Posted on 01/12/2005 10:26:35 AM PST by Bottom_Gun
Gotcha covered, shipmate.
You bet there is, and I maintain it. You're on.
"NAM" - Navy Achievement Medal. "NCM" - Navy Commendation Medal. Every crewman involved in lifesaving or damage control efforts deserves an NCM.
That is truly spooky. I mean, grabs your guts spooky.
Only if he was from Pittsburgh. In which case it would be "bump ta da top" :-)
Sleep on a wet mattress, didja?
They had just done field day. It's pretty common to come up to PD, clear the broadcast, shoot trash, pump sanitaries and ventilate at the end. They went deep and we running deep and fast to get caught up with PIM.
My son leaves for Great Lakes - for RTC - in nine days. It makes me proud to see that the training they received has saved lives and saved the sub. What fine men and women we have in our military!
sneakers
soon-to-be navy mom
Perhaps not, but the San Francisco may or may not be repairable. Unless another slot opens up or another sub is coming into the fleet, there may not be a boat for him.
I'm on it.
Actually - Navy Commendation Medal.
A Bronze Star may be awarded for individual non-combat heroics (or for being a good paper shuffler if you're an officer).
Navy/Marine Corps medal (I can;t remember if this one is ONLY for off duty heroics)
Navy Commendation Medal, may be awarded.
I think that is it? The boat wouldn't be eligible for a PUC or an NUC unless requirements have changed.
Tell him that the ladies LOVE submariners!
Will do! ;-)
My guess is there will be quite a few NAMs and NCM's. Probably a Legion of Merit for a couple of guys.Maybe a Bronze Star, if they really luck out.
Such seamounts are relatively common, particularly in tropical waters where coral atolls can form
Seafloor crust is denser than continental crust, so it sinks over millions of years (compared to when it was created at mid-ocean ridges) until it eventually dives under one of the lighter continental plates.
So what can happen is that an atoll can form when a small island is near enough to the surface so that light supports coral growth. Over the eons the original island sinks but if slow enough sink-rate, the coral can continue to grow (vertially) as the original island gets deeper and deeper. Imagine it like a slowly growing chimney on a sinking base.
Eventually the sink-rate can become fast enough that coral growth can't keep up and the near-surface living coral dies from lack of sunlight. Now you have a seamount that may be anywhere from less than a mile wide to much larger, with its base thousands of feet deep.
Unfortunately the ocean is a huge body of water in area and we have soundings that are relatively far apart (3 - 10 miles for most of the oceans) so many seamounts escape detection until they rip off some trawler's nets... or get in the way of a submarine.
Been there, done that. If I'm wrong, please let me know.
(From another thread..FYI)
This in from a chief on the San Francisco; [I've put explanations for some terms inside brackets just like this for folks not in the sub profession]:
To All, I thought that I would put out a note since a lot of you have been calling and writing to find out how things are and if I'm OK and what happened. If you hadn't heard, my boat hit a uncharted submerged sea mount at the highest speed we can go at about 500ft below the surface. There were about 30 of us that were seriously hurt and unfortunately one of my shipmates didn't make it.
First off I am OK. I am pretty beat up with my entire left side and butt as one big bruise. My shoulder is separated and may require surgery. They will evaluate later this week. I am very fortunate that I hit the wall and didn't go down a ladderwell that was right next to where I hit. If I had gone down that, I would have got really messed up. I took a tremendous shot to my left thigh from something. If it had been slightly lower in the knee area it would have been really ugly. But all in all I am in good shape.
We hit it at about noon right after field day (where all of us clean the boat for several hours). Thank God we didn't hit while we were doing this or it would have been much worse. We would have had flying deck plates through the air and such. Not good. As it was, it happened while chow was going on and most people were either sitting and eating or on watch.
I don't remember much of the collision. People describe it as like in the movie the Matrix where everything slowed down and levitated and then went flying forward faster that the brain can process. My mind has blanked it out exactly what happened. Adrenaline kicked in and I have no real memory of how I got down to middle level [of 3 in a single large compartment forward of the reactor and engineering spaces. Upper level is control area, CO/XO staterooms radio room, sonar etc. Middle level is crews mess, crew's berthing, storage, reefers and some environmental control equipment. Lower level is for the torpedo room, more berthing, auxiliary equipment, freezers and so forth. Below all that is the battery well,] or what I did immediately following. I helped carry several shipmates to the crew mess deck (adrenaline is a wonderful thing - my shoulder was wrecked and I had no idea until about 4 hours later). I sat with several of my junior guys that had bad head wounds and talked with them to keep them conscious until doc could see them. It seemed like an eternity but I'm sure wasn't that long. For those Navy folks that ever wondered why Chief's stomp around and preach "Stow for Sea" This was a perfect example. It definitely saved lives.
I am extremely proud of the crew to do damage control, help the wounded and get the boat safely to the surface (for the boat guys we blew the tanks dry on the emergency blow but unbeknownst to us we were missing some ballast tanks/some didn’t have integrity). The ship's control party did every thing exactly right even though they were hurt as well. The Diving Officer of the Watch had just unbuckled his belt [watchstanders in control such as helmsman, planesman, etc. must wear seatbelts when running submerged 'at speed' - for just such an eventuality as this incident] to update a status board and hit the Ship's Control Panel hard enough to break some of the gages. To add insult to injury his chair came up right behind him. Several people were injured in the Engine Room Lower Level area. Lots of metal and sharp edges in the area as well as that's were the boat's smoking area is at. Several crew members are reevaluating that habit now.
Once again we got lucky in the fact that we had an extra corpsman [essentially a highly qualified EMT - certified to be the only medical support on subs] onboard. One of our officers was a prior enlisted corpsman that was a Fleet Marine Force medic so he was a Godsend for us. Our Corpsman did an outstanding job getting everyone stabilized and did the best he could for our fallen shipmate. I am surprised that he got him to hold on as long as he did. Our corpsman is definitely a hero in my book. He didn't sleep for 2 or 3 days.
We finally put him down when the SEAL docs helicoptered in to help. Like I said, I am extremely proud of my crew and how they handled themselves. My Chief of the Boat [COB - the senior enlisted man aboard and right-hand man to skipper and XO] was an inspiration of what a leader should be and my Captain was as well. My XO took out an EAB manifold [Emergency Air Breathing - a series of manifolds throughout the boat into which the crew plugs in air masks if the air in the boat is unbreathable] with his back but still managed to help coordinate things. No matter what happens later, these men did a superior job under difficult circumstances. I am humbled by the entire crew's performance from the CO down to the Seaman that I was checking in two days before.
For those of you wondering, I am sure there will be an investigation into what happened and no I was not part of the navigation preps for this voyage. I work on the inertial/electronic navigation and interior communications part of my rate and didn't have anything to do with the conventional navigation part of it. I will be lending support to my comrades who were, to help them prepare for the pending investigation.
I thank you all for you concern and appreciate your prayers not only for myself, but for my shipmates. We are doing well, we band of brothers and will pull through just fine.
Thanks,
Xxxx Yyyy Zzzz
1,047 posted on 01/11/2005 6:19:27 PM CST by IonImplantGuru (PhD, School of Hard Knocks)
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WOW!
Thank you MEG!!
I asked permission to bring it over from what turned into a submariner's tread..I've been googling and searching new posts on this for days.
Usually followed by, "...either put down the coffee cup and help or get out of our way," uttered by the blue shirts.
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