Navy Keeps Camos Onbase

Rumors are starting to circulate about how the Navy brass intends to treat the new Navy Working Uniform (NWU). While us blueshirts were dressed as convicts "'scaped off tha farm," it seemed to make some sense that the needs of the Navy were not met when some A-Gang 3rd class strolled into the quickie mart covered in grease or "gray"water.

The brass made sure to keep us denizens from below the anchor away from the prying eyes of the public. I guess they were afraid the local cops would mistake us for fence jumpers from the penintentary. But with a new uniform and a new "look", I had hoped we could get past one of the last remenants of bleushirt discrimination.

Apparently not, according to Navy Times. The brass will restrict the camo NWU to base and vehicle only.

The shame of it is, now the O-Gang and the chiefs are confined to base or car too! Lets see how long this lasts.

The maritime forces leadership needs to wake up to reality. Prohibiting Marines and Sailors from wearing their work uniform off the base does not increase you combat readiness one iota. We are a military at war and we don't have time for this petty bullshit.

Vegan Women Down Under Submariners

The Sub Report has a link up to a great story in the Sydney Morning Herald about cooks onboard Her Majesty's Australian Submarines. My favorite line was "Smith says crews are rarely fussy, although the officers can be on occasion. He has also had a woman who was a lactose- and gluten-intolerant vegan. "All I could do was chuck a lettuce leaf at her," he says."

Who in the hell recruited and assigned a nutty woman that won't eat dairy, wheat or meat to a submarine? I know the Aussies have had a hard time keeping their sub fleet manned but, come on! Life is full of choices but why let her inflict her choices on the sub's culinary dept.?

Good luck Australia.

Contemplating Poopie Suits

Recent talk about the new cammo uniforms has got me thinking about what used to be a sub exclusive: the underway coverall, aka the poopie suit.

Way back before I was even a nub, I was subjected to a propagandized version of the undersea world thanks to Hollywood and Tom Clancy, The Hunt for Red October. I ate it up with a spoon. I was confined to Admiral Rickover's preschool for wayward boys in Orlando and, somehow won tickets to the premier of the flick at the Colonial Mall theater right off of the base.

I remember my bunkie from boot camp went with me to see the daring exploits of America's Undersea Heroes. Every dig it from the base was there. Anybody that had ever heard of a submarine had gotten tickets.

It was in the movie that us pre-nubs were given our first lessons in life aboard a sub. And the thing I remember the most was how cold it must be on the boat since everybody had on white turtlenecks. (Somehow, the blue shirts aboard the movie version of the Dallas weren't permitted the glories of the poopie suit and had to wear their prison issue dungarees.)

So I report to the Ustafish around the same time as my birthday and my well meaning aunt, a YN1, gives me the aforementioned white turtleneck before my first (after cranking) underway. Its Novemember, Norfolk and as usual, its cold.

We leave the pier, I race to my rack in the Torpedo Room and quickly try to look like the natives. And, I put on the movie inspired, white turtleneck and quickly realized...I was freakin HOT with that thing on. I took it off on a coffee run and never wore it again.

I realize nuke boat sailors only have a passing idea of what hot really is. The DBF crowd can testify as to why submarine sandals were still in the NAVSUP catalog at least into the mid 90's.

Just goes to show you how much Hollyweird can screw up reality. I'll save the movie Crimson Tide for another rant.

Navy Camo Coming

Navy Times has the latest announcement of the next generation of Navy Camouflage Uniforms. The powers that be have been seduced into the whole "digitized" pattern craze that the Army and Marines rolled out two years ago.

My questions as a bubblehead are these:

Will these fatigues replace the poopy suits of underway fame?

Will sailors be able to wear this "working" uniform off base? I understand why nobody wanted us to be seen in the cool-hand Luke hand me down dungarees. They looked like I had just escaped off the chain gang.

Will sailors assigned to Marine bases be hazed and shunned until they hide their blue cammies and go green?

And, again, I must ask, camouflage? What are you hiding from at sea? Does it have a blaze orange interior for those man overboard evolutions?

Just remember, in the subfleet, we really do expect to recover the man overboard, unlike those poor guys in the carrier fleet midnight diving squad.

Submarines & Suriname

While reviewing the site statistics yesterday, I noticed I have visitor from Suriname. For those of you lacking geography knowledge, its on the northern coast of South America.

So, I got to thinking, why would somebody in a former dutch colony want to read about submarines? (Then again, who wouldn't, right?)

There is a small link in addition to the U-boat attacks on bauxite freighters.

Back in the 80's, Suriname had the same problems that Grenada had: a local thug kissing up to the reds. Moscow was so excited about the idea of bringing Suriname into the red fold, they even planned a huge embassy and....wait for it....military bases.

Its seems that Cuba wasn't able to provide enough air coverage of the Caribbean and the Soviet Anti-submarine planes wanted another base to better track our brothers in the FHI's (Floating Holiday Inns = SSBN's)

Enter, Ronald Reagan and the Intelligence dream team: Bill Casey, Director of Central Intelligence and National Security Adviser William Clarke who worked behind the scenes to keep the Soviets out of Suriname. Mission accomplished and you never read about it until now. Check out the details at National Review.

I don't know if this is the reason I have a reader in Suriname or not but I salute his blog selection none the less.

Mystery Dolphins Revealed!

Ok. I was hoping somebody might be able to figure out what these dolphins are. But, alas, I only had two guesses and they were both wrong. The eponymously named "Anonymous" thought they might be a new "trident" form of dolphins while another coincidentally named "Anonymous" guessed that these were the new Singapore dolphins.

For the record, here are the Singapore fish:So, just what are the Mystery fish? Brace yourself. Whose mighty Navy has these new dolphins? The Boy Scouts of America. That's right. These fish belong to the Sea Scout program as an award for youth that complete a training course known by the acronym SEAL. Man, the DoD has these kids right where they want them.

Any Sea Scout leaders out there know how this award came to look an awful lot like the Submarine Warfare Badge? Typically, the pointed heads at BSA HQ take a dim view of something they call the "militarization" of Scouting. (I'm sure the late Lieutenant General Baden Powell rolls in his very military grave at the mere mention of a demilitarized Scouting programme. {spelled his way})

I'll bet the Sea Scouts don't have to have their dolphins "pinned" like the rest of us. But, then again, that would be child abuse.

A Wake for the Kittiwake

Any submariner that sailed with Subron 6 or 8 over the years will instantly recall the USS Kittiwake (ASR-13). Every time the Ustafish left the pier while I was a lookout, I would take a good look at the KittyKat and pray that I would not have a need for her services while I was gone. (Why not, it beat looking at the tender.)

She was commissioned back during THE BIG ONE, WWII and served faithfully until she was sent to the James River Fleet in 1994. She had a few run ins at the D&S piers. In 1974 she hit the USS Finback and in 1984 she hit the USS Bergall but this sub sailor still liked having her around.

Well, time marches on and word comes today that the Kittiwake has been acquired by our good friends on Her Majesty's Cayman Islands who plan to sink her for an artificial diving reef for tourists with an aqualung. There is some irony in knowing that this ship that was designed to send divers down to save submariners' lives will now be on the bottom of the Caribbean as diver's attraction.

I wonder why, during all my time on the Spanish Main, didn't the Ustafish pull into the Caymans? I went there on my honeymoon cruise and found it to be a great port. Maybe it's not seedy enough for the fleet.

So long, Kittiwake! I would love to get down to the Caymans and dive on the KittyKat!