Gay sailors coming forward in wake of DADT
September 20th, 2011 | Facebook Life at Home Navy The deckplates | Posted by Sam Fellman
Lt. Gary Ross, right, and Dan Swezy exchange wedding vows on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2011 in Duxbury, Vt. // AP Photo
The law banning gays from serving openly ended Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. Now that it’s history, gay sailors are coming forward in ways ranging from showy to subtle. Others are simply blunt.
One of them is Master-at-Arms Seaman Casie Jude, who’s posted in Italy. In a Facebook update on Tuesday she wrote, “Dear Navy: I’m gay. Duh.”
One of her commenters replied, “I knew it!!!”
Another sailor coming forward is Lt. Gary Ross. The 33-year-old surface warfare officer was married very early this morning at a small ceremony in Duxbury, Vt. to his partner of 11 years, Dan Swezy. It was the first same-sex marriage after the repeal by a servicemember.
Why did he come forward?
“We realized that there [are] still people serving in the military that will need good role models, who are gay and lesbian,” Ross told Navy Times on Monday, prior to his wedding. If by publicly announcing his marriage, he said, “that could help any soldier, sailor or airman realizing that it’s ok if you’re gay or lesbian and you could still become an officer and the service isn’t going to discriminate against you anymore – if that could help anyone, we decided that it was worth it.”
This will be your life, cont’d
November 5th, 2010 | Life at Sea Navy The deckplates Video | Posted by David Larter
To follow up on a discussion from earlier in the week about Navy recruiting commercials, it seemed necessary to illustrate the point with this week’s bored sailor video.
Remember a few years ago when the Navy purchased the rights to Godsmack‘s then-hit song Awake? Despite the jokes about the commercials, the heavy guitar riff soon became not identified with the band’s hit single but with Navy recruiting efforts. In other words, whoever pushed to purchase the rights to the song for the Navy’s commercials had pulled off a stroke of marketing genius.
Godsmack’s star faded somewhat in the wake of the uproar. Some have suggested that Godsmack selling the song’s rights to the Navy showed it supported the unpopular Iraq war and that it contributed to their downfall from pop stardom. The band’s lead singer Sully Erna told the media at the time the band did not support the war but supported the troops. Read a 2006 interview during which Erna addresses the controversy here. The band has since made a resurgence and now sits at No. 6 on the Billboard rock charts.
One of the Scoop Deck faithful posted this video in the comments section, which shows junior sailors doing what junior sailors do best: manual labor. It also shows them having a little fun with the Navy’s recruiting spots, Godsmack and all. Observe:
Attention recruits: this will be your life
November 3rd, 2010 | Life at Sea Maintenance The deckplates | Posted by David Larter
Seaman Dagan Alexander, from St. Augustine Beach, Fla., accelerates his life. // MC2 Christopher Dollar
Navy recruiting ads are something of a running joke in the fleet, especially among junior enlisted personnel.
The commercials invariably show sailors performing the most exciting and extraordinary tasks they perform throughout the world every day. Often those commercials are backdropped by a soundtrack of either shredding guitar or Saving Private Ryan-esque rolling snare drums and blaring trumpets.
But what the commercials don’t show are the rather mundane and monotonous tasks sailors perform on a day-to-day basis, even though those tasks are every bit as vital as oft-used video clips of SEALs hitting the beach or DDGs test-firing SM3s.
They never show some poor operations specialist freezing his tail off, roaming the decks of his ship at 0230 while on M-14 rover watch in the dead of winter. They never show the hull maintenance technician cleaning up a foul CHT overflow in the operations department’s berthing head. Nor do they show line handlers being sprayed down by JP5 fuel when the probe unseats during an underway replenishment.
No, the commercials are strangely silent on the finer points of Navy living. But the service, to its credit, posted this picture on its website that shows a deck seaman needle-gunning a lifeline. Needle guns are a crucial piece of equipment in the process of chipping and painting, a function junior sailors become well-acquainted with during their early careers.
Cheer up, Seaman Dagan Alexander. Study hard and make rate, then you can pass down this fine Navy tradition to your underlings when you’re a second class.
You really ‘like’ me (social media edition)
October 28th, 2010 | Facebook Navy Officers The deckplates | Posted by Dave Brown
Petty officers are likable folks. You name it, they’ve got it: Bravery, work ethic, patriotism — even lovely singing voices. Now there’s even a Facebook page to prove it. As of this writing, the group dedicated to “liking” petty officers has north of 14,000 “likers,” with the goal of hitting a cool million.
As for the similarly goaled naval officer group? Only 999,993 to go!
Mesa Verde plays pinch hitter
October 15th, 2010 | Ships The deckplates | Posted by Phil Ewing
The amphibious transport dock Mesa Verde will return to the Middle East this summer as part of the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group. // MC1 Steve Smith / Navy
The amphibious transport dock Mesa Verde, which just returned from a deployment to the Middle East in August, will head back out to the 5th Fleet area again this summer, taking a spot that was supposed to be filled by its older sibling, the San Antonio. San Antonio’s latest repairs probably won’t be finished in time for the mission, the Navy says.
Our senior colleague Christopher P. Cavas has the background:
Problems have plagued the San Antonio since the ship was delivered in August 2005 from Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding. Although similar issues have, to varying degrees, affected follow-on ships in the class, the San Antonio, first in its class, has consistently been a problem ship — a fact the Navy acknowledged when it accepted the vessel after a prolonged fitting-out period.
The Navy and Northrop have long grown exasperated in trying to manage and deal with the ship’s problems, which have included poor electrical wiring installations, bad welds, a dysfunctional engine control system and faulty hydraulics in the stern door.
A persistent problem cropped up on all the ships of the class with contaminants in the engine lube-oil system. Earlier this year, while the San Antonio was undergoing an overhaul at Earl Industries in Norfolk, Va., engineers investigating the root cause of vibrations in the drive train — the engines, reduction gears and propeller shafts that drive the ship — discovered that bolts in the foundations of the diesel engines and the main reduction gears were improperly installed. If not fixed, officials said, the vibrations could eventually wreck the propulsion system.
Virtual neglect
August 20th, 2010 | Morale The deckplates | Posted by Phil Ewing
What this world needs is a video game in which you play as the captain of an Aegis cruiser such as the Chosin. Perhaps it could include fighting pirates. // MC2 Daniel Edgington / Navy
Sailors in San Diego engaged in the purest and, I would argue, greatest form of competition as a part of Surface Line Week on Thursday — their first-ever video game tournament, which included 65 teams facing off in today’s top violence title, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.” Sounds fun, but America’s video game industry should be ashamed of itself: Why isn’t there an awesome Navy game that sailors could’ve played instead?
I’ve been reviewing video games for the Military Times newspapers for three years, and with the exception of two very underwhelming World War II submarine titles, I’ve seen no naval games worth playing on today’s consoles. (PC titles are another matter.) Instead you’re always a Special Forces guy, a Marine infantryman or a Blackwater Xe-style mercenary private security consultant. But never a sailor — unless you’re a SEAL. What gives?
Who wouldn’t want to play a game in which you were the captain of an Aegis cruiser, fighting the Soviets in World War III in the North Atlantic? Or how about an updated console version of the DOS-era classic SSN-21 Seawolf? If it has to be a first-person shooter, all right — you’d be part of a boarding team fighting against pirate hijackers. Or you could have a game called “Weapons Onload,” in which you schlepped box after box of machine gun ammunition at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Va. Well, maybe not that.
There is one glimmer of hope: A new “Top Gun” air combat game download was released on Tuesday for PlayStation 3 owners, but that’s no good for a bunch of surface sailors. Don’t they deserve a great video game of their own?
The Navy’s leisure landscape
July 26th, 2010 | The deckplates | Posted by Phil Ewing
Then:
NavHistHerCom
Now:
MC2 Tucker M. Yates / Navy
Our distinguished colleague Andrew Tilghman has a great write-up this week about how the way sailors spend their time off duty has changed over the past few decades. Gone are the old-fashioned clubs for people to gather on base, replaced by “eatertainment”-themed “liberty centers,” where sailors get a slice of pizza and surf the Web.
Back in the day, Tilghman writes, alcohol was a big part of socializing in the Navy — what a surprise — but as society changed, the brass tried to take the focus off after-hours drinking. Also, the clubs of yesteryear didn’t have to be self-sufficient, but when Big Navy decided everything had to “run like a business” in the late 1990s, on-base clubs couldn’t compete against off-base restaurants. People changed too. Young sailors entering the Navy today can stay in touch online with their friends and family much easier than their predecessors could before the computer era, and so today’s newcomers may feel less of a need to hang out with their shipmates after hours. Even more basic than that, today’s sailors don’t use the Navy’s surviving clubs to socialize, one of them told Tilghman. Instead, they watch TV or play video games.
What do you think of the change? Could today’s crews use a place right off the waterfront where they can get together for a beer, or are “liberty centers” with fast food and Internet access the right answer for the fleet of today?
Lily, Rosemary, the Jack of Hearts and MCPON
June 21st, 2010 | leadership The deckplates | Posted by Phil Ewing
"You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows, shipmates." // MC1 Tiffini Jones Vanderwyst / Navy
When you’re lost in the rain, in Juarez, and it’s Easter time too, you still need to remember to use operational risk management. And you may have many contacts among the lumberjacks to get you facts when someone attacks your imagination — but if you want the real gouge, go to Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West.
West has a new video on his Facebook page about the importance of safety in these warm summer months. But before you watch it, take a look at this video for a song called “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” by a rock-and-roll artist named Bob Dylan — apparently he’s a new singer who’s popular with the kids these days. [The video is in the bottom row, fourth from the left.] In MCPON’s video, it’s clear he learned from the master.
The civilized way to go to sea
June 15th, 2010 | Carriers Royal Navy The deckplates | Posted by Phil Ewing
When the sun goes down over Ark Royal -- if there's no work to do -- sailors have a chance to socialize, relax and yes, enjoy a drink. // Royal Navy
ABOARD THE HMS ARK ROYAL — In my many happy years as an alcohol enthusiast, I have never had a beer as refreshing as the pint of John Smith’s Extra Smooth I enjoyed in the wardroom after a day of inhaling Harrier exhaust and clambering over almost every inch of this ship, from keel to TACAN.
Lt. Cmdr. Phil Rogers, Ark Royal’s part-time spokesman, was good enough to stand the round; he included my drink on the slip of paper that officers give to enlisted bartenders, which the ship’s pursers use to track who drinks what. Officers’ bar tabs, as recorded in these order slips, are added in their mess bills, so the ship can recover the cost and crew members don’t need to carry cash.
Ark Royal’s wardroom bar is a seagoing Elysium. The ship deploys equipped with stout, bitters, lager, red wine, white wine, gin, whiskey, whisky, and — of course — Pusser’s Navy Rum, the rum of “Rum, Sodomy and the Lash” fame, which, properly diluted, is the main ingredient in the Royal Navy’s most famous beverage: grog. The wardroom also displays a set of enormous Glengoyne whisky barrels, because Glengoyne “was the queen mother’s favorite tipple,” said Cmdr. Dan Ferris, Ark Royal’s weapons officer; Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (aka the “Queen Mum”) was Ark Royal’s sponsor.
But for American visitors, the alcohol isn’t the most unfamiliar or unusual thing aboard. If you took the booze away, you’d still have something almost no U.S. Navy ship has: A command-sanctioned area for every hand aboard to unwind, relax and socialize while off duty, making life eminently more enjoyable over the course of your months underway.
MMs are losing steam — or are they?
June 14th, 2010 | Congress The deckplates | Posted by Phil Ewing
When the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk went away, many machinist's mates went with it. Many more are expected to go away when the Navy decommissions many of its steam ships -- if it does. // MC3 Kyle Gahlau / Navy
My eminent colleague Mark D. Faram and I had a story in the print edition of Navy Times last week about what it could mean for Navy engineers if Congress goes through with its requirement that the Navy keep around many more ships than it now plans. Basically, if the fleet has to keep the steam powered ships it now wants to decommission, it also has to keep around machinist’s mates to run them, even though the rating has been shrinking for the past couple of years.
Check out the story here — then come back and tell us what you think. Are lawmakers taking into account the effect their changes could have on sailors? If you’re an MM, what do you think of the future of your rate? Is this all much ado about nothing?