Thanks to reader Hunter for this one AND the backstory…
And HERE is the backstory…
h/t Hunter
So I come out from our meeting and I see this…
Yes, that really IS a locksmith working on the door of a Mustang convertible WITH the top down…
Said abashed individual DID lock the keys in the trunk… And the trunk switch was disabled to keep people from popping the trunk… So he got to pay out of pocket, and will NOT live this one down for a LONG, long time! 🙂
Posted from my iPhone.
Hangar 1 at NAS Moffett Field was actually constructed to house the USS Macon, which was built inside the hangar…
HERE are links to the construction…
Fast forward to the 1970s, and this is one corner of Hangar 1 on the west end. Until the VAB was constructed at the Cape, Hangar 1 was the largest freestanding internal structure in the world!!!
VP-31 was the ‘RAG’ in those days… Went through there in 1973. This is about 1/5 of the available hangar space, and was taken from one of the upper catwalks.
On a side note, the firewatches were actually supposed to climb the stairs up to the upper levels every watch, and it was a LONG way up there!!! They actually found spare parts from the Macon still stored in the upper levels in the late 1970s, so I guess those firewatches didn’t always walk the ‘full’ patrols all the time (if ever).
And in the third iteration for Moffett, it looks like Google will be ‘managing’ the facilities and will re-skin Hangar 1 (all 350,000 sqft). And will be flying balloons out of there… Talk about full circle…
Article HERE.
Scotty Campbell took this pic in the last couple of years of Moffett as it is today…
Yes, the two hangars in the lower left are ALSO blimp hangars…
This is truly sad, especially for us old farts who can remember the heyday of 7 squadrons of P-3s flying out of here… Sadly, due to the costs in the Bay Area, this one base was eating 2/3 of the entire communities’ per diem costs to put people through VP-31. Also enlisted personnel up to E-6 with families could qualify for Food Stamps during this time!!!
In 1992 the decision was made to close Moffett for active duty VP and decommission VP-31 to save money. The squadrons were relocated to Hawaii and NAS Whidbey Island, WA.
Ran across this one while trying to find info on Asperger’s…
Microaggression is the idea that specific interactions between those of different races, cultures, or genders can be interpreted as small acts of mostly non-physical aggression; the term was coined by Chester M. Pierce in 1970.
/snip/
Microagression usually involves demeaning implications and other subtle insults against minorities, and may be perpetrated against those due to gender, sexual orientation, and ability status.
There is even a website for it… And from it you can see that ‘religion’ is also creeping into it, as long as it’s Islam, nothing about Christians being persecuted or “M-A’ed”
Interestingly, none of the studies I found had ANY links to any studies of white students, any people on the right of the political spectrum or Christians and the results of any of these aggressions against them…
It is all pointed at the so called minorities, so it looks like this is another way to call those of us in the WASP mainstream racists…
I’m truly beginning to wonder if we are going to be PC’ed out of existence by the left and the so called minorities…
It sounds to me like we are now promoting ‘victimhood’ as a valid way to claim you were prosecuted…
Where does this end, and people take responsibility for their own actions???
For drjim…
WWVH is the Hawaii time hack on HF (and it is still manned and working)… All us old fart aviators used this to hack out analog watches back in the day.
Posted from my iPhone.
As reader Stretch reminded me, there was more to the article by Vin Suprynowicz titled One Marine, One Ship written in 2000.
This is the part of the story about the USS WASHINGTON…
The U.S. Navy had lost so many ships in those dreaded night actions that the waters off Savo were given the grisly sailor’s nickname by which they’re still known today: Ironbottom Sound.
So desperate did things become that finally, 18 days after Mitchell Paige won his Congressional Medal of Honor on that ridge above Henderson Field, Admiral Bull Halsey himself broke a stern War College edict — the one against committing capital ships in restricted waters. Gambling the future of the cut-off troops on Guadalcanal on one final roll of the dice, Halsey dispatched into the Slot his two remaining fast battleships, the USS South Dakota and the USS Washington, escorted by the only four destroyers with enough fuel in their bunkers to get them there and back.
In command of the 28-knot battlewagons was the right man at the right pla4ce, gunnery expert Rear Adm. Willis A. “Ching Chong China” Lee. Lee’s flag flew aboard the Washington, in turn commanded by Captain Glenn Davis.
Lee was a nut for gunnery drills. “He tested every gunnery-book rule with exercises,” Lippman writes, “and ordered gunnery drills under odd conditions — turret firing with relief crews, anything that might simulate the freakishness of battle.”
As it turned out, the American destroyers need not have worried about carrying enough fuel to get home. By 11 p.m. on Nov. 13, outnumbered better than three-to-one by a massive Japanese task force driving down from the northwest, every one of the four American destroyers had been shot up, sunk, or set aflame, while the South Dakota — known throughout the fleet as a jinx ship — managed to damage some lesser Japanese vessels but continued to be plagued with electrical and fire control problems.
“Washington was now the only intact ship left in the force,” Lippman writes. “In fact, at that moment Washington was the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet. She was the only barrier between (Admiral) Kondo’s ships and Guadalcanal. If this one ship did not stop 14 Japanese ships right then and there, America might lose the war. …
“On Washington’s bridge, Lieutenant Ray Hunter still had the conn. He had just heard that South Dakota had gone off the air and had seen (destroyers) Walke and Preston “blow sky high.” Dead ahead lay their burning wreckage, while hundreds of men were swimming in the water and Japanese ships were racing in.
“Hunter had to do something. The course he took now could decide the war. ‘Come left,’ he said, and Washington straightened out on a course parallel to the one on which she (had been) steaming. Washington’s rudder change put the burning destroyers between her and the enemy, preventing her from being silhouetted by their fires.
“The move made the Japanese momentarily cease fire. Lacking radar, they could not spot Washington behind the fires. …
“Meanwhile, Washington raced through burning seas. Everyone could see dozens of men in the water clinging to floating wreckage. Flag Lieutenant Raymond Thompson said, “Seeing that burning, sinking ship as it passed so close aboard, and realizing that there was nothing I, or anyone, could do about it, was a devastating experience.’
“Commander Ayrault, Washington’s executive officer, clambered down ladders, ran to Bart Stoodley’s damage-control post, and ordered Stoodley to cut loose life rafts. That saved a lot of lives. But the men in the water had some fight left in them. One was heard to scream, ‘Get after them, Washington!’ “
Sacrificing their ships by maneuvering into the path of torpedoes intended for the Washington, the captains of the American destroyers had given China Lee one final chance. The Washington was fast, undamaged, and bristling with 16-inch guns. And, thanks to Lt. Hunter’s course change, she was also now invisible to the enemy.
Blinded by the smoke and flames, the Japanese battleship Kirishima turned on her searchlights, illuminating the helpless South Dakota, and opened fire. Finally, standing out in the darkness, Lee and Davis could positively identify an enemy target.
The Washington’s main batteries opened fire at 12 midnight precisely. Her new SG radar fire control system worked perfectly. Between midnight and 12:07 a.m., Nov. 14, the “last ship in the U.S. Pacific Fleet” stunned the battleship Kirishima with 75, 16-inch shells. For those aboard the Kirishima, it rained steel.
In seven minutes, the Japanese battleship was reduced to a funeral pyre. She went down at 3:25 a.m., the first enemy sunk by an American battleship since the Spanish-American War. Stunned, the remaining Japanese ships withdrew. Within days, Yamamoto and his staff reviewed their mounting losses and recommended the unthinkable to the emperor — withdrawal from Guadalcanal.
But who remembers, today, how close-run a thing it was — the ridge held by a single Marine, the battle won by the last American ship?
I cannot imagine what went through both the Admiral’s and CO’s minds as the effectively doomed those sailors in the water to probable death by taking the fight to the Japanese rather than stopping to render aid. The XO CDR Ayrault deserves the credit for his quick actions that saved multiple lives…
To read the in-depth account of the battle, HERE is the link to the USS WASHINGTON historical page, and the article there.
Gonna be out of connectivity for about a week due to work…
Go read the folks on the sidebar while I try to repair the ice cream machine…
And for Danny, HERE are some USCG recruiting posters from the 1960-70s…
Had dinner last week with an old friend and his family (we met 32 years ago this month in OCS), he’s a retired Navy Commander, former CO of a DDG and now working for the Navy as a SME…
During dinner his oldest daughter (21 and December grad from UCSD in EE) brought up an interesting point. She said something to the effect that ‘we’ had an entirely different perspective and value set than most of her peer’s parents she’d met…
This kinda sent us down a rathole…
What it came down to were some of the following (and all three kids DID contribute to the discussion)
Experience(s)- The time away from home (deployments) and separation anxiety, the moves, and not being able to talk about what went on while underway. His wife said this was the hardest, and she’d had to step up and come out of her shell to handle things; in addition to, as the CO’s wife, being there for all the other wives…
The kids all thought the moves actually HELPED them because it forced them to deal better with people, and gave them more confidence in dealing with both kids and adults (and themselves).
Perceptions of happiness and success- Homecomings were the number one ‘happiness’ quotient for the wife and kids… Daddy was home safe (again), and the day he retired from the Navy (wife’s happiest day, no more deployments). For the kids it was the roller coaster of emotions that taught them to deal with their own emotions and their mother’s. And it was the obvious pride the parents had in their accomplishments; including both dad and mom making it to their sports games, etc. That made all three kids happy as they all said many parents never even showed up, or just dropped the kids off…
His (and his wife’s) pinnacle of success was the CO slot… One of 10,000 that actually made it to that position, and a successful tour marked the high point of his career, and the low point of the wife’s interactions (having to deal with all the other wives). By any measure that is a huge success, but that really is only within the military. Oldest daughter brought up that one of her peers parents were millionaires, big homes, nice cars, private airplanes, but their home life was a wreck compared to her family. He’s now a GS, and providing expertise on ‘systems’ for the Navy, he acknowledged he could make more as a consultant/contractor, but like me, he believes we are able to make a difference and helping to keep the kids out there today safer than we were…
The ‘money’ quote- “It’s not always about money. It’s being able to be here now nad spend time with my family; and making an impact however small on the direction the Navy is going. I’m making enough for a reasonable lifestyle and we’re happy with that.”
Psychological age- We’ve both been accused of never growing up… Nuff said… 😀
Life goals- Being realistic in those goals, and still setting them high enough to be a ‘challenge’ to make them… Meeting the goals and moving on to new goals, not resting on one’s laurels (so to speak)… And sharing those goals with family, especially the wife who had to step up.
Family importance, and the ‘key’ to a successful family- From their perspective, it’s spending time together as a family, their religious beliefs, supporting each other whatever the endeavor, and resisting the ‘impulse’ to keep up with the Jones…
And I had very similar (continuation) of that conversation with LL and Opus. And they basically concurred…
Anyhoo… My .02 worth… Comments??? Thoughts???
The ‘new’ plan is on the street to cut the military…
And it cuts the Army to PRE-WWII levels!!!
And closes commissaries, cuts housing and other pay freezes/cuts/delays
And THIS statement is pure Bulls**t…
“Personnel costs reflect some 50% of the Pentagon budget and cannot be exempted in the context of the significant cuts the department is facing,” Defense Department spokesman Adm. John Kirby told the Journal. “Secretary Hagel has been clear that, while we do not want to, we ultimately must slow the growth of military pay and compensation.”
Full article HERE.
The administration has decided to go full bore against the military since it’s not ‘buying’ any votes for the Dems, and the large percentage of military members do not vote Dem. I’m betting we’ll see all those $$ go directly to entitlements, just like was done in 2012, rather than go back to the Treasury…
And the personnel costs are STILL below 30% according to separate studies by both MOAA and NCOA…
Just listened to Hagel’s briefing, the BIG hit is to personnel and families… that is ONE way to shrink the military, made it unpalatable and unaffordable to serve… And the JCS ‘approved’ this???
Well, we know Dempsey drank the koolaid… So he’s going to be in lockstep with the administration…
What happened to peace through ‘strength’??? That got us through the fall of the USSR, because they simply could not compete/go against us…
