Don’t call the Navy low-tech. Even their dining rooms are on the cutting edge. The five-star restaurant in the Pentagon that plays host to top Navy officials and high profile guests will use iPads to place orders and print checks, NextGov reported. The Navy issued a solicitation June 25 for a new executive dining facility software system. The system will function like those used in restaurants across the country to track food orders in real time and send those orders to the kitchen. However, most restaurants have low-end touchscreens, not Apple tablets. Bob Brewin, author of NextGov’s “What’s Brewin'” blog…
Author Jacqueline Klimas
In addition to peanut butter, banana and bacon sandwiches, Elvis left behind the legacy of helping the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii. In March 1961, Elvis played a concert in Hawaii to support the building of the memorial, which raised $64,000. Fans of the King continued to support the cause after his death. More than 50 years later, the memorial is in need of close to $700,000 of renovations and Elvis fans are stepping up again. Pacific Historic Parks have teamed up with Elvis Presley Enterprises to raise money for the improvements, local television station KHON reported. The renovations include…
The mystery sailor behind the love story that has taken the internet by storm has come forward. The Canadian sailor, Leading Seaman Devin Maxwell, a naval communicator on board the Halifax-class frigate Regina, left a romantic surprise for his wife when he left for an eight month deployment. After sending her flowers, he directed her to a box full of 241 sweet notes–one for her to read each day he is gone. Read more about his romantic surprise here. His wife, Crystal, posted photos of the surprise to online photo-sharing site Imagr. Her post has gotten over 16 million views.…
This sailor’s deployment present to his wife sounds like something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel, made even cuter by the fact that it’s not fiction. After saying goodbye to her husband for an eight-month deployment, a Navy wife was surprised when flowers were delivered to her office. That, however, was just the beginning. The flowers, which she posted photos of on Imgur under the username CrystalM, contained a note that read: I love you and am going to miss you every second. When you get home, there is a black box in my closet for you. Follow instructions and…
The Army-Navy rivalry hit the grill when chefs from the two services competed on the Today Show to see who could create the best July 4th ribs and potatoes feast on Sunday. Celebrity chef and host of “Cooking for Real” Sunny Anderson judged the chow dished up by the two service members. Culinary Specialist 1st Class Andrae Keith represented the Navy and whipped up pork spare ribs with onions and green peppers. The ribs were rubbed with many spices, including dry teriyaki, fresh red pepper, spicy mustard, honey, and Worcestershire sauce. CS1 Keith’s secret ingredient? Grandma’s molasses, he said. For the…
Have your USS Constitution, and eat it too. Boston Harborfest began June 28 with a celebration in Faneuil Hall that involved a cake cutting of epic proportions. The cake-replica of Old Ironsides to commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812 was made by Montillo’s Confections in Brockton, Mass. The bakery has been designing Harborfest kickoff cakes for 25 years, according to a Boston Harborfest press release. The cake, a mixture of devil’s food cake and white cake, used 100 lbs. of flour, 80 lbs. of butter and 10 gallons of milk. Boston Harborfest continues through July 4 with events…
Sailors on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln received a visitation from the ship’s long-dead namesake in his new cinematic role as a presidential hunter of the undead. Actor Benjamin Walker, in costume as the 16th president, and some of the cast of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” toured the ship, signed autographs and posed for pictures before treating the crew to a sneak preview of the flick, set to be released June 22 in 3-D. The movie also stars Anthony Mackie and Erin Wasson, who joined Walker on the visit. “We made a movie about freedom, and you are the reason…
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey appreciates the hardworking men and women of the Coast Guard so much, he thanked them…in song. At the 8th annual Tribute to the Coast Guard on Tuesday night in Washington, D.C., Dempsey broke into a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “My Kind of Town,” replacing the lyrics with “This is my kind of team, the Coast Guard is, my kind of team, the Coast Guard is, my kind of people too, people who always come through.” He began the performance with a request for audience participation, stating “At some point in…
Plebe year may be over for the Class of 2015, but the dance moves and Navy pride of the 25th company will live in infamy on the internet forever. In the Youtube video below, female students begin joking about how Army guys are “no brains and all body,” while Navy guys are “so much sexier.” The Navy guys then proceed to prove them right, shaking it to LMFAO’s hit single “Sexy and I Know It,” to scare off a pack of plebes who donned short-shorts and open-front vests to look like Army students. The two packs of military men even…
Frank Munger’s Atomic City Underground, a blog by our sister paper the Knoxville News Sentinel, uncovered some previously undiscovered photos of then-Capt. Hyman Rickover, before he became father of the nuclear Navy. The paper obtained the photo at left, likely taken in fall of 1946, from Tim Gawne, who found it in the archives of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Munger writes that most surviving photos of Rickover were taken after the launching of the first nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus in 1954. This rare photo, which escaped being destroyed with a batch of others, was taken while Rickover was the senior officer stationed…
