Author: Eric Saretsky

“progressives” do not understand TR

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via  Theodore Roosevelt on Immigration

Theodore Roosevelt’s ideas on Immigrants and being an AMERICAN in 1907

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American … There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”Theodore Roosevelt 1907  {bold highlights in this article are those of notdonner,  added for emphasis}

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VADM H. Denby Starling, II — honor365

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Vice Adm. (ret) Starling began his last assignment as commander of Navy Cyber Forces at its establishment on Jan. 26, 2010. There he was responsible for organizing and prioritizing manpower, training, modernization and maintenance requirements for networks and cryptologic, space, intelligence and information operations capabilities. He concurrently served as commander Naval Network Warfare Command, where he oversaw the conduct […]

via VADM H. Denby Starling, II — honor365

to boldly go

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Space: the Final Frontier.  These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations.To boldly go where no man has gone before!  – Star Trek

Watching the first episode of season One of a Sci-Fi drama last night, The Expanse, on my smart TV (via the internet),  I  was enjoying how this first episode piqued my interest.   Stories of  an unconventional cop,  political intrigue –  the 23rd Century is apparently just as full of plots, terrorists, and manipulation as the 21st is;  interplanetary social unrest, and human drama in space.  These are all elements of shows I’ve watched for decades.  It must continue to be well-acted and well-written as I find it is beginning its third season.

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image courtesy SyFy Channel

Perhaps it is the era I grew up in.   Star Trek (the original series),  NASA moon landings, Space Shuttles and the Voyager satellites that left earth in the 1970s are now (2018)  in interstellar space.  The future held great promise, but the vast expanse of space seems beyond the reach of humanity.  The solar system  and non-warp technology is much more credible.  What was the stuff of science fiction- tiny personal communication devices,  automated  purchases,  computer surveillance systems,  self-driving vehicles and electromechanical replacement body parts are reality or in development.   With Elon Musk’s plan, people living on other planets in our system are a soon-to-be reality,  or not too fantastic for the near future.   The future predicted by television shows and movies in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, was often visited by alien races that wanted to eat us (Alien franchise) or obliterate us ( Independence Day).

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image courtesy Wikipedia

The Day the Earth Stood Still in the 1950s, Star Trek, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET were the rare exception.  In the 1960s, 2001: A  Space Odyssey was another where people were the beneficiaries of an alien encounter,  but the technology predicted forty years ago for the year 2000 in the story and movie is not far-fetched for 2018. In the 1970s,  Silent Running, remains one of my favorites, if it was very heavy with environmentalist commentary ( the last plants on Earth were propelled into space on greenhouse spaceships tended by men who really didn’t want to be there.) The Terminator was a future of artificial intelligence that wanted and kept trying over several sequels and a TV series, to wipe out humans. And many Sci-Fi movies over the years were set in a post-nuclear war ravaged Earth.  Totalitarian societies controlled the future.  Or the Earth was polluted,  or frozen, or flooded,  or a barren desert.  While a worldwide epidemic that renders apes (or more likely, cockroaches) inheriting the earth, is also sci-fi,  I prefer thinking more down-to-earth.

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Image courtesy nasa.gov

 

 

dog days at work

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Eric Saretsky's avatarIt's a Dog's Life

One of the best examples of community is how we give of our time, and of our money to the less fortunate.  While most recognize that members of our own species needs aid,  love and compassion, there are others that we can help.  I was introduced to a few examples of this today.   Sometimes, it is noteworthy to recognize those who help rescue canines in need.

Labs and More,  San Diego

Several times a year, at the main campus in Carlsbad, my company hosts expos for charitable organizations in San Diego – supporting a children’s hospital, or fighting cancer,  or health and wellness,  or disaster preparedness.  Or like today,  when a few San Diego animal rescue groups came with their furry ambassadors to raise awareness in the community.   The volunteers who organize and man these outreach programs wear their hearts on their sleeve.  These all-volunteer groups raise funds to support…

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party animal

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The first thing I noticed about my wife’s choice of venue for her former nursing student-graduates  gathering, was how loud and crowded it got after 6:30PM on Friday.  First, it was surprising to me that “loud” was something I would be annoyed with.   And second, I am also annoyed at thinking it a “crowded” venue which the over-forty crowd seemed to enjoy.  While I have been in Navy CPO clubs and Navy aviator officer’s clubs in San Diego,  this was my first time in the  94th Aero Squadron,  a public restaurant with an a military and aviation theme.

Friday evening commutes in San Diego are typically one that I will stop to have a cigar at a favorite lounge on the way home from work.  However, this past Friday, my wife invited me to join her while she waited for a couple nurses to join her at the restaurant and bar that borders Montgomery Field municipal airport.   With the tri-winged red airplane out front,  reminiscent of the Red Baron, I would not be mocked too much if I asked where was Snoopy in his Sopwith Camel doghouse.

While they reminisced about their time at the school (my wife’s employer) and chatted about kids,  medicine and the training, I drifted off.   And then I needed a second glass of something to ward off the chill.   While San Diego rarely gets weather  that has anyone scurrying for jackets, wool caps or gloves,   this was one of those cool weeks.   Part of this restaurant was open air, looking out on the airfield, which on any other week of the year, would have been very pleasant.  The cool evening also spurred me to risk ( my Keto diet regimen) two glasses of merlot.

I thought it was a great place for a happy hour.  The service and the appetizers were – on my carefully chosen sampling – quite good.  But as the happy hour crowd left and the evening crowd of forty-somethings started partying, the loud music,  the cool, and the 8 o’clock hour on Friday night is about all the partying my wife and I can handle.

If a sloth is the new image of cool,  then I am still a “party animal”

 

culturally irrelevant?

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it’s the kiss of death for a celebrity that is long past her or his prime: being ignored, or worse,  being mocked.

Madonna,   now 59-year old,  is that embarrassing icon of 80s music that lost her relevance twenty years ago, but refused to go quietly into producing other artists or cultivating wine on a French estate, etc.   She tried to drum up support for Hillary Clinton’s Presidential bid.  She was quoted saying some incredibly stupid, sexually explicit things.  She has been mocked for at least three years by radio stations in the U.K.  and their music awards.   Do the Millennials even know who she was?  And apparently this week she put herself out on Twitter in a bid that she may regret more than being forgotten, being mercilessly mocked.  

Nicholas Cage.   I generally watched his movies for the co-stars’ performances.  Even the cars were more watchable.

Mel Gibson.  Memorable movies. Memorable characters.  And then …. in person, a drunk,  a bigot,  given to tirades, abuse …..

Lindsay Lohan.  Mostly a celebrity for being such a human trainwreck.

For musicians ever since the music video fame is measured in months it seems.  A casual search on the internet revealed a whole lot of “irrelevant” performers who apparently rose and then flamed out in the last five or ten years.  Rita Ora is one according to one critic.  I never heard of any of them.

And of course, my “fan fave”,  William Hung, the rejected American Idol of 2004 who became an internet sensation for his lack of singing talent.  But he’s a successful motivational speaker now

USNS Paltroon

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I am trying my hand at some nautical fiction this month

April 20, 2021

As far as the world was told,  late in November 2017,  a rocky asteroid,  a visitor from interstellar space passed through the solar system.  But that was not entirely accurate.  It actually struck the Earth, landing in the Pacific Ocean in a hundred thousand-square mile area northeast of Midway Island.  That was not the unusual part – it decelerated before entering the atmosphere and landing in the ocean.  Our surveillance satellites, as well as the Russians and Chinese – and Elon Musk’s SpaceX (under secret contract with the US Government) were temporarily (electronically) blinded before “Oumuamua” entered the atmosphere.  So the approximate area is calculated and not confirmed.  It is almost three miles to the ocean floor in that area so finding even a large object is no easier than the search a decade ago for that missing airliner somewhere in the Indian Ocean. 

Now a Russian submarine we aren’t supposed to be able to track, we know vanished after it entered the search zone a day ago.   My ship is scheduled to enter the same search box tomorrow morning at 0600.

… To be continued…..

Cuban Missile Crisis

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As a veteran and retired Navy Senior Chief, wearing a t-shirt celebrating Navy Chiefs is a point of pride, even in San Diego with a large population of veterans, Active Duty and families with members of the military in them.

While shopping at a Lowes Saturday afternoon,  a gentleman thanked me for my service and we chatted as two veterans are likely to do.   Gene’s service as a Comms Officer at SECOND Fleet, the commander of all afloat naval forces in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean, occurred at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That was almost fifty-six years ago.  In six decades, millions of American (and a number of foreign-born) men and women have served or continue to serve in the armed forces.  Travel, learning self-discipline, gaining a better perspective on many topics,  and useful work-related skills.  Many took advantage of the college benefits to become very skilled professionals in everything from agriculture to zoology.

And yet for many who have served in combat, in combat zones, or even when injured in training or other military-related periods,  there has been sixty years of failure to live up to promises by the Government.  Mental illness, drug addiction, homelessness, and incarceration plague veterans who have served honorably but became only statistics.  And with every election cycle, promised of change may cause a stir, but then either never are completely realized, or get the budget axe.

I am one of the fortunate.  I have a good post-military career.  I have a support system that is independent of the government. And I have good memories of camaraderie, as well as some challenging memories of the bureaucratic foul ups and health issues from military service.   With a population that increasingly is self-interested, emotionally-fragile, rigidly opinionated, and in many cases unprincipled,  the graying veterans like me may spent more time reminiscing at a Lowes, or a Target, or in the park.   You cannot really ever hide the walk, the bearing, or the “USA!” branded clothes and pro-veteran opinions.

On the Cuban Missile Crisis, this is one article for further reading

 

Voyage to the bottom of the sea

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Whatever became of the U.S. Navy  undersea lab experiments of the 1960’s and ’70s?

 

CAPT George Bond, USN,  lead the research effort for the Navy that lead to something all recreational SCUBA divers rely on today.   (No, scuba was invented by a partnership between Frenchmen Jacques Cousteau and E Gagnon (1)).  Dive Decompression Tables.

SeaLab I, II, and III were the result of experiments on divers working at depth where avoiding decompression sickness, “the bends”, meant long periods of decompression to recover from only minutes exposure.  Underwater, at depth,  breathing surface air, as in the scuba cylinders or through a hose-diving helmet, would result in gasses building up in the diver’s bloodstream.  Without stages of ascent and wait time,  the gas would form bubbles in the person’s tissues causing pain, injury and even death.

Research investigated long-duration exposure underwater, living and working in habitats at different depths (up to 600 feet) whether there were negative effects and finding that a single decompression regimen at the conclusion of the experiment were sufficient to prevent injury.  Studies during this time on nitrogen narcosis have provided recreational and commercial divers today with reliable timetables for recovering  or decompressing, and the effects on the body.   Other developments from the SeaLab program was the development of neoprene which everyone from divers to surfers now use in prolonging exposure to cold seawater.

One notable research participant for the Navy was both a pioneering astronaut as well as an aquanaut.  Scott Carpenter, was the second American in space, in the Gemini program, and was an “inner space” pioneer.  He spent a then -record 30 days in SeaLab Ii offshore La Jolla, 200 feet beneath the surface.   Later,  in SeaLab III,  an experiment in underwater welding resulted in an accident where one researcher died due to asphyxiation.  This was a factor in terminating the experiments in SeaLab III.  But the research into saturation diving by the U.S. Navy continues today.  In point of fact, it was this continuing research that has lead to special operations involving saturation diving and part of the training for submarine rescue operations.    The Office of Naval Research (ONR) Undersea Medicine program is the descendent of these undersea experiments.

http://www.navalunderseamuseum.org/endbell/

https://www.onr.navy.mil/en/About-ONR/History/tales-of-discovery/sealab

(1)  In 1942, Cousteau and Gagnan co-invented a demand valve system that would supply divers with compressed air when they breathed   

death and taxes

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Work day ends.  Time to figure out how much of my earnings are going to Uncle Sam.  I’ve started to work on our family’s taxes for 2017 and the first pass has me scratching my head.   We owe more that we already had withheld over 26 pay periods in federal taxes?    My wife took a pay cut from prior years,  was furloughed the last week of the year, and we did not strike oil in the backyard when I planted a tree, so what happened?  
 

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Who is culpable?

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Via NavyTimes.com

How homicide charges for two skippers will shake up the entire Navy

By:  and     January 21

Cmdr. Bryce Benson, left, and Cmdr. Alfredo J. Sanchez, right, face criminal charges for their roles in the fatal collisions of their respective destroyers. (Navy)

The Navy’s decision to level criminal charges against the commanding officers of the destroyers Fitzgerald and John S. McCain is forcing the surface warfare world into a grim reckoning on how it operates, and the consequences of sailors dying on a leader’s watch.

The Navy announced on Jan. 16 that negligent homicide charges will be sought against Fitz CO Cmdr. Bryce Benson, and McCain CO Cmdr. Alfredo Sanchez, for their roles in the deaths of 17 sailors in the Pacific last summer.

The unprecedented move sets in motion a military justice proceeding that will begin with a preliminary hearing known as an Article 32, which will evaluate the evidence and determine whether to send the officers to court-martial.

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an Ulchi by any other name

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“Saretsky, Eric W. CTMC (UFL N39 COPS3)” <xxxxx> wrote:
It’s 6 AM in El Cajon and I’m hoping that you’ve been able to sleep. I know how hard it is for you when you are in the middle of problem-resolution (baby-sitting) teachers and students!
I’ll be here all night, so I am just sending you lots of virtual hugs to comfort you!
Love you,
me

My wife found and shared with me old email we exchanged over ten years ago when I was on a Navy Reserve assignment to COMSEVENTHFLT AOR.   It was my second visit to  Yokosuka, Japan.  Seven years earlier, in 1998 or 1999, I had been on Active Duty, aboard the USS CORONADO,  when it visited Japan and Korea.   That previous time,  I had only just begun dating my future wife, and our exchanges by email were very slow and tedious.  This,  from a ship that was “state of the art” in most things electronic.  In 2006 I had been a Reservist nearly six years, married five years and when I received orders to the SEVENTH Fleet for ULCHI FOCUS LENS,  it was my first time in seven years that I was again on sea duty.  And email was quite a bit more advanced in comparison.

My assignment aboard the USS BLUE RIDGE during UFL was interesting work, simulating tactical intelligence options, “PsyOps”( (psychological efforts to dissuade North Koreans from participating in the event of hostilities) and so forth.  Other teams had different scenarios to develop.   One of the things I learned, working with a joint unit of intelligence professionals ( Reservists who were also civilian experts in the fields they supported in uniform),  is that some battlefield commanders, i.e. the Active Duty Army general heading up this exercise, are “warhead on forehead” types and not given to deep consideration of other forms of military conduct.  I had previously seen that in a prior year working with an Air Force team who were reluctant to employ a new technology- because it was new, and not part of their manual (printed before the technology was in development).

Were I to do it again,  I would again prefer to be a Navy Chief Petty Officer aboard ship.  There is truth in Rank Has Its Privileges.  While a Reserve Commander from my unit was also on this same Exercise,  he had neither the camaraderie, nor the access to good chow that came with being a Chief in the BLUE RIDGE CPO Mess.  It’s a tradition that all Navy Chiefs past and present are one, and all Navy units’ CPO Mess are one Mess

  new Chief Petty Officers initiated into the BLUE RIDGE CPO Mess (Sept 2006)

One other thing that seems to remain constant over the years since I last donned a uniform, is the fondness for change – in uniform styles, acronyms and Joint Exercise names.   When I was reminiscing about ULCHI FOCUS LENS,  online I found that this Joint exercise was subsequently changed to ULCHI FREEDOM GUARDIAN.   In the decade that this has been in use,  I presume the Pentagon is probably searching for a new name.  “ULCHI FREEDOM MAGA”?  Anyone?  It undoubtedly will be huge.

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article:  U.S. Army STAND-TO! | Ulchi Freedom Guardian