Author: Eric Saretsky

This is not a Drill

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When the 1MC, the general announcing system aboard ship, calls away an actual emergency those words compel sailors instinctively into action. The fire that broke out Sunday morning, 12 July, on the USS Bon Homme Richard (LHD6) is still burning on Tuesday. However, the billowing smoke and flames that were visible within the superstructure early Monday seem to have been knocked down by the firefighting crews and hundreds of helicopter water drops. Yesterday, the volume of water to suppress the fire and cool the hull caused the ship to list slightly, but video today show the pumps aboard removed it adequately. Anytime a fire breaks out on a ship, it is an extremely hazardous time, but the condition of the ship when undergoing pierside maintenance made the conflagration it became Sunday and Monday.

As we have learned, the vessel was undergoing maintenance at the 32nd Street Navy Base after a two-year shipyard period nearby. (Almost every ship performs scheduled maintenance, which does not require being placed in drydock, at the pier.) While munitions do not remain aboard a ship during maintenance periods, the move to the Navy base indicated that it was in a state to have some daily operations continue. As the Commander, Expeditionary Strike Group 3, stated during a briefing, the major concern in mitigating the ongoing fire was keeping it away from the fuel supply stored decks below the fire. A semi-operational ship like the Bon Homme Richard has fuel, likely to stabilize the ship, while at the pier. With metropolitan San Diego and County residents within a thirty mile arc, the plume of smoke was an air quality concern. An operational Navy ship has stores, supplies, paper, bedding, and other combustible materials aboard. These, plus cleansers, lining of cabling and plastics in varied equipment will burn or vaporize, adding potential toxics to the smoke plumes. What made the conflagration so intense so rapidly was the inoperative HALON fire suppression system, which was itself, undergoing maintenance.

It is reassuring to know that the injuries that the sailors and civilians have sustained as a result of battling the fire are not very serious. As a sailor who spent several years aboard Navy combatants, I know crews are very well trained for emergencies such as this. The Navy team, comprised of officer and enlisted sailors, civilians, and other military and civilian firefighters are working around the clock to save the ship. The Navy will perform a very thorough investigation once the fire has been extinguished, and the Navy can expect the lessons applied to future pierside periods and training. However, with the intensity of the damage expected from the heat and flames, the confident “do not give up the ship!” attitude may be tempered. After a quarter-billion dollar refit, it likely may take a lot more to make her Bon Homme Richard.

UPDATED AT 2PM EST:

WASHINGTON (NNS) — UPDATED 2:00 p.m. July 14, 2020:

Below is the press conference opening statement from Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, Commander, Expeditionary Strike Group 3.

Good morning. My name is Rear Admiral Philip Sobeck, and I am the Expeditionary Strike Group THREE commander. I’d like to start by thanking the people of San Diego, National City, Coronado, and all the other communities in San Diego County for their continued support. For more than 48 hours, brave Sailors from commands all across San Diego have been working tirelessly alongside Federal Fire San Diego to get this fire under control and I want to thank them for their efforts. I want to provide you with some updates on the progress we have made: First, we have investigated the four main engineering spaces and found no major damage. There is no threat to the fuel tanks, which is well-below any active fires or heat sources. The ship is stable and the structure is safe. We still have an active fire, which we are combatting from both within and outside the ship from multiple access points. HSC 3 helicopters have conducted more than 1,000 helicopter water bucket drops, which is cooling the super structure and flight deck enabling fire crews to get onboard internally to fight the fire. Tugs are also provide firefighting support from the waterline. I’m proud of the toughness of the Sailors and Federal Firefighters for making this significant progress possible. At this time there are 61 personnel, 38 U.S. Navy Sailors and 23 civilians, have been treated for minor injuries including heat exhaustion and smoke inhalation. Currently, there are no personnel hospitalized. Going forward, the Navy will do a thorough investigation of the incident to include assessing the cause of the fire and damage to the ship, but right now our focus remains on putting out the fire and keeping people safe. I’d like to also thank our partners from state and county as well as the Coast Guard for monitoring the potential impacts to the environment. As we continue to fight the fire, we remain cognizant of environmental concerns regarding the water and air quality. We recommend residents follow county advisories for safety out of an abundance of caution. Thank you again for your being here and we are now ready to take your questions.

Preserve, protect and defend

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My career in the Navy was committed to preserving the American people and the principles found in our Founding documents. This nation experiences problems that have contradicted those principles all along the last two hundred years. People that have wanted to ignore or redefine those principles. Particularly in the last four years, we have witnessed those who violated their office to uphold public good, safety and the Constitution at all levels of government. At every level, from local to the Presidency, the courts, and state-appointed bureaucrats, we have had a lack of leadership. Division, Fear and ideology replacing honest assessment and problem-solving.

If you have never been in combat, you cannot “understand” what a combat veteran with PTSD is going through. In America particularly, you may never have had guns drawn on you by police, or stopped to question you – simply because you are a particular skin color. Consider anyone you prejudged by their race, religion, origin, unemployment, homelessness, politics, physical disability, or weakness – alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, etc. How would you want others to treat you if situations were reversed? Many of us completely absolve another person of horrible attitudes, behavior, or past due to a characteristic we share or a certain point of agreement. We attribute any negatives brought up by others to “bad apples” and refuse to consider anything deeper.

We need to address, and correct the deficiencies, starting with race, but also determine how to accomplish change peacefully. Not by murdering police officers, blocking streets, burning buildings or adding slogans on advertising. Not with lifetime pols in public office, nor vigilante patrols, or by destroying monuments, and deleting history that offends someone. Not by white killing white, brown killing brown, or black killing black – or such. Not with one-sided simplistic journalism to trigger fear while driving ratings up. Honest assessment. Building up not tearing down our differences. So we start with race, law enforcement, crime and punishment. Correct the wrongs and punish the guilty. Change mindsets, and change the conditions that set people up from childhood to experience inequality. Promote discussions. Then work on the next inequality.

In the military, we started with a process – changing mindsets from civilian to military. Physical and mental conditioning. Working together, problem-solving, succeeding or failing as a team. Never quitting and above all, protecting one another and completing the mission. Otherwise, this country’s enemies will not respect us – they will snuff out our dreams for our grandchildren, turn others against us, and cheer us on as we destroy ourselves.

Memorial day

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“Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.” 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President

The world is chock full of selfish tyrants, deluded extremists, and self-righteous windbags. Many people live under the control and limits imposed by these kinds of people. Some are fortunate to live where there are opportunities to excel, to pursue careers, and to raise families without fearing for their safety or welfare. The United States of America., however, was founded on principles that were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, of personal freedoms and Government that is the agent of the governed. These principles have been defended for two and a half centuries by men and women to the point of shedding blood.

Memorial Day was established to recognize and remember that Freedom, the everyday rights and privileges that Americans enjoy, came at a cost. Whatever your political leanings, belief in the supernatural – or not, the color of your skin, or your origin, this particular nation – the United States – is and remains, the one that most of the world’s people, given the opportunity, stream toward. And regardless of individual biases or misgivings about warfare, the military, or those who protect Life, Liberty, and Property, the truth remains that our people have died in defense of foreigners as well as our citizens at home.

In recent decades, the fundamental principles and unity of Americans (in self-identity and language) have come under attack from those who use the very protections afforded them by the United States to attack it. To some, the expressions of “Rights” is separate from the idea of “Responsibilities”, and demand the former without expectations to abide by the latter. Voting (holding accountability of Government to the governed), expression and speech, “2nd Amendment”, and everyone abiding by the laws that reflect the principles and tradition of our Founders, are just a few of the most contentious. Others demand their exclusion from societal policies that were enacted and enforced, poorly at times, by men and women whom our system of governance has entrusted to safeguard the welfare of all our citizens.

Memorial Day, particularly in 2020, should be honored and remembered by all United States residents, for the sacrifice of our military members who died wearing the uniform honorably; Law Enforcement and First Responders; and especially in 2020, our medical professionals; whether their deaths were due to combat, acts of terrorism, wanton violence, accident, or the COVID-19 virus.

Ask the Chief

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leadership

I heard a great sea story once about an engineering problem given to a room full of Officer Candidate School students. Given a number of requirements, they had to calculate how to get the job done. Every pencil in the classroom was furiously calculating away but for one student. That student, a Navy Chief Petty Officer, had written, “Find a Chief Petty Officer. Tell him, “Chief, I need this flagpole erected. Today.”

One of the best leadership tools has been around four thousand years.

  • Seek Advice:
    • 22 Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed (Proverbs 15: 22)
  • Don’t talk so much
    • 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words (Matthew 6:7)
  • Arrogance loses to humility every time
    • 2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom (Proverbs 11:2)
  • Set the example for others
    • 13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. (James 3:13)
  • Listen, and learn
    • 5 let the wise listen and add to their learning,  and let the discerning get guidance— (Proverbs 1:5)

Leadership books are written by the thousands, to distill for others the principles and lessons of leadership. Some look for quick guidelines and surefire tricks. Others look for the “rules” to impress on others or for the means to skirt “around” them. Many realize that leadership is as much developing character as it is authority and taking action. Just as a military veteran understands that we are under authority, and those authorities are under authority, it is through the lessons of Scripture, ultimate authority desires us to seek Wisdom, and reverently follow our Creator.

Leadership on the Line

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A book I began reading a month ago, Leadership on the Line, by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, (Harvard Business Review Press, 2002). is now the first leadership book on my recommended reading list for 2020. Only 236 pages, it is easily read and well annotated. Using stories, including among others, a turnaround at IBM to a Chicago Bulls locker room incident in a crucial NBA finals game, the authors illustrate leadership lessons. The principles of leadership the authors discuss are just as relevant to present leadership challenges -in business, in politics or other less structured organizations. For those who are not looking at this worldwide pandemic as “when we get back to normal”, but recognize change coming and are willing to step up to lead -entrepreneurs, independent contractors, and public servants – they will face resistance but how they communicate, will change everything.

Continue reading →

You have two basic rights

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I am dusting off and republishing a few of my oldest efforts blogging. Rough around the edges. Originally published in July, 2009.

My old Senior Chief back in the days before political correctness blanched most of the testosterone from the military, used to introduce himself to his charges, “You have two rights in this world, one, to live, and another, to die. Gentlemen, when you f*** up, I will take one of them away from you!” I was the Petty Officer assigned to escort restricted and brig confinement -bound men at the NTC San Diego Correctional Custody unit, when the Navy Training Center and not an artsy community/ civic center.

It was his responsibility – and by delegation, mine as well, to attempt through proper application of discipline and hard work to turn last-chance misfits – clowns, chronic whiners, and immature boy-sailors into rule-followers, and rehabilitated men. There were of course, two alternatives that several ended finding – discharge at the convenience of the government, or hard time at the Navy Brig – and then discharge.

After those formative days of my youth, I see my responsibility as training young people in my charge, Sailors in my Reserve unit, recent graduate-engineers at work, and especially my sons, to help them develop along the right course. There is a culture in the military that juniors respect the senior enlisted mentors, as this is how the former progress to becoming the latter. In the civilian workforce, particularly in companies which nurture and reward excellence among all employees, there is a lot of the same cameraderie, cross-training, and shared purpose.

As a parent, though, raising boys who were as independent-minded and stubborn as mules, was work! These teens were self-disciplined only to the extent of things which held their interest – guitars, skateboards, and motocross bikes. Perhaps memory of similar behavior in those young men from the Correctional Custody days, urged me to impart some cautionary pearl of wisdom. Often the effect was wrath and counter-accusation, and exasperated red-faces. It would have been so much easier to find “a fan room”. (a Fan Room is a noisy air handling compartment where 2 could a disagreement with a few fists, without a public display). But political correctness has broken down all the means to apply discipline at any age.
Too much is thought of individual liberties, psyches, and others well-being, to the detriment of everyone from classroom pupil, to those helmsmen of a warship or even public transport operators. Policy which prohibits certain behavior (texting on cell phones while operating a train) is only effective when the individual has ingrained self-discipline.

Were it within my ability, I would like to see a return to the days of the old Senior Chief at NTC. A good butt-kicking would nip a lot of these problem behaviors.

What were they thinking? Professional Judgment in the Crozier/Modly Affair

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I found this blog post written by Pauline Shanks Kaurin, originally published on groundedcuriosity.com (April 16, 2020), an insightful perspective. A scholar of military ethics, she examines military versus civilian (political) judgement, in the case of Captain Crozier’s action and dismissal from commanding an aircraft carrier.

She writes, “When former acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced he was relieving Captain Brett Crozier from command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Modly noted that Crozier showed “poor judgement” and “…allowed the complexity of the challenge…to overwhelm his ability to act professionally.” He emphasized this was not a matter of Crozier’s character, but his judgment. (Read more)

raining conspiracies

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Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl, don't they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours

I think the rain we have been seeing from multiple storms since the Governor of California required our state to deal with catastrophic drought, at the beginning of 2019, is part of a secret conspiracy to ship the melting polar caps- Arctic and Antarctic to California. While I do not believe in secret Governments, a vast global conspiracy to fool people about a pandemic, or the right-wing movement to control women’s uteruses, I am beginning to suspect that all the rain we have been getting is meant to shove the illegal succulent trade in Southern California back across the Arizona border.

At least, the rain is giving a big boost to my fruiting stone-fruit trees: Apricots, peaches and nectarines. And all the other ornamental bushes are flowering. This is also a treat for my roses. But “April showers bring May flowers” was never a rhyme we knew in California before now.

Why Responsibility Is So Important — Steve Rose, PhD

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With all of the recent social distancing measures, we have been repeatedly told by public health officials that it is our responsibility to stay home and flatten the curve. You are not responsible for the problem, but you now find yourself responsible for part of the solution. It can be frustrating, it can be isolating,…

Why Responsibility Is So Important — Steve Rose, PhD

tinkering with raspberries

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A blogging compatriot, Biff Sock Pow on WordPress issued an invitation to write about “Whatnot” this Wednesday. And being a big believer in blogging, I thought “why not” include a project that I have been working on? Some might find projects to home-school their children or grandchildren, or possibly irritate their spouse. If you cannot do something worthwhile during a pandemic “shelter in place”, some might end up doing laundry, the dishes, or “rotating” their stock in the liquor cabinet to pass the time.

As anyone who came lately to the “working from home” party – you will know that acquiring a webcam with, or without a microphone – to prepare a desktop PC, or even to buy a simple laptop – became impossible early in the second week of March. And as a self-employed (and soon un-employed) entrepreneur, three or four thousand dollars, for a professional system was ludicrous.

That being said, I had a box of components, cables and AC adapters in my office closet for a Raspberry Pi single board computer kit. Which was easy to overlook, and had not generated a recent “what are you planning to do with that?” from my spouse. A few years ago, when I was constantly tinkering with projects both at work and at home, I had various motherboards, hard drives, power supplies, and computers in the office, the garage, and even a few things in the car. Most were recycled through Goodwill.

A Raspberry Pi was useful to an engineer who needed a small server for a test network. But there are many applications for a programming student, a hobbyist, or for guy needing a video-conferencing tool. For less than $70 US, I acquired the board, power supply, cables, case, a camera module, and a micro-SD card. Should you want to experiment, there is a website , and from Googling other contributors to the Raspberry Pi operating system (it is a variant of Debian Linux), you may find any number of modifications for your purposes.

Fortunately the subject did not break the camera test

Tinkering around with settings, writing and modifying programs might seem daunting to those unfamiliar with programming. I used the nano script editor and versions of Python scripting language to do what I needed. As a now retired-developer and test person, the cables, duct tape, multiple monitors, keyboards and mice that cover my desk, were too much for my spouse. “Why do you need all that?!” and “Can’t you just buy a webcam and plug it in?”

Empty store shelves and “backordered” online retailers, is exactly why I built one. It was not, in John F. Kennedy’s immortal words, “”We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” (cit). It was because I needed one, and figured why not just put my experience to use. What I knew from past experience was making the jump from different operating systems and applications, would be a little complicated. But Navy Chiefs are not one to shy away from challenge. And an electronics technician for many years has enough hubris to tackle a project with a short timeline. It was relatively easy to assemble, modify the program and then port the video capture to my Windows desktop. Where it got a little challenging was making the video feed available to the Zoom teleconferencing app. There are a number of applications that are easier to work with, for programmers and hobbyists, but my audience – participants, and my production team (spouse) wanted the promised Zoom conference. So …

A Samsung tablet with built-in camera and speaker, with the Zoom application installed was last night’s solution. As for my Raspberry Pi? I will take down my workstation and put it back in the closet for now. Some may shoot for the Moon, when others just want your project not to blow up on the launchpad. (Or when the camera falls over not to knock everything on her desk onto the floor.)

I wonder if Robert Goddard’s started this way?