Again… sailors with swagger. The defense rests.
(via knockontheskyy)
I’m a teacher, a coach, a mentor, but before any of those, I’m a United States Navy Sailor. 12 1/2 years, 7 deployments, 57 countries. I’ve gone hand to hand with pirates and rescued human slaves destined for sex internment. I can splice line with my teeth and I’ve manned the helm through 35-foot seas. I’ve sailed through the Strait of Magellan, Straits of Hormuz, Straits of Malacca, Straits of Juan de Fuca and the Straits of Gibraltar. You do all of that and you’re going to have swagger. How else are you going to make something like this happen: I catch hell from other service members all the time. They call us cocky and arrogant. My response has always been to look them in the eye and say “If I was a pussy I’d believe that too.” But U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officers and 1st Class Petty Officers like me are rooted in ancient traditions and those traditions are gutsy, full of booze, courage and renegade behavior. Our core values are honor, courage and committment. We don’t give up the ship. We damn the torpedoes and go full speed ahead. We’re rampaging seafaring men. Count on it. Because we’re strong we defend the weak. Because we know what is right we stop the wrongs. Sometimes young Sailors need to be reminded of these rich traditions, of these things we do. That’s what I’ve just spent the last 30 minutes doing. I had to explain to this young 18-year-old kid there is no other way to being a sailor than the hard way. There is no highway, my way or easy way. There is only the hard way. You can knock us down 29 times but I fucking promise you, we’ll stand up 30. We’ll come back smiling through busted lips and teeth, aching, burning, and we’ll carry the fuck on. This how we swag.
Some Call it Swagger, I Call it Being a Sailor
Again… sailors with swagger. The defense rests.
(via knockontheskyy)
Me, many moons ago.
Charlie Sheen can kiss my ass. He can’t win like this. Today, 21 students of mine paid a mock tribute to me by sporting big, black, 3D glasses in my honor and demanding they get a picture of me surrounded by them. They stomped and clapped to We Will Rock You and demanded I teach them just one more nugget. Charlie Sheen can’t win like this. Fuck him. I make a difference. He can’t. I had them demanding to learn, to be taught. I had them miles, I mean miles past excited to be in a classroom.
In case you’re wondering, I’m the tall one in the blue camouflage. I spent six years trying to get this job. This made it all worth it. No question. I win.
Eight warships are headed to Japan to render disaster relief in the wake of a catastrophic magnitude 8.9 earthquake that left hundreds dead Friday. The quake unleashed a tsunami that is tearing across the Pacific. It unmoored two subs and is forcing other ships to get underway or ease their lines as the surge waters arrive, according to updates posted on official Navy Facebook pages across the region.
The earthquake, the most devastating to have struck Japan since the country began tracking seismic activity more than a century ago, leveled homes and buildings, and spawned a 23-foot high wave that carried away cars and people.
Japan has requested aid through the State Department, Armed Forces Press Service reported Friday.
“Our deepest sympathies go out to our close friends in Japan as they deal with this tragedy,” Adm. Patrick Walsh, Pacific Fleet commander, said statement posted on his Facebook page. “U.S. Pacific Fleet is making preparations and posturing our naval assets to provide assistance when directed. We stand ready to support those in need. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan.”
None of the 38,000 military personnel assigned to Japan are dead, Pentagon spokesman Marine Col. Dave Lapan said Friday. He said six ships are headed to Japan to render aid, if called upon: the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan; amphibious assault ship Essex; dock landing ships Germantown, Tortuga and Harpers Ferry; and amphibious command ship Blue Ridge.
In addition, cruiser Chancellorsville and destroyer Preble, along with Reagan, have been ordered to “proceed at best safe speed toward Japan,” Pacific Fleet said on its Facebook page at noon Eastern time.
“We’re doing all of the planning that you would expect … to determine exactly which ship will need to go where, if we get directed,” said Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Jeff Breslau. “And then again, continue to move the ships so that we’re ready to go.”
In Guam, the tsunami snapped mooring lines to two attack submarines, Houston and City of Corpus Christi. Tug boats immediately responded. “Both subs are safe and under the control of the tug boats,” Joint Region Marianas posted on its Facebook page. No injuries have been reported. Both subs were tied up to the pier shortly afterwards and without significant damages, Breslau said.
In Japan, no facilities damage was reported. The headquarters of Combined Task Force 72 Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force in Misawa, Japan, was evacuated and without power, according to an update just after 5 a.m. Eastern time by 7th Fleet. And the staff of Combined Task Force 76 Amphibious Force at White Beach, Okinawa, retreated to higher ground at Kadena Air Base.
7th Fleet directed ships in Guam to get underway, if practical.
There were no reports of damage to the aircraft carrier George Washington, which was in port in Yokosuka, Japan.
Tortuga is headed for Pohang, South Korea, where it will embark MH-53 heavy lift helicopters, said Navy spokesman Lt. Myers Vasquez, who also said that all 7th Fleet ships, except Washington and the destroyer Lassen, must be ready to go to sea within 24 hours. The Reagan strike group is sailing for the northwest coast of Honshu, Japan, hard-hit by the tsunami, and is expected to arrive within a day, Vasquez said.
In Hawaii, there was no reported damage to ships or facilities as the tsunami passed through. Army Logistics Support Vessel CW3 Harold Clinger left port Friday due to its berth close to the mouth of Pearl Harbor, Navy Region Hawaii said in a press release.
The Pacific Missile Range Facility on the island of Kauai was evacuated, but wasn’t damaged by the ocean surge, Navy Region Hawaii said. In addition, three torpedo retrievers in Port Allen were sent out to sea, two helicopters were moved to Lihue, and two range support C-26 aircraft are in the air.
In another post soon after, officials said that “the Navy is closely monitoring wave assessments inside Pearl Harbor and indicated that there is no need to sortie ships at this time.”
Pentagon spokesman Lapan said the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group is bound for Guam, as planned.
The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, returning from a six-month deployment to 5th Fleet, pulled into Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Thursday, according to its official Facebook page. Lincoln closed the brow as the tsunami passed through in the early morning and opened it for liberty call five hours later, at about 1:15 p.m. Eastern time.
Smaller tides of two or three feet were expected to reach southern California, where 3rd Fleet and I Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton are wrapping up an offshore logistics exercise at the amphibious training base. Naval Beach Group 1 units participating in the Pacific Horizon exercise moved some encampments “to higher ground” as a precaution as they wrap up the training, said Cmdr. Gregory Hicks, a fleet spokesman.
Fleet officials ordered ships in San Diego to remain in port, with sailors standing by to tend lines Friday morning. The transport dock Dubuque, which was doing an ammunition onload at Seal Beach Naval Weapon Station near Long Beach, was ordered to sortie offshore as a precautionary measure, Hicks said.
(Source: navytimes.com)
A multimedia piece about me by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class John Belanger from the Defense Information School.
I was on board USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) from 1999 to 2002. I was the navigator on watch the night we launched the first missiles into Afghanistan. That was Oct. 7, 2001. I had no idea what was going to happen after that, and I didn’t care. Now, some 9 and 1/2 years later, the initial target of those attacks is gone. I’m stunned. Nearly speechless. I’ve resorted to jokes and funny comments about how hard the president must’ve rocked 99 Problems after his speech as a way to lighten up and relax about the gravity of the moment. I’m sure I’ll have more profound thoughts in a few days, but this? This feeling? This is overwhelming. A decade. A fucking decade. I can’t even begin to describe the years for all of us who wear this uniform. I can’t begin to describe the experience we’ve lost as Sailors retire or die in the line of duty. I can’t swell with more pride at the work, the effort, the spinebreaking duty and burdens carried. I physically cannot. I’ve already cried a few times today because I’m just too full and cannot support anymore emotion. I think to the boys on the John Paul Jones deckplates. I think of Ziggy, his curly blonde hair and rail-thin physique - all too worldly at such a young age, mind honed from silent consideration. I think of Zero, sober and chain-smoking as he read his books in the armory, daydreaming of a way out. I think of Bull, fierce and ornery, age already creeping into his hair, an old man at 22. I think of Eric, too young for a wife and child, but facing his worst fears with his friends at his side. I think of Gio - a streaming non-sequitor, a man impossible to paraphrase or perform an impression of. I think of Quinn, arms heavily inked, sharp, more privy to intel reports than the rest of us could hope to be. I think of Mac, and Smitty, and Big Lou, and Mike Bell, and Rosie and Charlie Hustle, and Big J, and Dean, and Boone, and Hern, and Cowboy Dolan, and Weaver, and Cliff, and all those men who stepped out of themselves and into history as one huge, united family bound by a sense of honor and devotion - a devotion to each other. Rest your oars, fellas. We’ve sailed on to victory.
9 1/2 Years
Exactly as it should be.
Sunday’s daring raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan was a great advertisement for the U.S. Navy SEALs. But the SEALs recruitment commercial below is one of the great military ads ever made. Called “Footprints,” it was created in 2006 by director Stu Maschwitz and Detroit ad agency Campbell-Ewald. Maschwitz started out at George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic, then co-founded top visual-effects company The Orphanage, where he worked on feature films as well as commercials. He has called “Footprints” one of the best things he’s ever done. You would think the success of the bin Laden mission would surely boost SEALs recruitment in the coming months, and it might—though of course that was a once-in-a-lifetime mission and a high point that future recruits might not have a chance to reach.
(Source: adweek.com)
OH. MY. God.
A sailor’s grave…
The orders and instructors for a U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer cannot be found in a book. They are not listed by number, order or regulation. They are charged with leadership, quite simply. Their sole duty according to the U.S. Navy is to lead. It’s much more difficult than you may imagine.
(Source: ryanduenas)
My maternal grandfather’s drafting tools, which I later used to navigate across the Pacific four times between 1999 and 2002 as a quartermaster aboard USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53).
