work the night shift are more likely to not get enough sleep,” according to Dr. Sara Luckhaupt of the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, who authored the study.
Those workers pulling more than 40 hours on the job each week also are more apt to get less sleep than what medical experts say is needed to stay alert, avoid fatigue and remain mentally sharp. The study found that four in 10 night shift workers say they don’t get enough sleep, but that’s not surprising of course.
Lack of sleep is linked to all sorts of ailments, including diabetes and obesity. Sleep deprivation, and the inherent problems that come from it, is disconcerting to Navy officials seeing the rising popularity of sleep aids to make up for the deficit in sleep and supplements like “go pills” to help keep someone awake. Navy safety officials told a Combat Operational Stress Conference audience in San Diego last year that fatigue was the culprit in 85 percent of mishaps caused by human error, and lack of decent sleep was the main driver.
The worst community at avoiding the issue? The surface fleet, despite various efforts to try different watch sections to try to curb fatigue and get more alert watchstanders. Long days at sea, prolonged flight operations, and nontraditional workdays can lead to more disrupted sleep and more fatigue. Eight hours of sleep? Mission impossible. Short naps instead? Not always seen as professional, although there’s growing research of its value in keeping folks alert. This 2006 thesis by a student at Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., found big benefits of naps at least 20 minutes long.
But the 24/7 demands of naval service mean the mission continues, regardless. Still, you wonder sometimes why being a sailor (and actually, any military service member) isn’t among the best jobs.
Swapping out in Sasebo
April 13th, 2012 | 7th Fleet Amphibious operations Navy The Pacific | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
Amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard stopped in Okinawa, Japan, en route to Sasebo, where the San Diego-based crew will swap hulls with Essex. (Navy photo by MC2 Adam M. Bennett)
Amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard arrived in Sasebo, Japan, on April 8 for the Navy’s planned “hull swap” this spring with its older sibling, Essex. The BHR, as many call it, left San Diego in February for the cross-Pacific trek, carrying utility craft and about 800 Marines headed to South Korea for bilateral training exercises. The ship stopped in Okinawa, Japan, before heading on course for Sasebo Naval Base, the forward-deployed homeport for 7th Fleet’s amphibious force. While in Sasebo, the San Diego sailors will train with their Essex counterparts before both ships’ skippers exchange command for the official swap and both crews settle into their new bunks aboard their “new” (or in the case of Essex, older) ship.
The San Diego crew will then bring Essex to California, where the 20-year-old ship is scheduled to enter a San Diego shipyard later this year for some needed repairs and in-depth maintenance expected to take a year. Meanwhile, the Sasebo crew will operate the BHR, which itself got spiffed up in a shipyard period that included some upgraded systems and equipment, in 7th Fleet’s busy area of operations. Navy officials expect the ship will serve 10 years in the region.
For Essex, the swap marks a return to its old homeport of San Diego. The big-deck ship had replaced the now-retired (and sunken) Belleau Wood in a swap in 2000, and for the past 11 years has operated in the Far East, deploying with Marines, training with allied navies and assisting with humanitarian aid and natural disaster missions. Last year, Essex and members of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit responded to the disaster in Japan after the devastating earthquake and tsunami.
Amphibious assault ship Essex pulls into Sasebo, Japan, in December following fall patrols in the western Pacific. (Navy photo by MCSA Mackenzie P. Adams)
Back to the Philippines?
April 13th, 2012 | 7th Fleet Joint operations Liberty Navy The Pacific | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
It’s getting more jittery in the Pacific.
Amphibious transport dock Denver pulls into Subic Bay, Philippines, on April 10 for liberty. (Navy photo by MCSN Raul Moreo Jr.)
North Korea’s failed launch of a missile April 12 gives them more drive to conduct their next nuclear underground test, if nothing but to show the world that its new leader, Kim Jong Un, is just as tough and threatening as his paternal predecessors, defense analysts say. All that missile rattling, along with China’s growing military might, has heightened insecurities in an already-tense Asia-Pacific. With the U.S. strategy now taking a keener eye on the Pacific, and the brass talking more about ramping up training and deployments around the region, some of the Navy’s old haunts might be open to seeing more sailors, and their warships, in their seaports. Like the Philippines.
It’s been nearly a generation since sailors and Marines lived, trained and played in the Southeast Asia island-nation. The planned U.S. pullout of forces, and the 1991 volcanic blast of Mount Pinatubo, hastened the exit and made more permanent the closure of Subic Bay Naval Base and other installations that housed American troops. Over the years, occasional natural-disaster contingency missions driven by Mother Nature sent U.S. forces to help, a routine bilateral joint training exercises like the annual “Balikatan” have allowed some U.S. troops to visit the country. Recent years have seen more Navy ships have pulled into its ports as sailors have helped in community relations projects. On April 10, sailors arrived in Manila aboard dock transport ship Denver, which is on spring patrol from its Sasebo, Japan, homeport with the Essex Amphibious Ready Group, as the U.S. Pacific Command prepared to kick off this year’s “Balikatan” exercises, which run through April 27.
U.S. and military officials have dismissed the idea of basing troops in the Philippines again, but they say they plan to expand military training and port visits to the country, a key U.S. ally and treaty partner. While some in the region grumble at the prospects of more American intervention, some locals in the Philippines are more welcoming. One Manila columnist observed: “Aside from the bar girls of Olongapo who pine for the return of American sailors, there are many anxious souls who also wish the U.S. Seventh Fleet were back in Subic in light of the Chinese bullying in the West Philippine Sea.”
It’s just a drill: USS Princeton target in mock attack
March 23rd, 2012 | Naval Base San Diego Navy Training | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
Buoyed by some Hollywood hype, the Navy’s weeklong large-scale training exercise “Solid Curtain/Citadel Shield” generated a bit more excitement today than the annual security drill tends to muster around the Navy town of San Diego.
Naval security boats gave chase to a motorboat with gun-toting men racing through San Diego Bay that came dangerously close to the cruiser Princeton as it headed out of the bay. The suspected “terrorists” tried to scuttle their boat along a beach at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, but a fiery explosion wounded two men as two others raced for cover in nearby buildings. It would be a few hours before Navy security forces finally caught the gunmen at the air station.
Smoke rises from a mock explosion during a security drill along San Diego Bay for the 2012 Solid Curtain/Citadel Shield exercises. (Navy photos by MCC David Rush)
Calm had returned by afternoon. But the realism of the exercises threw off morning walkers and commuters caught a little off guard by the explosions and crackle of gunfire courtesy of Strategic Operations. The San Diego-based tactical training contractor is run by Hollywood producer Stu Segall, and the company specializes in realistic training events that can often includes fiery blasts, real amputees and amplified sounds of battle.
“We had pyrotechnics. We had explosions. We had gunfire. We had corpses on the beach,” said Navy Region Southwest spokesman Brian O’Rourke. “It was great.”
A medic tends to a "casualty" during the "Solid Curtain/Citadel Shield" security exercise drill March 22 at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, Calif.
Clear morning weather drew a sizeable contingent of news reporters, including just about all but one local TV news station. The Hollywood effects, which Strategic Operations routinely incorporates into military combat and medical training it provides troops through military contracts, this year breathed life into the training exercise’s scripted play, which often can be slow and dull. The sounds and sights provided news cameras with almost nonstop action and imagery, to their unexpected delight. “Usually during this training, the media is like, ‘um, can we go?’” O’Rourke said. “Today, it was like, ‘can we stay?’”
This year’s exercises, overseen by U.S. Fleet Forces Command and Navy Installations Command, are being played out at most naval installations throughout the Navy and continue through March 24. “The goal is to prepare our security forces to be ready for any potential threat,” Adm. John C. Harvey, Jr., Fleet Forces commander, said in a statement. “As we’ve seen with the tragic attacks in France, threats are constantly evolving and are often presented in places and circumstances where we feel safe. These exercises provide us the opportunity to train together with our joint and inter-agency partners to maintain a high level of readiness to respond to any potential threats right here at home.”
Brrrrrrrr…..it’s cold out there
February 6th, 2012 | 7th Fleet Entertainment Navy | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
Members of the brass section of the 7th Fleet Band perform in front of a massive ice sculpture during the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan. // Navy MC2 Kenneth R. Hendrix photos
When temperatures go below freezing, perhaps the last place you’d want to place your lips is anything made of metal. Anyone who’s ever played in a marching or military band for an outdoor performance knows that the show must go on, regardless of Mother Nature’s moods. That’s just what some members of the U.S. 7th Fleet Band did this past weekend, enduring snow and icy conditions to entertain the crowd in Sapporo, Japan. The northern Japan city on Hokkaido island, which hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics, is famous for its annual Sapporo Snow Festival attended by some 2 million visitors who don wool caps and thick layers of clothing to enjoy the region’s wintry landscape and an impressive array of sculptures and statues. The festival runs through Feb. 12.
The 7th Fleet band played tunes on stage Feb. 6 as part of the kickoff for the 63rd annual festival, performing for the crowd in front of a massive sculpture featuring some of the ocean’s most popular residents, including a walrus, gray whale, bottlenose dolphin and sea turtle. Meanwhile, sailors aboard fleet command ship Blue Ridge visited the nearby port city of Tomokodai and joined in that city’s annual ice festival.
A massive sculpture of sea life serves as the backdrop for the 7th Fleet Band's performance in Sapporo, Japan.
And not to be outdone, this year a team of sailors from Misawa Naval Air Facility in Japan battled the cold over three days to shape their own homage to sea service. The result is a sharp looking sculpture (below) that honors the Navy’s “Lone Sailor” statue. And after several days making something out of a chunky block of icy snow, the end result is, according to the Misawa folks, ”finally is within U.S. Navy body fat standards.” You can see more pictures of other sculptures here.
The "Lone Sailor" sculpture at this year's Sapporo Snow Festival. // NAF Misawa Facebook photo
Top SEAL: Amid Hollywood hoopla, quiet preferred
January 27th, 2012 | Entertainment Movies Naval special warfare | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
The Navy’s “silent” warriors won’t exactly be off radar when “Act of Valor” hits the theaters in February. The movie, produced by the Bandito Brothers, is notable for the use of some real Navy SEALs, rather than more actors, to portray the commandos.
Since the successful killing of Osama bin Laden last year, and even the 2009 rescue of an American boat captain held hostage by Somali pirates, the oft-secretive naval special warfare community has been in the spotlight more than usual. The occasional best-selling book and, unfortunately, tragic losses of SEALs fallen in combat capture the public’s focus. This week’s news that SEALs – presumably Naval Special Warfare Development Group, aka SEAL Team 6 – parachuted into Somalia and rescued an American female aid worker and a Danish man kidnapped by Somali pirates further adds to the attention.
“It’s pretty hot in the kitchen right now,” Rear Adm. Sean Pybus, a top SEAL officer, told a San Diego defense industry conference Jan. 24, hours after the successful mission was a wrap. “The SEAL brand is red hot.”
Rear Adm. Sean Pybus, who heads Naval Special Warfare Command. // Navy photo
Part of that is by design. To pull off “Act of Valor,” the directors sent teams to embed with real SEALs and special warfare combatant craft crewmen with the intent of helping them portray naval special warfare more realistically. That relationship, five years in the making, required approval from the top – which it got. Several real SEALs, who typically shield their identities when they are operational, will be portrayed on the big screen as well as in promotion literature, trailers and press kits, perhaps. But their names won’t be on the credits. You can catch the trailer here, and the official website here.
Much like what the Navy saw when “Top Gun” was released in 1986, top officials expect the movie will help with recruitment. But all that attention can be discomfiting to those who consider themselves “quiet professionals.”
“Operations security matters to us,” said Pybus, before showing the movie trailer to the morning audience. “Inaccurate or incomplete pictures…concern me,” he continued. “We as a community are not used to operating under such a spotlight. We’ll figure this out.”
SEALs and SWCCs, and others within the community, he noted, are proud of their work outside the public spotlight. “We’ll work for positive outcomes, find better ways to protect sensitive information and our force and our families,” he said, “and we’ll adapt.”
If there are fewer movies or books about SEALs, what they do and who they are, that might suit Pybus just fine. “I would like to think that your reputation as a naval special warfare operator or enabler would be sufficient when you transition to civilian life,” he said, responding to an audience question. “You’d be quietly proud of that.”
And then there are two
November 28th, 2011 | Aviation Naval aviation Unmanned systems | Posted by Gidget Fuentes
The second X-47B Unmanned Combat Air Systems Demonstration, or UCAS.-D, took to the air Nov. 22 for its own maiden flight. The Navy eyes the X-47B bomber for its future unmanned fleet. (Northrop Grumman Corp. photo)
Nearly three years ago, the Navy and defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp. unveiled the X-47B unmanned air system in Palmdale, Calif., showing off the bat-wing-like tailless and pilotless autonomous bomber that is designed to take off and land on aircraft carriers. In February, the first air vehicle made history when it completed its first real flight, a half-hour mission over the California desert.
On Nov. 22, the second air vehicle, known as AV-2, took off in the hazy blue skies at nearby Edwards Air Force Base and flew up to 5,000 feet as it cut some race patterns over a dry lakebed before landing to wrap up a successful 27-minute flight, according to Northrop Grumman, the program’s prime contractor.
That first flight of the second demonstration aircraft will propel the program closer to actual flight deck landings and carrier trials that are planned to take place in 2013. But first, there’s at least a year’s worth of flight testing at Patuxent River, Md. “With two aircraft now available, we can increase the amount of aircraft performance data we gather, which will allow us to meet our required aircraft capability demonstration goals in a timely manner,” Carl Johnson, Northrop Grumman’s vice president and program manager for its aerospace systems sector, said in a Nov. 28 announcement.
The company will send one of the air vehicles to Pax River by the end of this year, where it will continue with flight and systems testing that will eventually lead to the X-47B’s first carrier shot and trap.