Eric Dane isn’t a SWO. He just plays one on TV. But his late father, William Melvin, was an aviation boatswain’s mate in the Vietnam War era. To honor his service, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus presented Dane with a shadow box of his awards June 12 at the season 2 premiere “The Last Ship” in Washington, D.C., attended by sailors in the area. On the show, Dane plays Cmdr. Tom Chandler, skipper of the destroyer Nathan James and more or less humanity’s last hope of survival against an apocalyptic virus. “I’m here because I love Washington, I love the Navy and…
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The Navy and Marines, along with Finnish, Swedish and British forces stormed Sweden’s beach with a big amphibious landing near Ravlunda. The huge show of force for the blue-green NATO team, shown in the sweet 4-minute video above, was part of the ongoing BALTOPS exercise, an annual military training event put on by NATO. This year’s BALTOPS comes amid heavy tensions with Russia over its incursions into eastern Ukraine and its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Over the weekend, Polish officials announced that the U.S. Army was getting ready to move heavy weaponry to Poland, though it did not specify what kinds of weapons…
For Navy Times, the allegations that CNO nominee Adm. John Richardson and Rear Adm. Joseph Tofalo, head of the Pentagon’s Undersea Warfare shop, violated the 1913 Anti-Lobbying Act triggered a crash-course in arcane lobbying rules that almost everybody in Washington has seemingly figured out how to circumvent. The Project on Government Oversight, the watchdog group that threw the penalty flag on Richardson, claimed the admirals were coordinating a grassroots campaign to fund the $80 billion Ohio-class submarine replacement program. Richardson implored the crowd at October’s meeting of the Naval Submarine League to tell everyone from the local parent-teacher association to their congressman…
The carrier Carl Vinson, destroyer Gridley , cruiser Bunker Hill, and Malaysian frigate KD Lekir steaming through the South China Sea in May. (Credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class John Philip Wagner)
Incoming U.S. Pacific Command head Adm. Harry Harris slammed China’s claims in the South China Sea as “outrageous” and “preposterous” in a recent TIME Magazine interview. China has established a pattern of deliberately provocative actions in recent months and has been unclear about its claims to vast swathes of the South China Sea, Harris said, accusing China of destabilizing the region. “I have been critical of China for a pattern of provocative actions that they’ve begun in the recent past. Like unilaterally declaring an air-defense identification zone over the East China Sea, parking a mobile oil platform off the Vietnam…
#USSJasonDunham's flight deck crew prepares an MH-60R Seahawk helicopter, assigned to “Grandmasters” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 46 for take off. You can help this video take off by clicking the share button.
Posted by U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet on Sunday, May 3, 2015
The flight deck on a surface combatant is a dangerous, fast-paced and loud environment, but it’s also exhilarating. Sailors deployed around the world conduct hundreds of hours of flight hours each day, performing search and rescue, surveillance and resupply missions among others. This morning, Naval Forces Europe posted a GoPro video on its Facebook page of the chock and chain crew on board the destroyer Jason Dunham clearing an MH-60 for takeoff. If you have a case of the Mondays and need some motivations, put your headphones on and crank the volume for this bad-ass video. Green deck.
The Islamic State group is trying to work on its special forces prowess. Well, they’ve got their work cut out for them, according to combat vets that viewed a recently released promotional video by the extremist group. The video, first posted by news site Vocativ, features a dozen scenes of training, door breaching and amphibious sneak attacks. There are countless reasons why this whole thing is a giant soup sandwich, a former Navy SEAL told Navy Times in a Wednesday interview. Starting with: Why kind of special ops mission happens in broad daylight? “Well, the only thing that they had…
Exercise Joint Warrior hit its halfway point over the weekend, and shows no sign of letting up. Plenty of challenges, from mine countermeasures to subhunting and amphibious assault, still lay ahead for the NATO and allied ships in one of Europe’s largest military exercises, led by the United Kingdom. And they’re not the only ones paying attention. News reports say a number of Russian ships have taken position on the periphery, and military inspectors from Moscow are keeping close watch. And with good reason: NATO nations have touted this as a show of strength to deter Russian aggression, and there has been plenty of…
Intruders beware: When this 80-pound German Shepherd isn’t patrolling Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, he’s training to take trespassers down at the drop of a command. Bleck, a 6-year-old German Shepherd, is assigned to Navy Installations Command as a member of Pax River’s force protection team along with his handler, Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Evan Desrosiers. Desrosiers knew when he joined the Navy more than a decade ago that he wanted to be a dog handler, he told Navy Times Tuesday, but he had to spend some time in the fleet as an MA before he could get orders for training at…
The Navy’s operational security program is making a big push for sailors and and their families to lock down their social media presence lately, in the wake of a list of service members posted to an Islamic State group supporter’s website last month. Though no imminent threats have been made against sailors, officials urged personnel to tighten the privacy settings on their social media accounts by making them private or unsearchable, and removing any military affiliation from their accounts. But the internet is a labyrinth of accessible personal information and confusing privacy settings, so the experts at Navy Information Operations…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h71avEN8KYA You’re probably familiar with the Rifleman’s Creed, recited by Marine Corps recruits at boot camp. This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. But have you heard about the Deck Seaman’s Creed? Any sailor (and maybe officer) worth his or her salt knows the deep relationships formed during sweepers. My broom, without me, is useless. Without my broom, I am useless. The video hit the web March 21, posted by (presumably) Seaman Spencer Myers aboard the amphibious assault ship America. Sweep on, Seaman.
