Tag: U.S. Navy

Adm. John Aquilino, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, holds an interview with Yonhap News Agency on the USS Ronald Reagan after the nuclear-powered supercarrier entered a naval base on Jeju, South Korea’s southernmost island, on Oct. 122, 2018. The ship joined the International Fleet Review off Jeju the previous day. (Yonhap)

It looks like the Chinese are upping their reaction to the US Navy’s freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea:

Photos of an encounter between a Navy guided-missile destroyer and Chinese warship shed light on just how close the ships came to colliding Sunday in the South China Sea.

Naval website gCaptain.com published a series of photos Tuesday showing the USS Decatur and the People’s Republic of China destroyer Luyang passing each other during the confrontation. The Chinese ship appears to veer close to the Decatur before the U.S. ship pulls away to avoid a collision.

A Navy official confirmed to Stars and Stripes on Wednesday that the photos are legitimate, but said it is unknown how the website got access to the images, which were not publicly released.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I hope the Navy has plenty of video cameras on board to record any possible collision.  This is because if a collision was to happen the Chinese would blame the US and then point to the Navy’s track record of two deadly collisions with civilian vessels in recent years.

With that said I doubt the Chinese would use one of their warships to collide with a US Navy ship.  I would suspect they would have one of their civilian vessels, like a fishing ship collide with a US Navy ship and then blame the US to anger public opinion within China against the US.

I sure hope this is a joke of some kind, but still funny:

You can read the whole thread about this picture at this link.

Here is yet another example of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces having to release someone falsely convicted of rape:

In a split 3-2 decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces tossed out the highly decorated commando’s 2014 court-martial conviction and barred the armed forces from ever trying him again.

The legal victory of Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Keith E. Barry — who never quit proclaiming his innocence — will ripple across the entire military.

Writing for the majority, Chief Judge Scott W. Stucky, a retired Air Force colonel, determined that not only can the military’s most senior attorneys be held responsible for bogus advice that helps to unlawfully coerce a prosecution but that Crawford “actually did so in this case.”

Here is an unusual, but pretty cool story:

When most people enter their 60s, they start thinking about retirement.

But Dr. Tyrone Krause decided it was the perfect time to start a new career.

At 63, the heart surgeon from Skillman, N.J., joined the Navy after receiving a waiver that permitted him to enter the Reserves a year past the typical age limit because people with his skills are in demand.

“Sometimes I say to myself, ‘How did I get into this? Why don’t I just relax and sit in my backyard and drink some beer?’ But that’s not my style. I’ve always been on the move. And hopefully I’ll always be on the move,” Krause said.

“I feel, surgically, I’m in my prime. I could still operate very well, and if I can give back and help some of our young men and women in the military, that’s what I want to do.”

Krause was commissioned as a commander Friday aboard the destroyer USS Ramage, where his 27-year-old daughter, Laura, is an ensign and performed the ceremony.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I once rode on a plane into Afghanistan with a psychiatrist who was commissioned directly as a Colonel. He was much like this heart surgeon, just a guy that had a private practice and was looking to make a difference by joining the military for a short stint.

As much as I enjoy Japan (and diving in Guam), a lot of younger sailors don't want to be so far from home for 4 years. Understand it operationally, but I think detailers are going to be telling more they're going vs. seeing requests. https://t.co/Ag7GYWp02W

— Erik Slavin (@eslavin_stripes) May 2, 2018

U.S. aircraft carrier arrives in Vietnam on landmark visit https://t.co/rLfgPkINHO

— Vu Trong Khanh (@TrongKhanhVu) March 5, 2018

It took 50 years, but crew members of the USS Pueblo that were held hostage and tortured by North Korea back in 1968 have filed a lawsuit against the Kim regime:

More than 100 crew members and relatives have joined a lawsuit, filed this month in a federal court under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which allows victims to sue state sponsors of terrorism for torture, hostage-taking, personal injury or death.

North Korea will almost certainly not respond to the lawsuit, and plaintiffs are unlikely to be able to recover funds directly from Pyongyang, but if successful they will be eligible for relief from a US government fund set up to support victims of terrorism.

US President Donald Trump named North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism in November, after it was removed from the list in 2008 by President George W Bush, re-opening the window to litigation against Pyongyang under the 1976 Act.

“Our clients are seeking to hold North Korea accountable for the unspeakable acts committed against the crew of the USS Pueblo more than 50 years ago and the impact it has had on them and their families since then,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers said in a statement.  [CNN]

Adm. Um Hyun-seong (R), South Korea’s chief of naval operations, poses for a photo with Rear Adm. Brad Cooper, the outgoing commander of the U.S. Naval Forces Korea, after giving Cooper a medal at a ceremony in Seoul on Jan. 9, 2018, in this photo released by the Navy. Cooper was given the Cheonsu Medal, the third-highest honor in the five-tier Order of National Security Merit, in recognition of his contribution to the alliance between the two countries. (Yonhap)

The Navy Times has an interesting read about the Navy’s 2017 Hide and Seek champion on the USS Shiloh:

He had financial problems, his marriage had fallen apart and his chain of command was riding him about qualifications. He’d sought mental health counseling, but was not treated when he needed it most.

Before he disappeared from the cruiser Shiloh on June 8, Mims was known for making crazy-yet-sincere claims. Shipmates recalled him saying he had been to space, and that he could shoot fireballs out of his hands.

After he went missing and sparked a massive, 5,500 square-mile man overboard search across the Philippine Sea, the ship’s crew continued a hopeful and fruitless search for him inside the claustrophobic catacombs of the ship’s engineering spaces.

A week after he disappeared — and after his family was notified of his presumed death — a search crew found him hiding in an escape passage leading out of a sweltering engine room.

He was covered in urine and feces, and had a camelback, a multi-tool, Peeps candy and an empty peanut butter jar with him.

Mims could have been apprehended prior to his discovery when another sailor spotted him in the middle of the night, days earlier. But that sailor just went back to sleep instead of sounding the alarm.