Initiate puck-striking and ice-skating operations!
September 2nd, 2009 | Morale Science and technology Shore duty | Posted by Phil Ewing
MC2 Paul Williams/ Navy
If you’ve ever wondered whether the referee in an important hockey game was dropping the puck just a little on the other guys’ side to give them an edge, here’s the solution.
Rear Adm. Walter Carter, captain of the carrier Carl Vinson’s hockey team, and Navy explosive ordnance disposal technician Lt. Bob Pizzini waited for a Navy EOD robot to drop the puck Aug. 29 and start a charity hockey game in Chesapeake, Va. Presumably it landed dead-center, with digital precision.
When the robots can tear themselves away from the demands of the amateur hockey season, they can also be used to investigate and disarm explosives.
We build, we fight, we visit museums
August 28th, 2009 | Shore duty The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
BU3 Adrian Trollip, of NMCB 5, worked on a roof at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan May 13 // Cpl. Aaron Rooks/ Marine Corps
As Scoop Deck learned during a recent visit to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, you can’t swing a reporter’s notebook when you’re downrange without hitting Seabees at work on projects for the war effort. They were at Camp Eggers, in Kabul, Afghanistan; they were at Camp Leatherneck; and at Kandahar Air Field, putting up their trademark wooden buildings in record time. A tour of the Seabees’ new U.S. forces building in Kandahar was especially pleasant; even though it was unfinished, its air conditioning provided an oasis from the heat and the wafting aroma from KAF’s infamous “poop pond.”
So it was great to hear about some other new construction taking place in the Seabee world: Workers broke ground this week on a new home for the Seabee Museum outside Naval Base Ventura County, Calif., the Navy announced. And not that the wooden clubhouse-style buildings at Camp Leatherneck weren’t nice, but the designs for the new Seabee Museum make it look especially luxurious.
Phil Stacey’s new album drops soon
August 14th, 2009 | Blogs Morale Shore duty | Posted by Phil Ewing
PhilStacey.com
Back in the day, long before there was a Scoop Deck or anybody knew what Twitter was, NavyTimes.com was the place to go for some of the Web’s hardest-hitting coverage of “American Idol.” Why? One of 2007’s final contestants was a sailor, MU3 Phil Stacey, and NavyTimes.com readers followed his implausible rise from Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Fla., to the pinnacle of television stardom.
We got to wondering about what Phil was up to these days, and the answer was only a simple Google search away: He’s got a new album coming out! “Into the Light” will be on shelves Aug. 25, and you may have already heard the single, “You’re Not Shaken,” in the lobby at your dentist’s office. Phil’s Web site has a wealth of information and media, and includes his comments about the news this month that “Idol” judge Paula Abdul won’t return next season:
As busy of a schedule as she had, Ms. Paula took time every week to visit with us, bringing gifts from her jewelry line with messages imprinted on them that were meant to encourage us on during that crazy time. If there were children visiting the American Idol studio, she wanted to meet them, take pictures with them, and give them each a gift of their own. She’s a very special kind of person.
The European flavour
August 10th, 2009 | Chow Foreign navies Morale Shore duty The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
KANDAHAR AIR FIELD, AFGHANISTAN — Before we arrived on Sunday, people kept telling us this place was like Mos Eisley Cantina in “Star Wars,” and it is, kind of — a Babylon in the scrubland, filled with people in strange uniforms, speaking exotic languages. There are service members here from the dozens of NATO nations that form the International Security Assistance Force, and it is fine sport to sit and observe their different camouflage patterns, badges of rank and unit insignia.
The other green side
August 9th, 2009 | Shore duty The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing
BAGHDAD, IRAQ – Navy Secretary Ray Mabus met with senior Iraqi and U.S. officials here Thursday, and I learned what Army guys call a bathroom.
Try not to breathe the air
August 2nd, 2009 | Morale Personnel Shore duty The Middle East The deckplates | Posted by Phil Ewing
CAMP LEMONIER, DJIBOUTI – A putrid haze is settling over the base tonight, making an already uncomfortably humid evening all the worse. Djibouti City’s landfill is just over a wall adjacent to the camp, and Djiboutian sanitation officials have evidently deemed it their policy to burn the city’s garbage every night, apparently in open pits. Service members at this post, who come from all four services, complained to Scoop Deck that the poison smog robs them of one of their few forms of recreation – running.
Down on Khat Korner
August 2nd, 2009 | Photos Shore duty Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing
DJIBOUTI CITY, DJIBOUTI – Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is an enthusiastic world traveler (with 103 countries, by his count) and a dedicated amateur photographer (with a book of images to his credit) and so when he arrived in Djibouti late Sunday, he wanted to see the city and shoot a few frames. This request produced furrowed brows from the U.S. security team that met us at Camp Lemonier, but after a quick bite at the galley, base officials assembled a motorcade to take us into town. Mabus got into his car with his Nikon over his shoulder.
Just don’t drink the water
July 27th, 2009 | Navy Shore duty | Posted by Andrew Scutro
U.S. Navy
Scoop Deck has been told by friends in the Navy that duty in Italy is widely popular. The food and lifestyle is often fondly recalled. But according to this report there are unseen hazards for those posted in Naples.