Hollywood, this is a sailor, not a “soldier”
May 18th, 2012 | Navy | Posted by Joshua Stewart
Battleship director Peter Berg dropped the S-bomb. Unfortunately, he dropped the wrong one.
In a promotional clip, he twice referred to sailors as “soldiers,” a major gaff since nobody in the Navy identifies as a soldier. He said his affinity for the service created a good relationship with the Navy and got his movie the access it needed.
“They know that I love soldiers and that I respect the warrior spirit of any soldier,” Berg said in a clip clogged with both actors and sailors running around in NWUs. “As a result they opened up their doors to us.”
It’s kind of like saying you love your wife but you keep calling her by your ex-girlfriend’s name.
The problem is that “soldier” is purely an Army term. Geeze, even individual augmentees that serve and live alongside soldiers don’t call themselves soldiers – jokingly, they say they’re in the Narmy. And sailors are all proud of what they do and, of course, think that any other branch of the military is blatantly inferior (to be fair, all members of the military think that their service is the best and the others, no offense, are puddles of slime. So in this context, calling a guy running around in NWUs a “soldier” is insulting to members of the Army as well).
Watch for yourself.
For one easy payment this stealth boat could be yours!
April 23rd, 2012 | Navy | Posted by Joshua Stewart
The government is getting rid of the Navy’s experimental Sea Shadow stealth boat. And if you got the goods, this sweet ride could be yours.
But there’s a catch: you have to scrap the boat.
The 164-foot-long craft is up for auction by the General Services Administration and has a $10,000 minimum bid, that, as of noon Monday, had not been met. Act fast, the auction ends May 4 at 5 p.m. CST.
But wait, there’s more. If you’re the winning bidder, you’ll also receive the Hughes Mining Barge, which has the Sea Shadow inside, like the world’s most awesome nesting doll. The winning bidder needs to scrap the barge as well – which you’ll probably do eagerly since it looks like a giant, boxy pile of rust. It makes the super-angular, svelte stealth boat look all the more slick and sneaky. You can pick them both up in San Diego.
The Sea Shadow program started in the mid-1980s and was designed to test new surface ship technologies, including stealthiness. The Hughes Mining Barge was developed in a top-secret CIA effort to raise a sunken Soviet submarine. Both are being scrapped after years of unsuccessful efforts to give them away to museums.
The Navy edges out the Air Force
April 18th, 2012 | Navy | Posted by Joshua Stewart
Joint Base Andrews emphasizing its jointness.
The water tower alongside the Capital Beltway has long referenced the Air Force, but today it also includes the Navy. Scaffolding and “NAV” and the outline of a “Y” were spotted on the structure. It may be a few more days until it’s done – it rained today and it’s not the best weather for painting.
It may not seem like a huge deal in itself – it is just a water tower alongside a busy road – but the structure is prime real estate. It’s visible from the DC Beltway, the congested artery that a large chunk of the big wigs who live in suburban Maryland take to their jobs in Washington and Northern Virginia. And it doubles as one of the best billboards alongside any of the roads in the metropolitan region and re-brands Andrews, which has long been associated with the Air Force, and, in particular, Air Force One, as home to the Navy as well.
The Navy makes an appearance on the iconic Joint Base Andrews water tower alongside the Capital Beltway // Dave Brown, Defense News
And it only took a couple gallons of paint.
Academy QB resigns
April 18th, 2012 | Naval Academy | Posted by Joshua Stewart
A billet for a starting quarterback has opened up at the Naval Academy.
The Capital newspaper in Annapolis reports that Kriss Proctor has resigned with 22 games, including 14 starts, rushing for 1,441 yards over two seasons of varsity action.
“Midshipman Proctor has submitted a resignation that is currently under review,” The Capital quoted Commander William Marks, an academy spokesman, as saying. Citing an unnamed source, The Capital said Proctor was facing an Honor Code violation.
Sea, Air and mostly Space, the main (unscheduled) event
April 17th, 2012 | Navy Sea Air Space Space travel | Posted by Joshua Stewart
The biggest attraction at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space symposium Tuesday was not on the day’s agenda.
The space shuttle Discovery flies on the back of a modified Boeing 747 near the Sea-Air-Space expo. (Staff photo by David Brown)
Just before 10 a.m., the crowd at the convention center south of Washington began to thin out. People headed outside and looked toward the Potomac River. Soon enough, the space shuttle Discovery flew by, piggy-backing on a modified Boeing 747. The shuttle was traveling from Kennedy Space Center in Florida to a Smithsonian-owned hangar just outside the city.
It actually made two passes.
The space shuttle Discovery flies on the back of a Boeing 747 on its way to a Smithsonian-owned hangar. It was the official main attraction that didn't appear on the Sea-Air-Space schedule. (Staff photo by David Brown)
Alaska’s second bridge to nowhere would require the carrier Enterprise
March 28th, 2012 | Navy | Posted by Joshua Stewart
As the carrier Enterprise gets closer to the end of its last deployment, questions about the fate of the world’s most famous warship are surfacing.
The city of Ketchikan, Alaska. // USGS
Well, people in Southeast Alaska have an idea: Use it as a bridge to connect Ketchikan and Gravina Island. As a bonus, it’s a floating power plant, tourist attraction and platform for trinket shops. Even without the trinkets, this way is better than the original plan to connect the two islands, the so-called Bridge to Nowhere.
But still, the aircraft-carrier-turned-bridge would have its own set issues, ones just as serious as a multimillion dollar road project with little practical utility. It’s tough to decide where to begin parsing the problems with the Enterprise idea. So, in no particular order, here goes:
- As a bridge, it would make it impossible for other vessels to navigate between the two islands. It would, in effect, create an isthmus. Ships wouldn’t be the only thing affected; sea life would need to dive below the bow to pass. Ironically, the Navy is charged with protecting freedom of navigation.
- No matter the Enterprise’s fate, it almost certainly will not become a floating power plant, whether it ends up in Alaska, the mothball fleet or on Mars. The Navy’s nuclear energy program is one of the military’s most closely guarded secrets, and it’s extremely unlikely that it would be handed over to a municipal utility organization.
- Ketchikan, the home of an international airport and around 14,000 people — it’s Alaska’s fifth-largest city — has a miniscule reputation as a tourist destination. No matter how awesome the trinkets, it’s going to be tough to convince people to buy airfare. And could Ketchikan even afford the Enterprise? Its fiscal 2012 budget tops in at just over $102 million, and its construction budget totals around $33.3 million.
This list could go on, but Matt Groening probably summed it up best. Just watch the clip, sing along and substitute “monorail” with “Enterprise.”
A ‘Like’ From John Paul Jones?
February 29th, 2012 | Facebook | Posted by Joshua Stewart
The Navy is switching to a re-vamped Facebook format that shows everything important that has ever happened in the service’s history.
Gone will be the standard page. Instead, information will be in the “Timeline” format, which allows visitors to see every photo, comment and ‘like’ ever posted on the Navy’s page.
It also allows the Navy to put in old photos and important events, including its “birth.” Typically, people put in cutesy pictures of themselves as a newborn, but here, clearly, should be a shot of John Paul Jones.
Navy croquet sobers up
February 17th, 2012 | Navy | Posted by Joshua Stewart
The St. John’s College and Naval Academy annual croquet match, the country’s biggest collegiate event in the sport, was just hit with some horrible news: You can no longer bring your own alcohol to the match.
Under policies released this year, you will no longer be able to bring your own booze onto St. John’s, the classically liberal school that hosts the event. Instead, you’ll have to buy your own beer, wine and champagne at a cash-only bar. And don’t think about sneaking in your own private stash: Bags and baskets are subject to search.
This is pretty major, since the rite of spring is more about the accompanying lawn party than the actual sport, which very few if any of the attendees actually know how to play anyway.
For the unfamiliar, here’s how it all works: People wear extravagant tweedish outfits, sundresses and floppy hats, smoke tasty cigars and sip wine poured from bottles corked with real corks, champagne that costs at least $8 per bottle, beer that’s made in small batches and doesn’t come from cans and otherwise act sophisticated (unless you write for Scoop Deck and wear old jeans, a band T-shirt and a Camel Bak filled with National Bohemian and sneak cucumber sandwiches from unsuspecting picnickers). Mids, Johnnies, their families, alumni, and men, women and children of all ages from Annapolis and elsewhere come, construct white lawn tents, set out giant spreads of food and make a day out of it. It’s Gatsby-esque.
Meanwhile, while the party continues, the nation’s premier collegiate croquet match goes on in the background. Midshipmen dressed in their white croquet uniforms — they kind of look like milkmen — usually get clobbered by the Johnnies, who unveil a new, usually satirical, uniforms every ear. All the while, the players have their own caddies/butlers who follow them around, holding their drinks on silver platters, wiping the sweat off their brows. In terms of Navy athletics, it’s probably second only to the Army-Navy football game.
Maryland has a recent history banning outside alcohol from important sporting events. The Preakness, proudly the scuzziest of the three legs of the Triple Crown, enacted a similar policy. The people revolted.
Watch out, St. John’s — they may come after you with mallets in hand.
Hand is an amazing, yet creepy, Navy development
February 2nd, 2012 | Facebook Health Medical Navy | Posted by Joshua Stewart
The Navy has developed one of the most realistic prosthetic limbs ever. Creepily realistic.
The Navy has developed an incredibly realistic prosthetic limb. When finished it better not be so scary or nobody will want to use it. // Navy Photo
The picture appeared on the Navy’s Facebook page but it didn’t include many details. What is clear is that it’s part of the Navy’s ongoing work to make wounded service members as whole as possible. Needless to say, this is an amazing piece of equipment that will hopefully improve somebody’s life in immeasurable ways.
But until then, it seems unnaturally lifelike and kind of reminds the Scoop Deck of this:
A public apology for barfing on the COD
January 30th, 2012 | Aviation Carrier On-Board Delivery plane Carriers Chow COMPTUEX Enterprise Life at Sea Naval aviation Navy | Posted by Joshua Stewart
Dear VRC-40 “The Rawhides,”
I’m just writing to apologize for getting airsick in your C-2A Greyhound. It was certainly unintentional. You handled the plane with steady hands as we flew from Naval Air Station Mayport, Fla., to the carrier Enterprise last week. We even had weather on our side, allowing for a particularly calm flight.
If only my stomach was able to manage my breakfast as well as you flew the COD.
Usually I handle flights pretty well, but the combination of the smell of aviation fuel, the lack of windows, the heat and the sheer grittiness of the Navy’s draft horse airplane was more than I could manage. I didn’t even make it halfway through our quick flight. By the time we were headed into our approach, I wasn’t as excited about going from 100 to zero mph in less than two seconds as much as I was excited about just getting out of that torture chamber.
This C-2A Greyhound lands on the carrier Enterprise with a reporter who is very sorry he got airsick. // Navy
Please don’t think anything less of me for this; better-known reporters have handled it just as poorly (one former SWO who took a COD with a certain cable news star told me “Wolf ralphed” during a flight to the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower). And please don’t forget that I cleaned up after myself. I just wish I had had an airsick bag
While I’m feeling contrite, I should also apologize to the cooks who made breakfast before our flight back at Mayport … that was your banana muffin with green apple syrup that ended up in the seat next to me. This was not a commentary on your culinary skills; it was certainly delicious on the way down.
And to everyone else on the carrier who heard about my illness, from the chief medical officer who gave me a motion sickness patch (if you’re curious, they certainly work and I’m available for paid endorsements) to the three people who provided me with stacks of airsick bags for my return flight (I thankfully didn’t need to use them for their intended purposes, but I’ll hold onto them to carry lunches through the year), I appreciate all of your help.
Once again, I apologize for my faux pas and I hope I can one day fly with you again.
Sincerely,
Josh Stewart