Organizers of the Quicken Loans Carrier Classic game and ESPN were thrilled Thursday that a Pacific storm might hold off any rain until well beyond the basketball game’s tip-off at 4:15 p.m. Pacific time Friday on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in San Diego. A rainy forecast had threatened to force the season opener between Michigan State and the University of North Carolina to the hangar deck below. But by midday Thursday, throngs of journalists converged on the flight deck on a comfortably balmy day for pregame activities that included a press conference with team officials…
Author Gidget Fuentes
We couldn’t help but smile at the faces of these Russian boys, who got the chance to play sailor aboard the destroyer Fitzgerald during an outing from Parus Nadezhdy Children’s Rehabilitation Center in Vladivostok. If we only knew what they were saying… The Yokosuka, Japan-based Fitzgerald wrapped up a four-day visit to Russia’s Pacific Fleet port city, where they joined in community projects, sporting matches with Russian sailors and visited sick children at a local hospital before returning to sea for a planned U.S.-Russian joint exercise. The Parus Nedezhdy center for orphan children is something of a regular guest when U.S.…
The quiet diesel-electric submarine Carrera slid through San Diego Bay on Sept. 1 for the start of a three-month deployment to the United States, where the Chilean boat will train with 3rd Fleet’s ships, subs and aircraft. Carrera’s presence in a U.S. port – it calls the submarine piers at Point Loma Naval Base its short-term home – marks the fourth time the Chilean Navy is sending one of its small, stealthy subs to play with the U.S. fleet. The goal of the Diesel Electric Submarine Initiative, of course, is for the U.S. Navy and its foreign seagoing allies to train…
The Aug. 22 retirement of Adm. Eric T. Olson marked the end of the Navy SEAL officer’s 38-year naval career – and the passing of the title of longest-serving SEAL. Olson, a 1973 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, became a SEAL officer in 1974, an achievement that led to a storied career and command at nearly every level, from SEAL team to Naval Special Warfare Command and ultimately to his most-recent job as head of U.S. Special Operations Command, the Tampa, Fla.-based headquarters for the military’s joint special operations forces. For nearly two years, Olson also held the title…
You may have caught it in passing on a news ticker or blog, but have no clue what or where on Earth are the Spratly islands. But you hear they are contested islands some defense experts think potentially could spark the start of a regional war. The archipelago is comprised of small atolls, reefs, islets and outcroppings in the South China Sea, west of the Philippines and spread across a large area but claimed by the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Taiwan and Malaysia. The islands, which range in size from small to tiny, are in a prime fishing region and sit…
The trouble with secret military units – the type the U.S. government refuses to acknowledge even exist, like, say, Delta Force or Area 51 – is this: Just how is the public, including the news media, supposed to identify them accurately if there is no official logo or name? Without it, chances are good that some might get it wrong. That’s apparently what happened when German television station N24 aired a report May 5 on the May 1 killing of Osama bin Laden by Navy SEALs. The station used what it believed was an official logo of the classified secret…
A handful of Navy medical personnel got to witness a bit of history when several 550-year-old patients came through the door last month for some lab work. That’s right – 550 years old, plus or minus a few years. The patients were Peruvian mummies, one adult and four young children, according to the Navy. Their April 27 arrival at Naval Medical Center San Diego for some tissue and bone scans came courtesy of a joint project with the San Diego Museum of Man, which hopes to learn more about what sorts of ailments and health issues these Peruvians faced when…
Hospitalman Briana Bartholomew belts out a “hooyah!” after completing several pushups with Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West in San Diego March 16 at the Sea Service Leadership Association annual women’s symposium.//Photo by MC1 Elena Pence In a crowd of more than 1,300, Hospitalman Briana Bartholomew answered a challenge from Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SS/SW) Rick West and knocked out several pushups on the stage at the Sea Service Leadership Association Women’s Symposium before she gave a loud “hooyah.” “OK, now I’m ready for some questions,” West told the group of mostly female…
The latest hijacking an American couple aboard their yacht Quest by Somali pirates is capturing more of the public’s attention than have dozens of other acts of piracy on the high seas, notably off east Africa where pirates are finding gold in the ransoms sought for their captured vessels ranging from large container ships to smaller craft. Pirates, it seems, face pretty good odds as they wait out for the big payday. Once in awhile, pirates are plain overwhelmed, by firepower or manpower or just will to fight. We saw that when Navy SEAL snipers aboard the destroyer Bainbridge killed all…
The congresswoman seriously wounded in Saturday’s mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., is a Navy spouse. Rep. Gabrielle “Gabby” Giffords, D-Ariz., is one of 13 survivors in the shooting that left six dead at a supermarket shopping center, including an aide. Giffords was shot in the head by the gunman as she met constituents at a “Congress on Your Corner” event and, as of midday Monday, remained in intensive care. Giffords, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, in 2007 married Navy Capt. Mark E. Kelly, a naval fighter pilot and NASA astronaut. It was a match that led former Labor secretary…
