Picture of the Week – 4 March 2008

After a swabbie has done all that swabbing…how does that swab get cleaned?

 Here’s how!

Picture of the Week – 18 February

Flying fish…pain in the a$$ to get a good picture of!

Photo of the Week – 12 February 2008

Sticking with the wildlife theme for the near term…these guys took up station on us while we were driving around someplace…yes…that is vague.

Picture of the Week 05 February 2008

Wingmen…

These two were passing through waters off the African coast…along with almost a hundred of their closes friends.

Photo of the Week 28 January 2008

A new meaning to “twin 50s”…

Picture of the Week – 21 January 2008

Sunrise in Jebel Ali

Picture of the Week 1-14-2008

Crossing the equator at sunset…only thing better would be crossing the equator, at the dateline, at sunset.

Photo of the Week – 7 January 2008

Painting the sides…one of the joys of being an undesignated seaman!

Ordinary People…extraordinary accomplishments.

Every now and then you see Sailors do things that are simply unbelievable.  Take a look at the below pictures.  Underway replenishment, at 7 knots, with a merchant ship.  

Underway replenishment, in general, is a pretty amazing concept.  Pioneered by then LT Chester Nimitz in the 20s (if memory serves) and “perfected” during WWII, UNREP is an amazingly difficult and intricate dance of 10,000 ton plus behemoths hoping to find an open spot of ocean so that they can drive alongside each other at a distance otherwise thought to be unsafe for two ships passing in the day time.  And, then they pass lines across and the one refuels the other.  Insanity!  And routine.  Most of the time.

The amphib was alongside for almost an hour providing gas to a ship just recently released from pirates.  Only months before the CO of that ship had a conversation at a visit from the Board of Inspection and Survey on how unlikely it was that this rig would EVER be used.

 

Liberty Overseas

We recently pulled in to a central hub port…and the inbriefs with the powers that be were interesting.  The lieutenants wanted to talk operations, actions, engagement (in the classic sense of the word).  The admirals and captains had one thing on their mind – liberty…liberty incidents to be precise.

I was asked what my thoughts were on a perception of current liberty rules and whether they were draconian or not.  To some degree I think that the press the individual liberty plans in C7F are getting led some of the discussion.  At the same time, the current restrictions – 3 to 5 liberty buddys, one non-drinker…with time restrictions based on rank.

Fast forward 3 days…and my crew performs superbly.  No incidents, no problems, not even a drunk that had to be brought back by shore patrol but was handled internally.  And, considering we had been underway for over two months at this point, frankly amazing.  equally amazing was a lack of positive feedback from those same admirals…

So, my random mind walk took me to the next step.  We have a number of port visits back home next summer.  What liberty policy will I enact?  It’s the United States!  Why would I want to have a liberty policy with liberty buddies?  We don’t have them in homeport.  Why in Porttown, Northeast?  But, it’s also not our homeport.

Over the next few days this line of thought took me to another place.  That portvisit we just left has personnel homeported there…and when they are on liberty they do not have the same restrictions that we had.  Why?

And, to go further, is there any real correlation between liberty buddies, a liberty curfew, and fewer liberty incidents?  Is there anything in C7F that has shown the individual liberty plans to be successful?

Or, as I suspect, has the Navy enacted a program based on supposition and now supports it, inculcates it, and builds it on a foundation of fear?

What would happen if we tried out a port, or two, or three – or a deployment – without liberty restrictions?  Sure, NCIS would still need to make things off limits, just like to local councils back home do…but why make a 24 year old come back to the ship at 1am?  Would there be a spike in liberty incidents?  I think the real answer would shake the foundation of those same admiral’s concepts of their Sailors…and not in the way they would expect…