Not Family but..

[ikedilligas]

My best friend from High School is in the Navy. He has been in since we graduated and is already pretty much a career man.

He is currently stationed in Bremerton Wa. but has deployed onboard sumarines his whole career. He has been to Iraq as well.

[tbone421998]

Next time you see him, tell him thanks for serving. Not nearly enough of us do that with our military people.

[texiban001]

Takes a lot of smarts and guts to be on submarines. I was on Nimitz CVN-68.

[Coach]

If any of you want to talk about the Military, Texiban keeps up with the subject very well.

[ikedilligas]

I was on Nimitz CVN-68.

The two places I would love to be in life. At the helm of an aircraft carrier or in the c*ckpit of a 747.

I have been on the Lexington in Corpu Christi a couple of times.

How does it feel to be onboard at sea? Is it as awesome as it appears from the outside?

Were you on deck?

[Coach]

Texiban tell him the story about the time the plane crashed on deck.

[texiban001]

Sorry it took so long to reply. Been busy as hell at work.

Anyway, we were on deployment in 1982 in the Med. We were conducting flight ops one night and we were recovering aircraft. An A-6E Intruder(attack bomber) came in to land and when he hit the deck, the starboard side landing gear came off. He had to go around until all the other planes landed and we caught him in the barricade.(A big net used to catch planes that have problems with their landing systems.)

Another time we off the coast of Florida doing refresher training and an EA-6B(Electronic Warfare Attack Plane) came in for a landing and was red decked. (do not land) Well, come to find out the pilot was not supposed to be flying as he was on prescription antihistamines and he was impaired and did not see the red deck indicators until he was already hooked on the arresting gear. He applied full power to go around and snapped the cable and lost control of the aircraft. The aircraft crashed into the aircraft on the bow of the ship and exploded. The front 300 foot of the ship was instantly turned into a raging inferno that destroyed over 15 aircraft valued (in 1982 dollars) at over $100,000,000 and killed 14 crewman and injured over 30 more, some with 3rd degree burns over 60 percent of their bodies before we could pu it out. My fire fighting station(7 FOX) was directly underneath the fire and we were the main damage control station to fight the fire.

[officerrabb]

not family, but ive got friends there. some on the way out, some already out, some on the way in.

[texiban001]

Sorry I did not respond to the other questions so here goes:

What did it feel like out to sea on Nimitz? Like riding down the road in a Lincoln. No seasickness lots of slow rolls on the ocean. Food was allright if you used a LOT of ketchup and steak sauce.

I was on the signal bridge so I was on deck a lot. We were the guys that used the flags and flashing lights to talk to other ships to avoid unnecessary electronic noise that can be heard a long ways off if you have the right equipment to detect it, and the Soviets definitely had the right equipment.

One time we were being followed by an intelligence trawler in the Med. Captain Batzler got pissed off because every time we turned around, there was this little turd sniffer. ;D He ordered flank speed, approximately 35 knots, and pulled away from the trawler. Once we were out of visual , he turned the ship around and made a high speed pass at this Comrade. That little boat bobbed around like a cork in a bath tub when we went by him at about 40 knots. He kept his distance from that point. The whole crew topside was laughing their asses off! ;D Good times.

[notdead]

Texiban did you get to meet Goose and Maverick ? I head Ice-Man was an a$$h*le. True ?

[texiban001]

So was Maverick! Although I did know a few REAL Aviators. The CAG(Commander Air Group) Commander "Bad" Fred Lewis. This man put everyone to shame when it came to Tomcats. He would have "Maverick" walking in circles holding his own hand if "Maverick" had been for real.

We were on deployment in the Med and Air Ops called the signal Bridge and asked us if we could see CAG. We told them we couldn't. They told us to keep watch aft for him. A few minutes later we saw a Tomcat flying REAL low at VERY high speed coming at us from directly astern. This was Lewis' assigned plane call sign Victory 001 in "Jolly Rogers" colors. HE came in and about 200 yards aft of the ship, he punched in the afterburners and pulled up and hit a sonic boom right next to the bridge just like they did later in "Top Gun". Captain Batzler called him on the carpet when he landed and all Lewis did was laugh and he told Batzler that he was jsut getting primed to fly THRU the hanger deck. Batxler just stood ther and gawked at him like he had lost his mind. He finally told Lewis "If there is one man in this Navy that could do that , it would be your crazy ass!"

Definitely good times!

[texiban001]

By the way, The Navy lost an E2-C "Hawkeye" off the coast of Virginia today. There were no survivors.

My prayers and condolences for the families and men and women of Airborne Early Warning Squadron One Two Zero (VAW-120).

[texiban001]

Here is something to think about. Today on military.com, there was an article that the Indian Navy is "leasing" 2 Russian "Akula" Class nuclear attack submarines. The thing to think about is why aren't we "leasing" the Indian Navy some of our decommissioned nuc boats instead of letting Russia dominate military sales to India? I would much rather see India with these boats than a bunch of Russian boats. India has the potential to become a military super power and I would think that the United States would want them to have the best equipment seeing as how the major opponent will be the Peoples Republic of China.

[jbarron]

We better concern ourselves with BOTH Russia and the Peoples Republic of China. Russia is financing Iran's nuclear activities. These two superpowers will cause a LOT of trouble in the very near future.

[texiban001]

Sorry I left out the Russkies. They are certainly something to be concerned about seeing as how they are now flying long range patrols again with their bomber fleet. Say what you want though, the Russkies do build 'em pretty.