CDR Salamander

During the winter of 1910-1911, a plane landed on and took off from a platform constructed on her afterdeck, opening the era of naval aviation. At the Mare Island Navy Yard, California in January 1911 she was fitted with a temporary wooden deck in preparation for Eugene Ely's airplane landing attempt. Upon completion of her flight deck Pennsylvania cruised to San Francisco Bay, California, where she anchored for the Eugene Ely's historic flight. Ely landed his Curtiss pusher biplane on board the ship on the morning of 18 January 1911, the first airplane landing on a warship. The landing deck, 120 feet long and 30 feet wide, was inclined slightly to help slow the plane as it landed, and had a thirty-degree ramp at its after end. She then sailed to San Diego Bay, California, and on 17 February 1911 additional test flights were conducted. Glenn Curtiss the designer of the Curtiss Hydroaeroplane was on board for these tests.

Around the end of June 1918 Pittsburgh and the USS Vermont were patrolling the waters off Antofagasta, Chile protecting American interests and preventing Austrian and German ships from sailing. It was during the last week of June that the USS Radnor a US Navy cargo ship made port in Antofagasta, Chile on the 28th of June, but due to she being a US Navy ship tensions were high in Antofagasta and the Radnor was ordered out of the harbor by the German ambassador or she would be interned in port. Lt. Comdr. Marcus S. Harloe, Captain of the Radnor radioed for help and the USS Vermont and USS Pittsburgh answered the call. Radnor readied for sea in a hurry and Vermont and Pittsburgh arrived and escorted Radnor to safety before hostilities started.

She sailed on 16 October for Chefoo, China arriving there on 23 December 1926. Early in January of 1927, she landed sailors and Marines to protect Americans and other foreigners in Shanghai from the turmoil and fighting of the Chinese power struggle. When Chiang Kai-shek's Cantonese Army won control of Shanghai in March 1927, Pittsburgh resumed operations on patrol and exercises with the Asiatic Fleet. On 28 March 1928 Pittsburgh was in Hong Kong, China according to post cards mailed from the ship and cancelled with Hong Kong postmarks.

In the book “The Sand Pebbles” by Richard McKenna, which was also made into the famous movie by the same name starring Steve McQueen there is a passage that refers to the USS Pittsburgh. McKenna wrote this book, which tells the story of the men in the US Navy known as “China Sailors” of 1926. This was also the beginning of the start of the Pittsburgh’s tour as Flagship of the Asiatic Fleet from 1926-1931. It refers to something that happened while in South America several years previous, which is likely to be the murder that took place on the Pittsburgh during January of 1918 while the Pittsburgh was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

In those days “China Sailors” were clearly regarded in a poor light. In the movie “The Sand Pebbles” Jake Holman played by Steve McQueen tells Shirley Eckert (Candice Bergen) “…nice American girls don’t talk to China Sailors.” Even the local Chinese mock them and their superior officers treat them badly and the people whom they protect regard them as an embarrassment. McKenna reminds us in his book that the US Navy of the 1920’s was not necessarily seen as a career (except by the officers), but often as a means of escape or even punishment for the lowly China Sailor.

This may help explain the following reference form McKenna’s book, in which the implication was that the Pittsburgh had a bad reputation, with one character saying “I would rather have my sister in a whorehouse then have my brother serve on the USS Pittsburgh.” A second sailor replied, “I would rather have your brother.” In the book, the next day the second sailor received a warning in the form of a scrap of canvas with a pile of wet sand on it. This canvas warning likely refers to the old tradition in the navy known as “cobbing” or being beaten with a stocking filled with wet sand. There was no doubt that to the sailor who received the sand on his bunk that this was an old seagoing warning and that the message was very clear.

Labels: Cruiser, Fullbore

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:22

Labels: Humor

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 22:34

"The principle that racial balancing is not permitted is one of substance, not semantics," Roberts wrote for the majority. "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

Labels: Diversity

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:53

WASHINGTON — Two years ago, Marines in Iraq asked for an emergency order of

When the lasers hadn't arrived by last fall, a frustrated lieutenant colonel named Marty Lapierre dipped into a special fund and requisitioned 28 of the devices, which temporarily blind — and therefore stop or redirect — unwelcome drivers.

But those handheld lasers, called the CHP Laser Dazzler, didn't make it to the troops, either. 200 nonlethal lasers to keep innocent Iraqis from being killed when they fail to stop at U.S. military checkpoints.

Just before Christmas, Marine generals told Lapierre and Marine science adviser Franz Gayl to shelve the lasers because they were unsafe — even though the Army and Special Forces were using them.

Instead, in March, Marine brass shipped a competing laser called the GBD-III, or Green Beam, which is made by B.E. Meyers & Co. in Redmond.

Gayl and some Marine officers said the Dazzler, with its wider beam, is much better for the Marines' purposes.

E-mails from Lapierre and others question why it took nearly two years to get lasers to Marines in Iraq, and why the Pentagon second-guessed field commanders and rejected the device they wanted.

When Marines wrote an emergency "Urgent Need Statement" asking for Dazzlers in May 2005, they thought they'd found a simple solution to a difficult problem.

"Marine Forces have recently experienced a string of lethal encounters and casualties" in Al Anbar province, they wrote. They wanted to stop Iraqi civilians at checkpoints without shooting them.

At the time, some troops were testing the Dazzler. In Redmond, B.E. Meyers was working to adapt one of its existing military lasers for use at checkpoints.

The Dazzler and the Green Beam operate in similar ways: They shine a green laser beam to temporarily blind a target. If a car is racing toward a checkpoint, troops briefly flash the laser at the windshield.

The Dazzler, which costs about $8,000, is made by LE Systems in Connecticut.

B.E. Meyers, which sells the Green Beam for about $10,000,...

The Army and Special Forces have used the Dazzler since at least last year. But the Navy and Marines have their own requirements.

"I don't care about SOCOM [Special Forces], don't care about the Army," said Raymond Grundy, a Marine combat-development expert who recommended the Green Beam over the Dazzler.

In an angry e-mail in February, Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commands the First Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Pendleton, Calif., called the review board "a bunch of smug, safe, stay-at-home" second-guessers. He added that some issues the board raised were "claptrap."

The 2008 federal budget contains $7 million for B.E. Meyers to improve its Green Beam laser. The money was added to the budget by Reps. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn; Jay Inslee, D-Bainbridge Island; Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens; and Adam Smith, D-Tacoma.

"If we had sole-sourced [the Dazzler] in Oct. 2005, and delivered by Jan. 2006, how many innocent IZ [Iraqis] would not have been needlessly killed?" he asked.

One reason it took a year to get the Green Beam to troops after its approval in February is that Marines in Iraq didn't want it. They wanted the Dazzler, said Col. Roger Oltman, a Marine combat-development officer in Quantico.

The Marine command prevailed after warning that money for checkpoint lasers would vanish and troops would end up with nothing.

Marine officers agreed new equipment should get to the field faster. But the safety of the troops as well as Iraqis is paramount, they said.

"Our Marines are already putting their lives on the line," said Col. Kirk Hymes, who oversees key lasers programs. "I don't want them putting their eyes on the line, too."

Labels: Marines, Weapons

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:30

For years, W.B. Kranendonk was a lone ranger in Dutch politics -- the editor of an orthodox Christian newspaper in a nation that has legalized prostitution, euthanasia, abortion and same-sex marriage and allows the personal use of marijuana.

Today, with an orthodox Christian political party in the government for the first time, and with immigration anxieties fueling a national search for identity, the country that has been the world's most socially liberal political laboratory is rethinking its anything-goes policies.

And suddenly, Kranendonk no longer seems so all alone.

"People in high political circles are saying it can't be good to have a society so liberal that everything is allowed," said Kranendonk, editor of Reformist Daily and an increasingly influential voice that resonates in the shifting mainstream of Dutch public opinion. "People are saying we should have values; people are asking for more and more rules in society."

In cities across the Netherlands, mayors and town councils are closing down shops where marijuana is sold, rolled and smoked. Municipalities are shuttering the brothels where prostitutes have been allowed to ply their trade legally. Parliament is considering a ban on the sale of hallucinogenic "magic mushrooms." Orthodox Christian members of parliament have introduced a bill that would allow civil officials with moral objections to refuse to perform gay marriages. And Dutch authorities are trying to curtail the activities of an abortion rights group that assists women in neighboring countries where abortions are illegal.

"Has the Netherlands changed? Yes," said Frank de Wolf, a Labor Party member of the Amsterdam City Council. "There is not only a different mood among our people and politicians, but there are different problems now."

The Netherlands is going through the same racial, ethnic and religious metamorphosis as the rest of Western Europe: Large influxes of black, Arab and Muslim immigrants are changing the social complexion of an overwhelmingly white, Christian nation struggling with its loss of homogeneity.

But here those anxieties are exacerbated by alarm over the international crime organizations that have infiltrated the country's prostitution and drug trades, the increasing prevalence of trafficking in women and children across its borders, and dismay over the Netherlands' image as an international tourist destination for drugs and sexual debauchery.

"There is an uneasiness about globalization that the Dutch don't have control over their own country anymore," said James C. Kennedy, professor of contemporary history at the Free University of Amsterdam. "There is a more conservative mood in the country that is interested in setting limits and making sure things don't get out of hand."

De Wolf, the Amsterdam councilman, is part of that movement.

"In the past, we looked at legal prostitution as a women's liberation issue; now it's looked at as exploitation of women and should be stopped," said de Wolf, sitting in the offices of the medical complex where he works as an HIV-AIDS researcher.

He said Amsterdam's police force is overwhelmed and ill-equipped to fight the sophisticated foreign organized crime networks operating in the city. Laws designed to regulate prostitution and brothel operators have instead opened the trade to criminal gangs, according to de Wolf and other city officials.

"If you had said to me in 1995 that one of the main orthodox Christian parties would be in the government today, I wouldn't have believed it," Kranendonk said. "The number of Christians is diminishing, churches are closing."

He paused and smiled, "But there are other ways of believing."

Labels: Culture Wars, Dutch

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:28

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:22

A Labour MP is stepping down after receiving death threats over his role in bringing three racist killers to justice.

Mohammad Sarwar, who became Britain's first Muslim MP in 1997, said he feared the lives of his family were also in jeopardy.

He was instrumental in arranging the extradition of Imran Shahid, Zeeshan ShahidMohammed Faisal Mushtaq after they fled to Pakistan.

The three were jailed for life last year for the abduction and racially aggravated murder of teenager Kriss Donald, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Glasgow in 2004.

Mr Sarwar, 54, told the Daily Record: "Life is not the same, to be honest with you, since I brought them back. I was subjected to threats.

"I was told they wanted to punish my family and make a horrible example of my son - they would do to him what they did to Kriss Donald. I received threats to my life, to murder my sons, to murder my grandchildren."

Labels: Britain, Islam

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:36

Arianna Huffington, whose Huffington Post site is among the most prominent of blogs founded by women, said anonymity online has allowed "a lot of those dark prejudices towards women to surface."

Joan Walsh, editor in chief of the online magazine Salon, said that since the letters section of her site was automated a year and a half ago, "it's been hard to ignore that the criticisms of women writers are much more brutal and vicious than those about men."
...
Kathy Sierra, who won a large following by blogging about designing software that makes people happy, became a target of anonymous online attacks that included photos of her with a noose around her neck and a muzzle over her mouth....
Sierra, whose recent case has attracted international attention, has suspended blogging. Other women have censored themselves, turned to private forums or closed comments on blogs. Many use gender-neutral pseudonyms. Some just gut it out. But the effect of repeated harassment, bloggers and experts interviewed said, is to make women reluctant to participate online -- undercutting the promise of the Internet as an egalitarian forum.
...
"The sad thing is, I've had thousands of messages from women saying, 'You were a role model for me,' " Sierra said in an interview, describing communications she received after suspending her blog. Sierra was the first woman to deliver a keynote speech at a conference on the Linux operating system. Her blog was No. 23 in the Technorati.com Top 100 list of blogs, measured by the number of blogs that linked to her site.

Her Web site, Creating Passionate Users, was about "the most fluffy and nice things," she said. Sierra occasionally got the random "comment troll," she said, but a little over a month ago, the posts became more threatening. Someone typed a comment on her blog about slitting her throat and ejaculating. The noose photo appeared next, on a site that sprang up to harass her. On the site, someone contributed this comment: "the only thing Kathy has to offer me is that noose in her neck size."

On yet another Web site came the muzzle photo, which struck her as if she were being smothered. "I dream of Kathy Sierra," read the caption.

"That's when I got pushed over the edge," she said.

In what she intended to be her final blog post last month, she wrote:

"I have cancelled all speaking engagements.

"I am afraid to leave my yard.

"I will never feel the same. I will never be the same."

Some female bloggers say their colleagues just need thicker skin. Columnist Michelle Malkin, who blogs about politics and culture, said she sympathizes with Sierra but has chided the bloggers expressing outrage now. "First, where have y'all been? For several years, the unhinged Internet underworld has been documented here," she wrote, reposting a comment on her site that called for the "torture, rape, murder" of her family.

Report the serious threats to law enforcement, she urged. And above all: "Keep blogging. Don't cut and run."

Labels: Blogg'n

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:44

Iran has expanded its naval presence in the Straits of Hormuz, the passage for an estimated 40 percent of global crude oil shipments.

The U.S. Navy has determined that Iran has amassed a fleet of fast patrol boats in the 43-kilometer straits. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, responsible for strategic programs, leads the effort.

At this point, officials said, IRGC has deployed more than 1,000 FPBs in and around the straits. The vessels, armed with cruise missiles, mines, torpedoes and rocket-propelled grenades, are up to 23 meters in long and can reach a speed of 100 kilometers per hour.

"You just don't get 1,000 or 500 or even 20 of anything under way and tightly orchestrated over a large body of water to create a specific effect at a specific time and specific place. They have their own challenges.''

(Van Ripper) sent orders with motorcycle couriers to evade sophisticated electronic eavesdropping equipment. When the US fleet sailed into the Gulf, he instructed his small boats and planes to move around in apparently aimless circles before launching a surprise attack which sank a substantial part of the US navy. The war game had to be stopped and the American ships "refloated" so that the US forces stood a chance.

Labels: Iran

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:08

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:44

Labels: Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 23:23

Other officials said lukewarm support for reappointing Gen. Pace among key Republicans influenced Mr. Gates' recommendation. Sens. John McCain of Arizona, the ranking Armed Services member, and John W. Warner of Virginia, a former panel chairman, were among those Republicans, the officials said.

Gen. Pace was disappointed by the decision, which effectively ends his career, the officials said. Earlier this year, he was told that he could expect to serve a second two-year term. He angered homosexual groups and their supporters in Congress earlier this year when he called homosexuality "immoral" in a newspaper interview.

Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) took the reins of the congressional effort to repeal the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy this week, though she was quick to point out that ending the ban on openly gay service members has little chance of passage unless a Democratic president takes office in 2009.
...
Tauscher is taking over sponsorship of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act from Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.), who is leaving Congress in July to become chancellor of his alma mater, the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
...
Along with the change in the makeup of Congress, comments made by Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have inflamed the debate about "don't ask, don't tell." He told reporters at the Chicago Tribune in March that he believes homosexuality is immoral. His position drew criticism from several fronts, including Tauscher, who called it "wrongheaded."

Supporters of lifting the ban cited a Zogby poll taken late last year that 73 percent of military personnel are comfortable with gays and lesbians serving openly. The Advocate magazine is running a story next week featuring three active-duty soldiers who are open in their units and contend that their being out has made their units stronger, rather than weaker.

Former Georgia Republican Rep. Bob Barr, who led the fight in 1994 against same-sex marriage, wrote Wednesday that opposition by GOP presidential candidates to lifting the military ban is wrongheaded.

"Attitudes both within and outside the military have shifted greatly since 1993," Barr wrote. "There is little reason left to believe gays openly serving would break the armed forces. Americans want strong, moral leadership, and they are quick to sniff out pandering and expediency."

Labels: DADT

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:27

U.S. military personnel have emerged as prime identity theft targets.

The Department of Defense since the late '60s has used Social Security numbers for everything from dog tags to chow-line rosters. Now, data thieves and con artists have begun to increasingly target military personnel, data security experts say. "Thieves know this is the Achilles' heel of the system," says Todd Davis, CEO of identity theft detection firm Lifelock.

Data thieves in the past year have grabbed computers containing sensitive data for nearly 30 million active and retired service members from four Veterans Affairs offices. That's a big portion of the more than 100 million personal records reported lost or stolen in the USA since 2006, based on a USA TODAY analysis of data compiled by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

The Defense Department has made it a priority to tighten data-handling policies and has increased training on theft prevention, department spokesman Maj. Stewart Upton said in an e-mail interview. Because of the heavy reliance on the Social Security number, "The cost to remove or replace its use will potentially be very high," Upton said.

Last summer, the FBI recovered a Veterans Affairs laptop that had gone missing for two months carrying data for 26.5 million active and retired service members. Agents said they found no evidence the data were misused.

But Earl Laurie Jr., 57, of Colorado Springs, isn't so sure. The retired Navy chief petty officer uses a post office box, shreds sensitive papers and does not bank online. Yet, a month after the laptop's recovery, Laurie got phone calls from Capital One and U.S. Bank. Each asked him to confirm he had filled out an online credit card application, for $8,000 at one bank and $15,000 at the other. He had not. "The FBI says nobody got it (his data), but it seems awful funny that a month after that, someone tried to get those credit cards," Laurie said.

Scam artists often target service members deployed overseas. When Marine Cpl. Jacob Dissmore, 22, of Janesville, Wis., returned from Iraq in February 2006, he learned that someone in San Diego had opened credit card accounts, started a T-shirt business and even bought a house using his data.

Lifelock helped him prove the accounts were frauds. It took a year.

Speaking for his son, who is again in Iraq, Michael Dissmore says the corporal doesn't blame the military: "But he wishes they had a better system for tracking … other than Social Security number."

Labels: Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:09

Scores of veterans across the country are getting lifetime checks from the government for gonorrhea, genital herpes and other venereal diseases they caught while in the ranks.

The disability payments are made under a little-known provision from three decades ago that entitles vets to monthly benefits for sexually transmitted diseases they contracted, or simply aggravated, while in the service -- even if they became infected on their own time years ago.

Among those receiving VD disability payments is a Texas veteran of a four-year hitch in the mid-1980s, who convinced the Board of Veterans' Appeals that he deserved to be considered 30 percent disabled -- worth $350 a month now -- because his genital warts left him seriously depressed.

Another veteran, this one from Wisconsin, waited 30 years before applying for benefits for the residual effects of gonorrhea he acknowledged he contracted from a prostitute during his basic training at Fort Polk, La., in 1972.

This former soldier, who mustered out of the Army in 1975, said he continued to suffer from recurring gonorrhea-related urethritis when he sought benefits in 1996. Eventually, the appeals board deemed him 10 percent disabled, and thus eligible for a monthly check of about $100 for the rest of his life.

The question of compensating veterans for sexually transmitted diseases is one that apparently has not arisen in Washington since 1972, when Congress changed old rules that had categorized the contracting of such diseases to be an act of "willful misconduct."

IN WASHINGTON, D.C., a veteran who served from 1962 to 1965, and for eight months in 1991, filed for benefits for the six condyloma acuminata, or anal warts, which medical dictionaries describe as sexually transmitted. The vet said the growths had bedeviled him since his service during the Persian Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and, despite treatment, always return.

"The veteran also testified that he experiences a lot of discomfort when he is in the sitting position," said a summary of his testimony during a 1994 hearing on his case.

In 2000, the appeals board deemed him 10 percent disabled because of the warts, entitling the vet to about $100 a month for the rest of his life.

Labels: Boomers

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:00

"But I fear that only terrible kitsch will come out of the project."
...
"I had hoped for a long time that the project was just a publicity stunt on the part of Cruise," Stauffenberg said. "Clearly that appears to not be the case. It's bound to be rubbish."
...
His advice for Cruise? "He should keep his hands off my father. He should climb a mountain or go surfing in the Caribbean. I don't care what he does, so long as he keeps out of it."

Stauffenberg is something of a hero in Germany for being part of a plot to kill Hitler with two suitcase bombs on July 20, 1944. The aristocratic officer was executed by the Nazis the following day for his role in the conspiracy.

Defense Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer said the film makers "will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a member of the Scientology cult".

"In general, the Bundeswehr (German military) has a special interest in the serious and authentic portrayal of the events of July 20, 1944 and Stauffenberg's person," Kammerbauer said.

Labels: Germany, Hollywierd

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 17:36

"We are only demanding one thing - that we get back what was taken from us," said Jaroslaw Kaczynski at the opening of the EU summit in Brussels, chaired by German chancellor Angela Merkel.

"If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would be today looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million."

The issue of population is at the heart of a heated row over voting rights that could wreck Tony Blair's last EU summit.

A proposed new system of sharing out votes rewards countries such as Germany with the biggest numbers - and Poland is angrily demanding more.

Poland's population is 38 million - implying that Mr Kaczynski blames the Germans for the loss of 28 million people.

Labels: Europe, Poland

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:45

A Colombian Marxist guerrilla leader released this month from a prison north of the capital of Bogota at the request of new French President Nicolas Sarkozy has embarrassed both Mr. Sarkozy and President Alvaro Uribe by calling on guerrillas to keep fighting.

"I will never demobilize or call for an end to armed struggle until our objectives are met," said Rodrigo Granda, foreign minister for the rebel movement, in an interview published by the French newspaper Liberation.

It was hoped that his release would be an inducement to help free more than 1,000 hostages held by the rebels.

The hoped-for hostage swap would include a former French-Colombian presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt, and three American defense contractors.

Mr. Uribe accused Mr. Granda of failing to live up to his promise to make a public call for peace and for the demobilization of his group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The leftist group has been fighting Colombia governments for more than four decades.

Labels: Colombia, France

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:27

Labels: Humor, Submarine

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 23:23

Labels: Cartoon

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:36

...abolish the position of JCS chairman altogether -- and the entire JCS system along with it.

History will render this judgment of Pace, who succeeded General Richard B Myers as chairman in September 2005: As U. S. forces became mired ever more deeply in an unwinnable war, Pace remained a passive bystander, a witness to a catastrophe that he was slow to comprehend and did little to forestall. If the position of JCS chair had simply remained vacant for the past two years, it is difficult to see how the American military would be in worse shape today.

Dissatisfaction with the Joint Chiefs dates virtually from the moment in 1947 when Congress passed the legislation creating it. Trying to fix the JCS soon became a cottage industry. The widespread unhappiness with Pace's performance, culminating in his de facto firing, affirms that these various reforms have failed.
...
The creation of a permanent JCS two years after the war was intended to replicate that success: drawing on the accumulated wisdom of their profession, the new Joint Chiefs would help the president and Congress maintain adequate but economical defenses, avoid unnecessary wars, and wage effectively those wars that proved unavoidable.
Measured by these criteria, over the course of six decades the Joint Chiefs of Staff have performed miserably.
...
...instead of military professionals offering disinterested advice to help policymakers render sound decisions, the history of this civilian-military relationship is one of conniving, double-dealing, and mutual manipulation. As generals increasingly played politics, they forfeited their identity as nonpartisan servants of the state. Presidents Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy, each for different reasons, came to see the members of the Joint Chiefs as uniformed political adversaries.

In 1986, these efforts culminated in the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, which designated the chairman (no longer the Joint Chiefs collectively) as principal military adviser to the president and the secretary of defense. In effect, Goldwater-Nichols demoted the service chiefs while greatly expanding the clout and standing of the chairman.

The result was Colin Powell. Appointed chairman in 1989, Powell proved himself in short order to be the savviest, most charismatic, and most influential officer ever to occupy that post. In some respects, he was enormously effective, seemingly fulfilling the expectations of the reformers who had devised Goldwater-Nichols. In the end, however, he overplayed his hand.

Politically, Powell posed a problem. As he skillfully exploited his superstar status to insert himself into a range of controversial issues, Powell demonstrated a capacity and willingness to preempt the politicians, limiting their options and investing his own policy preferences with an almost irresistible authority.

Powell proved that the JCS chairman could now in effect tie the president's hands. During Operation Desert Storm, he convinced President George H. W. Bush to end the ground war after just 100 hours; he insisted that U. S. forces after the Cold War retain the capability to fight two large-scale conventional wars simultaneously; he questioned the wisdom of humanitarian intervention in the Balkans and elsewhere; and he torpedoed President Bill Clinton's efforts to permit gays to serve openly in the military.

When Donald Rumsfeld served as defense secretary, silent assent became an absolute requirement, as army chief of staff Eric Shinseki learned, to his chagrin. When Shinseki testified, during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, that occupying the country might require many more troops than were
available, Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz went out of their way to humiliate and discredit the general for having the temerity to venture an independent opinion. The message to the senior officer corps was clear: those interested in getting ahead were expected to toe the party line.

Pace exemplifies this breed. Only once during his time as chairman has Pace asserted himself -- and that, somewhat bizarrely, was to express his view that homosexuality is immoral.

Perhaps symbolic of that willingness to accommodate, even as Iraq continued to unravel, Pace found time to write a pre-sentencing letter on behalf of convicted perjurer Lewis "Scooter" Libby, assuring the trial judge that Libby is a selfless team player. Pace's involvement in an issue so tinged with partisan overtones was at the very least unseemly, and raises troubling questions about his priorities, if not about the hierarchy of his loyalties.

The JCS lies beyond salvaging. Before you build a new house, you tear the old one down. For the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it's wrecking-ball time. A chairman possessing vision, strategic insight, and integrity ought to be the first to acknowledge that.

Labels: Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 10:12

(She) reported to Admiral "Bull" Halsey's Third Fleet and participated in task force strikes on the Japanese mainland near the close of World War II. On August 9, 1945, she fired the final salvo on the home islands of Japan. She rescued two British POWs just before entering Tokyo Bay for the surrender ceremonies on September 2, 1945. From November 1945 until early 1946, she was anchored off Shanghai, China as the flagship of Task Force 73.

During the Korean War, (She) supplied close gunfire support for United Nations troops, conducted gun strikes against enemy supply lines, and rescued downed pilots. She participated in the drive to Chongjin, the Inchon invasion, Wonsan, and the Hungnam evacuation. On July 27, 1953, (she) fired the last salvo of the war, just two minutes prior to the cease fire.
...
(She) became the first heavy combatant to be permanently homeported in the Orient since the pre-World War II days of the Asiatic Fleet. She operated from Yokosuka, Japan as the Commander Seventh Fleet flagship for more three years. In June of 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower embarked on (Her) for a trip from the Philippines to Taiwan. Three weeks later, she became the first Navy ship to raise the new 50 -star flag. She hosted nearly a quarter million visitors during this extended Far East assignment.
...
On 17 November, she provided gunfire support to the United Nations troops advancing on Chongjin. That day, shrapnel from a near miss by a shell from a Communist shore battery injured six men at gun mount stations. The cruiser destroyed the enemy emplacement with counter-battery fire and continued her support mission.

As the Chinese Communists began massive attacks late in November, United Nations forces commenced a general withdrawal to consolidate and hold south of the 38th parallel. She provided close support for the Republic of Korea I Corps on their east flank as they withdrew from Hapsu, and along the coast, as they retired from Chongjin. On 2 December, she moved north again, conducted night harassing missions above Chongjin, then moved south to support the withdrawal of the Republic of Korea Capital Division to Kyongsong Man. She entered the harbor at Wonsan on 3 December to provide a curtain of shellfire around that city as United Nations forces and equipment were moved to Hungnam; then followed the forces there, and remained to cover the evacuation of that city and harbor between 10 December and 24 December.

From 21 January to 31 January 1951, She conducted shore bombardment missions north of Inchon where, on 26 January, she was again fired upon by shore batteries. On 7 April, in special TF 74, with destroyers Wallace L. Lind (DD-703), and Massey (DD-778), landing ship dock Fort Marion (LSD-22) and high speed transport Begor (APD-127), She helped to carry out raids on rail lines and tunnels utilizing 250 commandos of the 41st Independent Royal Marines. These highly successful destructive raids slowed down the enemy's resupply efforts, forcing the Communists to attempt to repair or rebuild the rail facilities by night while hiding the work crews and locomotives in tunnels by day.

She returned to the United States for yard work at San Francisco, California, from June to September, then conducted underway training before sailing on 5 November for Korea. She arrived off Wonsan on 27 November and commenced gun strike missions. During the following weeks, she bombarded strategic points at Hungnam, Songjin, and Chongjin. In December, she served as an antiaircraft escort for TF 77, and, following a holiday trip to Japan, returned to operations off the coast of North Korea. In April 1952, She participated in combined air-sea attacks against the ports of Wonsan and Chongjin. On 21 April, while the cruiser was engaged in gun fire support operations, a sudden and serious powder fire broke out in her forward eight-inch turret. Thirty men died. Before returning to Japan, however, she carried out gunstrikes on railroad targets near Songjin, during which she captured nine North Koreans from a small boat. Following a brief stay in port and two weeks on the gun line, she headed home and reached Long Beach, California, on 24 June.

On 28 February 1953, She departed the West Coast for her third Korean tour and was in action again by April. In mid-June, she assisted in the recapture of Anchor Hill. With battleship New Jersey (BB-62), she provided close support to the Republic of Korea Army in a ground assault on this key position south of Kosong. The cruiser was fired upon many times by 75 mm and 105 mm guns, and observed numerous near misses, some only ten yards away. But on 11 July at Wonsan, she received her only direct hit from a shore battery. No one was wounded, and only her three-inch antiaircraft mount was damaged. On 27 July, at 2159, she conducted her last gunstrike and had the distinction of firing the last round shot at sea in the war. The shell, autographed by Rear Admiral Harry Sanders, was fired at an enemy gun emplacement. The truce was effective at 2200. She then commenced patrol duties along the east coast of Korea.
...
In 1963, she was visited by the Secretary of the Navy, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Commandant of The Coast Guard. John Wayne and Kirk Douglas filmed scenes for the movie "In Harms Way" as she steamed from Seattle to Hawaii in 1964.
...
(Her) second Vietnam deployment began April 3, 1967 when she steamed west from San Diego. It would be seven months and 20,000 rounds later before the Fighting Saint would return. In her 1966 deployment, she had fired more than 10,000 rounds in support of allied troops south of the DMZ. Prior to that it was in Korea that CA-73 had last fired her big guns at hostile forces; and more than 20 years since the "Snooky Poo Maru", as she was affectionately known to her crew, had participated in World War II.
...
On September 1, 1967, she engaged in her toughest battle of the deployment. Accompanied by two destroyers, she moved in to attack waterborne logistics craft when about 25 coastal defense sites opened fire. She immediately returned the enemy fire and a running batle ensued with shells falling all around the ship.

More than 500 rounds were fired at Her that morning, and one round found its mark. A shell entered near the starboard bow and damaged a storeroom and several staterooms. There were no personnel casualties. Continuously firing, the ship maneuvered to safety and retired to sea for repairs. Working all, night, crewmembers pumped the damaged area dry and welded a patch over the hole. The patch held during high-speed turns, and the next day, "The Fighting Saint" returned to the gunline.

The ship later steamed to Subic Bay for permanent repairs. (She had been in Subic Bay just a month earlier to have all of her 8" guns replaced.) She returned to Sea Dragon where she destroyed six more waterborne craft, two concrete blockhouses, and two costal defense sites. She also heavily damaged railroad yards at Cong Phu and the shipyards Phuc Doi. She was relieved by USS NEWPORT NEWS CA-148 in October and headed to San Diego.

In May 1968, on her third Vietnam deployment, (she) returned to Sea Dragon operations. She picked up right where she had left off, shelling enemy targets on call-fire missions on a round-the-clock basis. She silenced North Vietnamese Army gun positions and sank three 30-foot logistics craft while damaging two 50-foot motorized tugs. The ship again took a brief mid-deployment break for regunning in Subic Bay. In over 1300 missions, she was credited with 380 enemy killed and 800 military structures destroyed or damaged. She was relieved in October by USS NEW JERSEY BB-62 before pointing her bow eastward for San Diego.

During her 130 days on the gunline on this deployment, "The Fighting Saint" fired a total of 64,055 rounds, making a total for the Vietnam conflict of more than 93,000. These figures established the 23-year old CRUISER as "Top Gun", having fired more rounds during a single deployment, and more rounds in all of her deployments, than any other warship.
...
Although "The Fighting Saint" had been decommissioned by the time the Vietnam conflict ended, she holds the distinction of two famous gunfire "lasts". As a member of Admiral 'Bull' Halsey's Third Fleet, she fired the final round on main home islands of Japan on August 9, 1945. She followed up that notoriety by letting go the last salvo of the Korean War on July 27, 1953, just two minutes before the armistice took effect. In more than a quarter century of service to her country, She earned 18 battle stars and fired more rounds of ammunition than any other United States crusier in history. She hosted eight heads of state. A total of 18 of her commanding officers and executive officers ascended to flag rank.

Labels: Cruiser, Fullbore, Korea

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:30

R 192328Z JUN 07
FM CNO WASHINGTON DC
TO NAVADMIN
ZEN/NAVADMIN @ AL NAVADMIN(UC)
INFO ZEN/CNO CNO
BT
UNCLAS
SUBJ: TASK FORCE LIFE/WORK//
PASS TO OFFICE CODES:
FM CNO WASHINGTON DC//N1//
TO NAVADMIN
INFO CNO WASHINGTON DC//N1//
UNCLAS //N03000//
NAVADMIN 159/07
MSGID/GENADMIN/CNO WASHINGTON DC/N1/JUN//
SUBJ/TASK FORCE LIFE/WORK//
RMKS/1. THIS NAVADMIN ANNOUNCES THE STAND UP OF TASK FORCE LIFE/WORK (TFLW) WHICH WILL INCLUDE A TEAM FROM ACROSS THE FLEET, NAVY ENTERPRISES AND OFFICER/ENLISTED COMMUNITIES WITH THE MISSION OF DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING POLICIES, PROGRAMS, AND CHANGES WITH THE REAL POTENTIAL TO ENHANCE OUR SAILORS LIFE/WORK BALANCE.

2. RECENTLY A SMALL NUMBER OF NAVY FLAGS, DON SENIOR CIVILIANS, AND SENIOR ENLISTED LEADERS MET TO EXAMINE THE EMERGING CHALLENGES WE FACE IN RECRUITING AND RETAINING THE NEXT GENERATION OF 21ST CENTURY LEADERS. OUR NATION S CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS, ABOVE AND BEYOND GENDER AND RACE (of course), MUST BE ADDRESSED IF NAVY IS TO REMAIN RELEVANT IN THE EVOLVING AND HIGHLY COMPETITIVE MARKETPLACE FOR TALENT. DESIGNING NEW APPROACHES TO EXPAND AND TO STRENGTHEN LIFE/WORK INTEGRATION WHILE REMAINING TRUE TO MEETING NAVY S MISSION REQUIREMENTS IS ESSENTIAL FOR SUCCESS IN OUR RECRUITING AND RETENTION EFFORTS, BOTH TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE.

3. IN THE NEXT YEAR, TFLW WILL FOCUS ON INITIATIVES TO ENHANCE HEALTHY LIFE/WORK BALANCE SUCH AS THE RECENT UPDATE TO THE PREGNANCY AND PARENTHOOD INSTRUCTION. SPECIFIC TFLW TASKS INCLUDE: EXAMINE INITIATIVES NAVY CAN INFLUENCE NOW THROUGH POLICY; IDENTIFY EFFORTS WHICH REQUIRE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE OR CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL TO PLAN FOR LONG RANGE ENGAGEMENT; AND SOLICIT FEEDBACK FROM THE FLEET ON WHAT CHANGES SAILORS DESIRE FOR IMPROVED LIFE/WORK BALANCE.

4. OVER THE COMING MONTHS, WE PLAN TO TAKE WHAT WE LEARNED DURING THE LIFE/WORK SUMMIT TO THE WATERFRONT TO BRIEF SAILORS AND GET THEIR DIRECT FEEDBACK (Why just stick to the waterfront? We can find a COD for you if you want to talk to Sailors while deployed. Stay for awhile. Spend some time on the enlisted smoking sponson or we can put you on the Sunday Holy Helo to the small boys for a few days - take some time having a cigar with the Chief's Mess on DDG-XYZ.). YOUR THOUGHTS, OPINIONS, AND INSIGHTS ARE IMPORTANT TO TFLWAS FUTURE WORKFORCE POLICY IS DEVELOPED AND IMPLEMENTED.

5. IMPROVING LIFE/WORK BALANCE FOR OUR SAILORS MEANS RECOGNIZING THAT OUR SAILORS NEED AND WANT TO MAINTAIN DIVERSE INTERESTS IN ADDITION TO THEIR NAVY COMMITMENT (we don't now? Maybe YOU don't). IT DOES NOT MEAN WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO CHANGE WHAT HAS MADE US SUCESSFUL SIMPLY FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE (yes you are) OR ARE MERELY PURSUING FEEL GOOD PROGRAMS WITH NO REAL IMPACT(you protesteth too much). BY POSITIVELY IMPROVING LIFE/WORK BALANCE FLEET-WIDE, WHILE CAPITALIZING ON THE BEST OF OUR TRADITIONS AND HERITAGE, WE CAN SIGNIFICANTLY INFLUENCE HOW WE CONTINUE TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS, DEPLOY FORCES FORWARD, AND PREPARE OUR 21ST CENTURY SAILORS FOR A RAPIDLY CHANGING FUTURE (if you are saying that now we are "negatively improving" and "insignificantly influencing" then who is going to be held accountable?). TFLW IS NOT LOOKING FOR THE EASY BUTTON (oh, how cute, a pop-culture reference) FOR OUR SAILORS - IT WILL BE LOOKING FOR THE BETTER BUTTON.

6. POINTS OF CONTACT:
- LT STEPHANIE Mxxxx, OPNAV N134, AT (703) 695-xxxx/225 OR EMAIL AT STEPHANIE.xxxxx(AT)NAVY.MIL.
- CAPT KEN xxxxx, OPNAV N134, AT (703) 695-xxxx/DSN 225 OR EMAIL AT
KEN.xxxx(AT)NAVY.MIL.

7. RELEASED BY VADM J. C. HARVEY, JR., N1.//

BT

NNNN

Labels: Bu11sh1t Bingo

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:31

Marines are getting too comfortable at their dug-in bases in Iraq, the Corps’ top officer told an audience at the Naval War College on June 13.

“Due to the available infrastructure in the Al Anbar and the longevity of our presence, Marines are getting used to living at fixed bases and with more comforts of life than we really need,” Commandant Gen. James Conway said in comments provided to Marine Corps Times.
...
“The comforts and the infrastructure of large bases in Iraq are a byproduct of our sustained presence there, and certainly do contribute to the morale of our Marines. However, Marines must guard against complacency and the expectation that tomorrow’s fight be marked by equally hospitable operating bases,” he said.

Labels: Marines

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:21

Blacks in Government (BIG) and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) are seeking nominations through from Sailors for personal and professional achievements both on and off duty.

BIG is soliciting nominations for its Meritorious Service Award. The award honors an active duty or Reserve member who has significantly contributed to the global war on terrorism while showing leadership and initiative in support of the development, advancement and retention of African Americans in government service.

Nominations for this award should be submitted no later than June 29 by e-mail or regular mail to the Navy Equal Opportunity Office, MILL_Navy_EO_Advice@navy.mil or COMNAVPERSCOM, Navy EO Office, 5720 Integrity Drive, Building 457, Room 257, Millington, Tenn. 38055.

BIG award winners will be recognized at the Blacks in Government 29th Annual Training Conference in Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 13-17. Commands may provide funded orders (if available) to cover expenses incident to conference attendance, including transportation, per diem and registration fees.

SHPE has a number of awards available to Sailors who have made selfless and outstanding contributions in the fields of engineering and science as well as to the Hispanic community as a whole. During last year’s conference, Lt. Cmdr. Juan Orozco was honored with the “Hispanics in Technology – Government and Corporate Award.”

Nominations are due July 1 to SHPE National Office, 5400 East Olympic Boulevard, Suite 210, Los Angeles, Calif., 90022.

All SHPE award recipients will be recognized during the SHPE Conference in Philadelphia from Oct. 31 through Nov. 4. Commands may provide funded orders (if available) to cover expenses incident to conference attendance, including transportation, per diem and registration fees.

Detailed instructions on these and all diversity related awards are available at www.npc.navy.mil/CommandSupport/Diversity/.

For more news from Chief of Naval Personnel - Diversity Directorate, visit www.news.navy.mil/local/cnp-diversity/.

Labels: Diversity

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:03

Labels: Media

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 23:13

Labels: Fred Thompson

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:16

Yes indeed, two different titles for the same movie! I guess the "live free" part of the title was considered to be too sensitive outside of North America? I know that "Live free or die" is the state motto of New Hampshire, but that is hardly an excuse. A second difference is that The Statue of Freedom in the background on top of the U.S. Capitol is a lot closer to Willis' ear in the international version. Because the voice of freedom is much more faint?

Labels: Europe

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:12

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is expected to finalise a deal on buying up to nine Russian submarines during a visit here later this month, a Russian newspaper reported on Thursday.

Caracas has already ordered five 636-type diesel submarines and four of a new model of diesel submarine, the 677E Amur, the Kommersant broadsheet said, quoting unnamed sources in the ship-building and arms export sectors.

Chavez may have to settle for the older 636 submarines for the time being as the new 677E Amur has not yet been presented to Russia's own navy, a source at the arms export agency Rosoboronexport said.

Labels: ASW, Latin America

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:05

Labels: Me

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:17

...stop pretending that whining gets anything done.

Sergeant First Class Shirley Jacobs said it best, “I had a choice, and chose the Army to make something of myself.” In three deployments, Sergeant Jacobs has successfully completed over 100 convoy missions into Iraq. Despite barely looking old enough to vote, the men and women SFC Jacobs has safely lead on and off of IED ridden roads call her “meticulous,” “demanding,” “tough,” disciplined, and motherly. Days are long and hard for a military convoy, especially during a time of war. I personally watched Jacobs adapt to unpredictable schedule changes, equipment problems and shortages.

Despite the obstacles Jacobs rose to every occasion—did I mention that the May weather was exceptionally hot? Jacobs called it “just doing her job,” a job that demanded 12 to 18 hour days. Yet the most extraordinary characteristic about Jacobs, ... was that she never once complained.

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:19

Developing Specific Justification Statement for Authorization of Travel Orders for Local Participants to Stay at Hotel and Obtain Per Diem Due to Extended Work Outside Normal Business Hours

Labels: Bu11sh1t Bingo, NAVSEA

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:00

Labels: Culture Wars

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:56

Labels: Hillary

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 22:29

While the right in France didn't get the tidal wave hoped for (still they have the Presidency and 314 out of 577) - next door the Belgians have taken a less dramatic - but none-the-less significant - step to the right.

The results for Flanders: big wins for the opposition party CD & V (Christian Democrats, first pillar from the left), a slight win for the VB (second pillar from the left), heavy losses for the ruling liberals (third pillar) and socialists (fourh pillar), sudden emergence of breakaway rightwing party LDD (fifth pillar, light blue), Green nutters (last pillar) winning a bit. If not a shift to the right, definitely a shift away from the left.

Noteworthy too is the sudden rise of a small breakaway rightwing party from the liberal VLD. This LDD party, for Lijst De Decker, which secured in Flanders some 7% of the vote, seems to have attracted most of the malcontent "dark blue" liberals of the VLD, who could not stomach anymore how their once great party - I myself was a VLD member till 2004 - had become nearly indistinguishable from the socialists.

In light of the shift towards the centrist Christian Democrats and the sudden appearance of the rightwing LDD (rightwing only with regards to economics, ethically it has a "progressive" agenda, it is perhaps surprising that the VB still stood its own, and even gained 1.1% as compared to the previous parliamentary elections. Given the peculiarities of the Belgian voting system this will however not translate in another seat in Parliament, to the contrary, the VB loses one, from 18 seats to 17. By contrast, the Christian Democrats now have 30 seats in the 150-seat Kamer (Lower House).

To sum it all up, there IS a rightwing shift in Belgium, both in Flanders and Wallonia.

Flemish Christian Democrat, Pieter De Crem, ..spoke(n) out in favor of "more risky operations" for the Belgian Army. This may very well be interpreted as a more active involvement in the WOT.

Labels: Belgium, Europe

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:48

WALLACE: Senate Majority Leader Reid this week questioned your credibility after you gave an interview in which you said you saw, quote, "astonishing signs of normalcy in Baghdad such as soccer games and open markets." And here's how Senator Reid responded. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID, D-NEV.: We're now back up to 1,000 attacks a day in Iraq. And for someone, whether it's General Petraeus or anyone else, to say things are great in Baghdad isn't in touch with what's going on in Baghdad, even though he's there and I'm not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: General, the argument seems to be that we're getting spin out of Baghdad and not the straight talk as to what the situation is there. Your response.

PETRAEUS: Chris, I've tried hard to be forthright all along in this endeavor. My testimony before the Senate in January, again in April, when I did a VTC in the middle of that as well, with every congressional delegation and with the press, I have tried not to pull punches.

I base my assessments, what I offer, on personal observation, walking around Baghdad, driving around it, flying around it. The fact is that there are signs of normalcy throughout a good bit of Baghdad. There are tens of thousands of kids that will be out there tonight playing soccer.

In fact, we flew around the city on the way over here today, since they'd lifted the curfew, just to see how things were going. There's traffic all over the streets. The markets are reopened and so forth.

That is not to say — and in fact, in that interview I followed and also warned, for example, that the mosque bombing could spark new violence. I have tried hard to present both the good and the bad.

But I will not shrink from announcing that there is some good out there, if you will, that there is some normalcy, nor will I shrink from acknowledging that there is plenty of bad out there, as I did with the fact that we have to really focus on 30 percent of those Baghdad neighborhoods.

And there's certainly not much normalcy in some of those neighborhoods which are under the threat of both Al Qaeda and then extremist militias.

WALLACE: So how do you feel when you hear a senator here in Washington say that you're out of touch with what's going on in Baghdad?

PETRAEUS: Chris, as I said, I am just going to present what I see. I am going to provide a forthright assessment. That's the same thing that we'll do in September.

And frankly, we've got more than enough work out here to keep us occupied and to keep us focused and busy.

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:45

Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.

On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.

She does both, she says, because she's Christian and Muslim.

Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she's ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she's also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.

Her announcement has provoked surprise and bewilderment in many, raising an obvious question: How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim..?

She says she felt an inexplicable call to become Muslim, and to surrender to God — the meaning of the word "Islam."

"It wasn't about intellect," she said. "All I know is the calling of my heart to Islam was very much something about my identity and who I am supposed to be.

"I could not not be a Muslim..."
Redding's bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting.

The other day, six Anglican archbishops called for the church to bless the unions of same-sex couples. The Anglican Church of Canada is about to have a big vote on the issue, and depending which way they swing it will either deepen the schism within the worldwide Anglican Communion or further isolate the Episcopal Church of the United States.

But never mind all that. What struck me was the rationale the archbishops came up with. This gay thing, they sighed. We've been yakking about it for years. Let's just get on with it, and then we can get back to the important stuff. "We are deeply concerned that ongoing study," they fretted, "will only continue to draw us away from issues which are gradually destroying God's creation – child poverty, racism, global warming, economic injustice, concern for our aboriginal brothers and sisters and the growing disparity between the rich and the poor."

That's it? Anglicans need to fast-track a liturgy for gay couples so they can free up time to deal with the real issues like global warming? Half that catalogue of horrors seems to be different ways of saying the same thing ("child poverty… economic injustice… growing disparity") in order to give a bit of pro forma padding to the totally cool cause du jour of global warming. Which is so cool that, if an Anglican archbishop shows up at a climate-change conference, he'll be lucky to get in the room, and if he does he'll be stuck at the table with the wonky leg next to the toilet, barely able to see the Most Reverend Almer Gortry up on stage doing his power-point presentation and warning that rising sea levels will send tidal waves crashing through every gay wedding reception in Provincetown by Saturday afternoon.

Labels: Religion

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:06

Labels: Gore

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:56

Labels: Corvette, Germany, Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 01:50

The first Asheville (Gunboat No. 21)—a single-screw, steel-hulled gunboat—was laid down on 9 June 1918 at the Charleston (S.C.) Navy Yard; launched on 4 July 1918; sponsored by Miss Alyne J. Reynolds, daughter of Dr. Carl V. Reynolds, MD, a prominent citizen of Asheville; and commissioned on 6 July 1920, Lt. Comdr. Elliot Buckmaster—who would later command the carrier Yorktown (CV-5) during World War II—in temporary command.

Following the Japanese attacks on the Phillipines, Admiral Hart sent Asheville, and other surface ships, south from Manila Bay to the "Malay Barrier." By and large, only tenders and submarines remained in Philippine waters. Asheville stood out of Manila Bay a half hour into the mid watch on 11 December 1941, and, steaming via the Celebes Sea and Balikpapan, Borneo, ultimately reached Surabaya, Java, three days after Christmas of 1941.

She was eventually based at Tjilatjap, on Java's south coast. When Japanese planes bombed and heavily damaged Langley (AV-3) south of Java on 27 February 1942, Asheville was one of the ships sent to her assistance; she returned to port soon thereafter, the seaplane tender's survivors being picked up by other ships.

As the Allied defense crumbled under the relentless Japanese onslaught, however, the Allied naval command was dissolved. On the morning of 1 March 1942, Vice Admiral William A. Glassford, Commander, Southwest Pacific Force (formerly the U.S. Asiatic Fleet) ordered the remaining American naval vessels to retire to Australian waters.

Asheville—Lt. Jacob W. Britt in command—cleared Tjilatjap on 1 March 1942, bound for Fremantle. At 0615 on 2 March, Tulsa sighted a ship, and identified her as Asheville—probably the last time the latter was in sight of friendly forces. During the forenoon watch on 3 March, Asheville radioed "being attacked," some 300 miles south of Java. The minesweeper Whippoorwill (AM-35), heard the initial distress call and turned toward the reported position some 90 miles away. When a second report specified that the ship was being attacked by a surface vessel, however, Whippoorwill's captain, Lt. Comdr. Charles R. Ferriter, reasoning correctly that "any surface vessel that could successfully attack the Asheville would be too much" for his own command, ordered the minesweeper to resume her voyage to Australia.

Asheville, presumed lost, was stricken from the Navy list on 8 May 1942. Not until after World War II, however, did the story of her last battle emerge, when a survivor of heavy cruiser Houston (CA-30), told of meeting, in prison camp, Fireman 1st Class Fred L. Brown. Brown, 18 years old, had been in the gunboat's fireroom when a Japanese surface force (Vice Admiral Kondo Nobutake) had overtaken the ship on 3 March 1942. Destroyers Arashi (Commander Watanabe Yasumasa) and Nowaki (Commander Koga Magatarou) overwhelmed Asheville, scoring hits on her forecastle and bridge; many men topside were dead by the time Brown arrived topside to abandon ship. A sailor on board one of the enemy destroyers threw out a line, which Brown grasped and was hauled on board. Sadly, Asheville's only known survivor perished in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp on 18 March 1945.

Labels: Fullbore

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 08:02

More than half of state governors lower the American flag to honor servicemembers killed overseas.

As the USA observes Flag Day Thursday, a 50-state check indicates that 28 governors automatically lower flags when troops from their state are killed, while 22 governors do not. Some lower flags statewide, others only at certain facilities or localities.

There is a debate over whether every servicemember should get the honor. "Otherwise, anytime we're in a conflict, the flag would be at half-staff most of the time, unfortunately," said Joyce Doody, executive director of the National Flag Foundation.
...
Witte also said lowering the flag on a regular basis could trivialize the honor.
"If it was World War II and you're losing thousands of soldiers a year, you're looking at half-mast all year," he said.

Labels: America

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:53

Labels: Art, Music

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 19:10

Labels: America

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:49

The fortunes of war are unpredictable and if I'm going to make bold predictions I will predict the worse case scenario possible because that is what should drive decision making.

If AQIZ and the Iranians team up against the Sunnis who will by that time be in good favor with the coalition policy makers will have choice--throw in with the Sunni to defeat AQIZ and Iranian influenced groups or turn their backs on the ones who stood with us, albeit belatededly, against AQIZ.

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:49

Labels: Art

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:44

Labels: Fred Thompson

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 19:48

Suzanne M. Bump, Massachusetts secretary of labor and workforce development, said she could staff her entire operation with solely white lawyers.

Doing so, however, would rob her office of the diversity of perspective, culture and experience necessary to solve the critical workforce challenges the state faces, she said.

"I could fill my office with white lawyers," Bump said. "We're choked with applications from them. But they're not going to get the job done. A diversity of skills, perspective and cultural background is necessary for success in creating more and better jobs in this state."

Bump offered her remarks last week at a forum on diversity in the workplace held in Natick, co-sponsored by the MetroWest Alliance for Workforce Diversity and the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce.
The goal of the forum was to discuss the barriers to better workforce diversity and explore solutions to the growing problems of workforce homogeneity and a population decline in Massachusetts.

Bump was joined by Carole Berotte Joseph, president of Massachusetts Bay Community College, and Lauren Stiller Rikleen of the Bowditch Institute for Women's Success and former president of the Boston Bar.

Labels: Diversity

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 19:01

Brazil's Juliana signals her teammate during the final game of the women's GE Money Bank Warsaw Open, a part of the Swatch FIVB World Tour 2007, in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, June 10, 2007. Julania and her partner Larissa won the tournament.

Labels: Latin America

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:55

It has been called a puerile mess, a health hazard, a disastrous waste of £400,000... and even the London 2012 Olympics logo.

After a week in which the new logo sparked nationwide ridicule, hostile questions in the House of Commons and a series of epileptic fits, it seems that only one question remained unanswered: exactly whose bright idea was this?

It can now be revealed that the man who led the design team that created the logo is Patrick Cox, the executive creative director of Wolff Olins, an Islington-based brand consultancy with links to the Labour establishment.

In overall control of the "brand project" was Brian Boylan, 61, the chairman of Wolff Olins who has worked at the company since the late Sixties.

In that time, Wolff Olins has built impressive links with the Labour establishment. Sarah Brown, the wife of Gordon, the prime minister in waiting, started her career at Wolff Olins after leaving university.

Michael Wolff, the company's co-founder, was credited with creating Labour's red rose symbol in 1986, and in 1998 its representatives were called upon by Tony Blair to be part of a group of "creative thinkers" helping to "rebrand Britain" and create the brief, heady days of "Cool Britannia".

Mr Boylan is a member of the Tate Modern Council and serves on the board of the Government-funded Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment.

In 1971, only eight per cent of the working population was on benefits. Today the figure is 18 per cent, and some economic think tanks estimate that one-third of British households rely on benefits for at least half their income.
...
In 2005, 41 per cent of patients waited four months or longer for elective surgery, compared with 33 per cent in Canada, 19 per cent in Australia and less than 10 per cent in Germany and America.
...
Britain leads Europe -- and most of the world -- in terms of single-mother households.
...
UNICEF this year ranked Britain bottom in the league of industrialized nations in terms of the well-being of children. ... Britain also has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe, ... Britain ranks top, with France, in western Europe in terms of sexually transmitted disease. It has the highest obesity rate in Europe, with nearly a quarter of inhabitants classified as obese. ... Britain has one of the highest rates of alcohol abuse in Europe, ... Britain also heads Europe in terms of drug abuse. Cocaine use is highest in the United Kingdom, and use among secondary school pupils has doubled in the last year. ... London has a higher violent crime rate than any other city in the European Union, higher than in Istanbul and New York City.

Labels: Art, Britain, Culture Wars, Olympics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:26

Labels: Humor, Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:58

Labels: Afghanistan, Books, Hereos, Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:50

The Air Force on Tuesday confirmed a report that in 1994 a military researcher requested $7.5 million to develop a non-lethal "love bomb" that would chemically alter the state of mind of enemy troops and make them want to have sex with each other rather than fight.

Labels: Navy, USAF

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 19:46

Membership in the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has declined more than 90 percent since the 2001 terrorist attacks, Audrey Hudson will report in Tuesday's editions of The Washington Times.

According to tax documents obtained by The Times, the number of reported members spiraled down from more than 29,000 in 2000 to less than 1,700 in 2006, a loss of membership that caused the Muslim rights group's annual income from dues to drop from $732,765 in 2000, when yearly dues cost $25, to $58,750 last year, when the group charged $35.

Critics of the organization say they are not surprised that membership is sagging, and that a recent decision by the Justice Department to name CAIR as "unindicted co-conspirators" in a federal case against another foundation charged with providing funds to a terrorist group could discourage new members.

Labels: C.A.I.R.

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 11:17

UMP & Presidential majority (Right) : 405-455 seats
Mouvement pour la Démocratie (Eunuch Centrist) : 1-4 seats
Socialist Party and other Left : 120-160

Labels: France

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:37

Labels: Me

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 17:21

Labels: Iraq

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:26

Labels: Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:07

Labels: Cartoon

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:56

Labels: Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 14:11

Her first movement order was executed on January 15, 1944 when we left Charleston for the Naval Operating Base in Norfolk, VA. Less than 20% of her crew and officers had ever been to sea before.
...
On March 3rd orders came to proceed to New York at best speed via the cape cod canal and to prepare for a secret mission. Arriving at New York we found many Navy and War Shipping Administration tugs getting ready for the same job. When all the Commanding Officers were briefed at the Third Naval District Headquarters, it was learned that the Navy was delivering barges to General Eisenhower for the invasion of Europe and that the the greatest convoy of tugs and tows ever to cross the North Atlantic was about to get underway. This eventful trip was months later and it aroused considerable interest in Washington. The Bureau of Ships sent Lieutenant Commander Harry M. Fisko aboard the Arikara as an observer with orders to write a report upon completion of the trip. On March 25th all the tugs and tows, with a large escort, were underway for a port in the United Kingdom. Our escorts were kept busy all the way over; numerous submarine contacts were made and upon arrival at Falmouth, England the escort vessels' supply of depth charges was completely exhausted. However, excepting the loss of one ship in our convoy the operation was a complete success in every respect. Due to very heavy seas and the nature of our operation it required 26 days to make the crossing. We delivered our barges to Army service tugs in Falmouth and then reported for duty to Commander of the Twelfth Fleet.
...
At 0330 the morning of June 6th we had our first glimpse of the French coast under flares fired by our combat ships. The bombardment from battleships and cruisers was deafening. Rocket ships were softening up the beaches for the first wave of rangers. Bombers overhead were dropping tons of bombs. The entire area trembled for hours. At dawn the transports lowered their boats to the water, all loaded with troops. The Bay of Seine was solid mass of landing craft. The Arikara's job was to keep the beaches clear of wrecks so that the Mulbury harbor units could be beached without obstruction. We were not long in getting our first job. An LCI, one of the first to hit the beach had caught the fire of the German 88s. We brought her alongside to starboard to see if there was any hope of salvage. She started to list, but before we could do anything she capsized right alongside of us taking our starboard whale boat out on the way over. Her crew was rescued and we towed the over-turned hull to a deep area and blew it up. This LCI had been a hero of North Africa and the last thing we saw on her way over was a painted four leaf clover with the words "Sicily" under it.

From this point on things moved fast. Mines, underwater obstacles and German guns were taking a toll of small craft. We temporarily forgot our job of salvage and became a rescue and repair ship. At one time we had as many as 6 LCT's tied up alongside, making minor repairs so that they could keep troops and supplies moving into the beaches.

An LCT loaded with an Army mechanized unit had been disabled and drifted in the tide towards Port En Bessen. She spent the night adrift between the fire of American destroyers and enemy shore batteries, afraid to flash or signal light for help, lest it be spotted by the enemy. Her crew was surely a happy lot when the Arikara pulled alongside the next morning at dawn and towed them clear.

Labels: Fullbore, WWII

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 18:58

U.S. military officials said Wednesday that a Navy ship recently fired on pirates who overtook a Danish vessel off Somalia's coast.

The USS Carter Hill, part of a U.S. task force that helps maintain security off Somalia and nearby countries, engaged the pirates after they hijacked a Danish cargo ship, the Danica White, in international waters, said Lt. Denise Garcia, a public affairs officer at U.S. Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.

The U.S. ship fired several warning shots across the Danica White's bow and also destroyed three small boats the pirates had used in their assault and were towing behind the Danish vessel, according to Garcia, who said the incident occurred Saturday.

The U.S. ship called off its pursuit after the pirates navigated the Danica White into Somalia's territorial waters, where the U.S. does not have jurisdiction, Garcia said.

A small Danish-owned and, we understand, Danish-crewed general cargo vessel, has been captured by pirates in the latest series of ships and fishing vessels being boarded and taken over, with their crews held to ransom, off the Somalia coast.

The vessel, (erroneously called DONICA WHITE in many reports, she is in fact DANICA WHITE) owned and operated by H. Folmer & Co. Copenhagen, Denmark, was on a voyage from Dubai to Mombassa in Kenya with a cargo of building materials.

About 240 miles off the Somali coast she was intercepted and captured by what are presumed to be Somali pirates. ... It is understood she is now anchored in Hobyo, 700 km from Mogadishu.

A French warship reportedly looked on as the event unfolded, and refused to enter Somali waters as the mv DANICA WHITE was taken into the region.

Although piracy is rampant off Somalia's lawless coast, killing crew members is relatively rare, Mwangura said. He said pirates have killed four crew members in the past 10 years.

"Normally they don't kill crew members if they cooperate," he said.

Since February, pirates have hijacked 10 ships — five have been released and five are still being held, according to the Seafarers Assistance Program.

Labels: Denmark, France, Navy, Pirates

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 16:54

Labels: Humor

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:49

Labels: Austria

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 05:58

Labels: Media

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 22:53

Denmark on Friday decided to increase its military presence in Afghanistan by about a third, and to replace its army contingent in southern Iraq with a small air force staff and four helicopters.

In a 99-12 vote, lawmakers backed the government's decision to add some 200 troops in Afghanistan to Denmark's current force of 440 soldiers to join the reconstruction effort. Sixty-eight lawmakers were absent.

The bulk of the new troops in Afghanistan will be in charge of security around reconstruction efforts in the volatile Helmand province in the south. A group of 45 Danish soldiers will be assigned to a NATO facility at Kandahar airport.

Labels: Afghanistan, Denmark

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:46

Labels: Art, Britain, Olympics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:38

Labels: Fred Thompson

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:29

Labels: Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 19:44

SCARBOROUGH: Have you seen Fred Thompson’s wife?
CRAWFORD: Oh, yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: You think she thinks she works the pole?

Labels: Fred Thompson, Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:28

Labels: Navy

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:12

Helen Greiner is the President of IS Robotics, ... Helen holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science, both from MIT. Her 10 years of experience in robotic technology includes work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and MIT'’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. For more information on the ongoing work at IS Robotics, visit the Company’s homepage, www.isr.com.

...the company has already proved its mass appeal with the success of the Roomba, a vacuum cleaner that has become the bestselling consumer robot in history.

More important, iRobot's products are saving lives. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army is deploying 300 of the company's PackBots, 42-pound track-wheeled rovers with arms and antennae that seek out suspicious objects and remove them to safe places for possible detonation. Sensitive enough to sniff out a bomb, they are also tough enough to climb stairs and to survive a drop from 10 feet onto a concrete floor.

Gender conventions suggest that Angle, the company's chief executive officer, would be running the military side of iRobot's business, and Greiner the consumer end. Yet, as anyone who really knows Greiner might have predicted, the case is exactly the opposite. It is Greiner who secures government contracts and networks with generals.

Angle recalls the day he and Greiner went target shooting with a military client, a three-star admiral. The weapon of choice was the AK-47, but for safety reasons the automatic function had been disabled. "Of course Helen was the only woman there," says Angle, "and she kept saying 'I want to fire the automatic.' " After much protesting, the mechanism was restored. Greiner blasted away.

iRobot's PackBot is the new standard in unmanned reconnaissance and bomb disposal. It is a lightweight, rugged robot that can be carried and deployed by a single soldier. PackBot offers unprecedented mobility and durability—it can be thrown into a building through a window, climb stairs, drop 20 feet and still function properly. The robot was originally developed under the Tactical Mobile Robotics program, which was sponsored by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Designed as a versatile payload carrier, iRobot has added reconnaissance payloads with pan/tilt head and night vision, Chem/gas/rad payloads, and a bomb disposal (EOD) payloads.

The PackBot EOD has been used on thousands of bomb disposal missions and we are very proud of its life saving function. The one pictured was sent back to us from Iraq for analysis after a bomb detonated. In most missions, the PackBot EOD returns safely, but in the case where it is blown up, better a robot than a soldier. A geek aside: the PackBot is running a Linux OS with iRobot's Aware robot control software.

Labels: Weapons

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:55

United States Congressman William J. Jefferson was indicted today by a federal grand jury on charges including bribery and racketeering for allegedly using his office to corruptly solicit bribes and for paying bribes to a foreign official, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg for the Eastern District of Virginia announced today.

The indictment alleges that Jefferson knowingly conspired with Vernon L. Jackson, a Louisville, Ky., businessman, and Brett M. Pfeffer, a former Jefferson congressional staff member, and others as part of the bribery and corruption scheme. Jefferson allegedly discussed and solicited bribes in return for being influenced in the performance of certain official acts, including receiving things of value from iGate, Jackson's company. According to the indictment, Jefferson also corruptly sought bribes from an individual identified in the indictment as a Cooperating Witness (CW) to be paid to family members. The indictment alleges, for example, that Jefferson required 5 percent to 7 percent of the CW's newly formed Nigerian company be given to members of Jefferson's family in exchange for his assistance. Jefferson allegedly made the request of the CW in December 2004 during a meeting in a congressional dining room.

The House Appropriations Committee has decided to insert earmarks into all of the FY08 spending bills during the conferencing committees, instead of during the initial House-only process.

This will prevent lawmakers like Jeff Flake from offering amendments to strip out wasteful pork projects...which is EXACTLY why David Obey, the Approps Chairman, is changing the rules. In defending his move, Obey said ($),

“It’s my job to protect the committee."

When asked about the inevitable criticism the move will receive from Republicans and others — Obey told The Washington Post — "I don't give a damn if people criticize me or not."

Labels: Congress, Democrats

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 22:26

Defense Knowledge Online (DKO)

DKO Vision
Develop an adaptive and agile enterprise portal for the DOD community that utilizes current and future net-centric technology to enable a framework that empowers knowledge dominance, ensures synchronization of resources, and aggressively enables situational awareness and operational security in support of the Warfighter.

DKO Mission
Lead a joint effort to develop, integrate, deploy, and support Defense Knowledge Online in order to facilitate joint communication, collaboration, and knowledge management throughout DoD NLT 1 OCT 09. On order, support other federal agencies and Allies as required.

Labels: Bu11sh1t Bingo

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:50

6. The F2A-3 is sadly out-classed in all respects by Japanese 00 fighters. Although all pilots of this squadron were aware of this fact, they drove their attack home with daring and skill

The Zero fighter in level flight is faster than the F2A-3. It is much more maneuverable than the F2A-3. It can outclimg the F2A-3. It has more firepower than the F2A-3.
...
The F2A-3 is not a combat aeroplane. It is inferior to the airplanes we were fighting in every respect. The F2A-3 has about the same speed as a Aichi 99 Dive Bomber. The Japanese Zero fighter can fly circles around the F2A-3. ...

It is my belief that any commander that orders pilots out in combat in the F2A-3 should consider that pilot lost before leaving the ground.
...
As for the F2A-3, it should be in Miami as a training plane, rather than be used as a first line fighter.

USMC 2dLT William "Bill" Brooks in F2A-3 Bureau No. 01523 (MF-16) was one of the few survivors of the June 4, 1942 morning interception of the incoming Japanese attack on Midway Atoll by VMF 221. "At about 0600, the alarm sounded and we took off. My division climbed rapidly, and I was having a hard time keeping up. I discovered afterwards that although my wheels indicator and hydraulic pressure indicator both registered "wheels up", they were in reality about 1/3 of the way down." Following LT. Sandoval down the right side of the incoming Japanese formation, Brooks looked back to see a Japanese aircraft falling from his or Sandoval's fire. Losing contact with his division, he started to climb for a second attack when the Zeros attacked. Diving (slowly with partially extended landing gear) for the water, he circled the island while anti-aircraft fire drove off his pursuers. " My tabs, instruments, and cockpit were shot up to quite an extent, at this time, and I was intending to come in for a landing. I saw two planes dogfighting over in the East, and decided to go help my friend if at all possible. My plane was working very poorly, and my climb was slow. As I neared the fight, both planes turned on me. It was then that I realized I had been tricked into a sham battle put on by two Japs, and I failed to recognize this because of the sun in my eyes. I turned and made a fast retreat for the island, collecting a goodly number of bullets on the way. After one of these planes had been shaken, I managed to get a good burst into another as we passed head-on when I turned into him."
This is the moment captured by the painting "I don't believe he could have gotten back to his carrier, because he immediately turned north and down. I again decided to land, but as I circled the island I saw two Japs on a Brewster. Three of my guns were jammed but I cut across the island, firing as I went with my one gun. I could not get there in time to help the American flyer, and as soon as the Brewster had gone into the water I came in for a landing at approximately 0715. My plane was damaged somewhat, having 72 bullet and cannon holes in it, and I had a very slight flesh wound on my left leg. It is my express desire that LT. Sandoval, deceased, be logged up with the bomber which one of us got in our first run." - From the after-action battle report of Bill Brooks - June 4, 1942 -

Labels: Fighter, WWII

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 17:28

　　One day in mid May, reporters witnessed a confrontation training involving multiple submarines staged by a submarine flotilla of the East China Sea Fleet. According to the chief of staff of the flotilla, with its successful leap from the primarily single submarine training to the multi-submarine joint training under complex conditions, the flotilla has noticeably hoisted its striking performance.

　　Recent years saw this submarine flotilla growing full-fledged in the course of stretching its reaches from south to north and from the offshore to the open seas.

　　In the evolution from the single-submarine training to the multi-submarine joint training under complex conditions, its sense of mission and sense of responsibility in boosting energetically the transformation of military training are epitomized. With its resolve to drop the traditional "guerillaist" method of single-submarine training, the flotilla spares no effort to seize the initiative in acquiring the long-distance joint maneuver capability. To this end, it has advanced from technical training to tactical training, from element-by-element and separate training to integrated training involving the whole system, from training under uncomplicated battlefield environment to confrontational training under complex battlefield circumstances, which resulted in the all-round rise of its abilities in command and control, rapid response, joint strike and integrated training.

Labels: China, Submarine

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 06:24

Labels: Cartoon

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 20:39

A U.S. Navy destroyer off the coast of northern Somalia Friday fired on a suspected al Qaeda operative believed to have been involved in the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, sources confirmed to CNN.

There was no immediate word on the results of the attack, which was carried out using one of the destroyer's 5-inch guns.

Labels: Long War, NSFS

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 21:18

The four UDT’s were embarked in the destroyer transports (APD’s) Barr, Bates, Bull, and Blessman. At a distance of 500 yards of the beach, the UDT’s would make their plunge. The seven aforementioned LCI (G)’s firing their 20mm and 40mm guns at the beaches and preparing to launch their 4.5” rockets followed them. Soon after these gunboats passed the 1,500-yard line, mortar shells began falling among them; a little later, as they were beginning to launch rockets, they came under intense fire from the flanks of the beaches.
-------------
Deck Log, LCI Group 8, Flotilla 3 at Iwo Jima:

1000-In line abreast, LCI (G)’s 457 (FF), 441, 449, 438, 474, 450 and 473 approached base of Mt. Suribachi on course 325T, distance 500 yards, speed 9 knots.

1055-Hit simultaneously were LCI (G)’s 474, 450 and 473
-------------
Between 1055 and 1105 the seven LCI (G)’s advancing in line abreast began to take hits but pressed on to support the swimmers until forced out by damage and casualties. The reserve and unassigned Group 8 LCI(G)s 346, 348, 466, 469 and 471 dashed in to replace them, only to be hit in turn time after time.

- LCI (G)’s 438, 441, 471 and several others, although hit several times, gallantly returned to the fray after retiring from it just long enough to extinguish their fires and plug holes in their hulls.

All twelve of Group 8’s LCI (G)’s took part and all were hit, but the stuck to it until the swimmers of the UDT’s were recovered and clear. During this engagement LCI (G) 474 was abandoned and sunk after sustaining heavy damage and casualties.

As was said of the LCI (G)’s: “Their courage and persistence inspired everyone who watched these vessels.”

Deck Log, USS LCI (G) 449:

1058 – Received shell of undetermined size on the bow aft of the 40mm splinter shield with the resulting casualties: Two men killed, two men
missing, both were blown off of the bow; and three men wounded.

1103 - Received shell of undetermined size on the port side 40 mm with casualties unknown.

1104 – Received a shell of undetermined size on the starboard side of the conning tower with unknown number of casualties.

- 1130 – Hove to on port side of DMS while they sent a small boat with one doctor and several corpsmen l to give medical assistance.

1135 – Got underway at one-third speed proceeding to the port quarter of the USS Terror (CM-5).

1200 – 1600 – Moored to the port quarter of the USS Terror (CM-5) at which time several doctors and corpsmen came aboard to assist in transferring the injured and dead aboard that ship.

1530 - Cast off from Terror various courses and speeds proceeding to the northeast end of Iowa Jima. A check found that twenty men were killed and eight were wounded including the Captain, LT (jg) Rufus Geddie Herring.

J. J. Mittleman, LTJG, USNR Navigator

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of LCI (G) 449 operating as a unit of LCI (G) Group 8, during the preinvasion attack on Iwo Jima on 17 February 1945. Boldly closing the strongly fortified shores under the devastating fire of Japanese coastal defense guns, Lt. (then Lt. (j.g.)) Herring directed shattering barrages of 40mm. and 20mm. gunfire against hostile beaches until struck down by the enemy's savage counterfire which blasted the 449's heavy guns and whipped her decks into sheets of flame. Regaining consciousness despite profuse bleeding he was again critically wounded when a Japanese mortar crashed the conning station, instantly killing or fatally wounding most of the officers and leaving the ship wallowing without navigational control. Upon recovering the second time, Lt. Herring resolutely climbed down to the pilothouse and, fighting against his rapidly waning strength, took over the helm, established communication with the engineroom, and carried on valiantly until relief could be obtained. When no longer able to stand, he propped himself against empty shell cases and rallied his men to the aid of the wounded; he maintained position in the firing line with his 20mm. guns in action in the face of sustained enemy fire, and conned his crippled ship to safety. His unwavering fortitude, aggressive perseverance, and indomitable spirit against terrific odds reflect the highest credit upon Lt. Herring and uphold the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

Labels: Fullbore, WWII

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 07:36

Labels: Politics

// posted by CDR Salamander @ 00:10