Spooky stuff

[brewer12345]

This author (http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/200601009_bushs_nuclear_apocalypse/) is obviously a bit overwrought, but I find it more than a little bit alarming that we have sent a carrier group to the Straits of Hormuz all of a sudden. Why would we do this?

 

[Mr._johngalt]

This author (http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/200601009_bushs_nuclear_apocalypse/) is obviously a bit overwrought, but I find it more than a little bit alarming that we have sent a carrier group to the Straits of Hormuz all of a sudden. Why would we do this?

Because we can?

JG

 

[Gumby]

I believe there is already a carrier task force in the region and this is its replacement.

 

[FinanceDude]

This author (http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/200601009_bushs_nuclear_apocalypse/) is obviously a bit overwrought, but I find it more than a little bit alarming that we have sent a carrier group to the Straits of Hormuz all of a sudden. Why would we do this?

brewer, you're too logical to get caught up in all this conspiracy theory..............I'm surprised at you.................

Here's a news flash: DON'T BELIEVE everything you read on the Internet............

 

[youbet]

Here's a news flash: DON'T BELIEVE everything you read on the Internet............

Really? Wow! I wish you would have mentioned this sooner.

 

[Nords]

This author is obviously a bit overwrought, but I find it more than a little bit alarming that we have sent a carrier group to the Straits of Hormuz all of a sudden. Why would we do this?

A bit overwrought, way too hypercaffeinated, and behind deadline!

Ol' Chris needs a Navy Times subscription. We've had at least one carrier battlegroup within ordnance range of those targets for over 98% of the last 16 years. (The rest of the time the carrier has been in transit or its place has been taken by an amphib and a couple AEGIS cruisers.) No one in the U.S. military wants to take on Iran while we're "otherwise occupied" and watching DPRK indicators popping like gophers. Iran's geography is a lot nastier than Iraq's and the Iranian army has too much opportunity to cause trouble if we're on their home field.

I'm not sure what's to be gained by attacking that country and upsetting what little stability is left in the region, anyway.

 

[brewer12345]

brewer, you're too logical to get caught up in all this conspiracy theory..............I'm surprised at you.................

Here's a news flash: DON'T BELIEVE everything you read on the Internet............

You'll note that my comments included a statement taht I thought the referenced author was overboard.

Dunno about you, but it was VERY obvious to me that we were going to be attacking Iraq long before the mess actually happened. All those quiet press reports indicating that Carrier groups, etc. were casting off several weeks before the invasion were a bit of a give-away. I don't tend toward the tinfoil hat brigade, but I also wouldn't put it past the fascists in the White House to stop at nothing to extend/prolong their power.

 

[Cool Dood]

I don't tend toward the tinfoil hat brigade, but I also wouldn't put it past the fascists in the White House to stop at nothing to extend/prolong their power.

 

[FIRE'd@51]

The oil markets sure aren't acting like it's anything to be concerned about.

 

[Leonidas]

You'll note that my comments included a statement taht I thought the referenced author was overboard…I don't tend toward the tinfoil hat brigade...

I don’t think you wear an aluminum beanie, but when I read Hedge’s article my first thought was that the man must order Reynolds Wrap by the pallet-load. But then I realized who this guy is.

Hedges has written extensively about war in general and has covered a number of wars as a reporter. I read his book on war and found it well researched but some of his opinions and conclusions didn’t make sense to me. So I read up on Hedges and found that he has some clear-cut biases that have slipped into his writing in the past. He was once referred to as “numbingly biased”.

We all have opinions and biases, and that’s okay for Hedges when he’s writing a book or an editorial. But he has, in the past, allowed his bias to color his reporting. In fact, he has been accused on a couple of occasions of making up events that could not be corroborated or have been actually proven to be incorrect. I know of at least one correction that the New York Times had to print because Hedges was proven wrong.

Hedges is smart enough and experienced enough on the subject to have known what a lot of other people know. That the Eisenhower group moving to the Middle East is the normal replacement of naval assets that have been rotating through assignments there for years and years. It’s clearly just a case of Hedges attempting to mischaracterize facts order to sway opinion.

When Jeff Birnbaum was the Washington Bureau Chief for Time or Fortune he talked about Hedges’ biases slipping into his reporting:

The New York Times is one of the great newspapers in America. I spent many years competing against it....And there's a problem allowing someone like Chris Hedges, who has the views, I think you well-described them, to allow him to continue to write news stories is a very bad mistake. That's a misjudgment if they allow him to do that. He should not be allowed anywhere near a war to cover it for the news pages. If he wants to write editorials, that's perfectly fine, but not otherwise. There should be an important distinction and a paper as good as the New York Times should make that distinction.

 

[2soon2tell]

We used to call these actions gunboat diplomacy. I believe Nords is correct this is business as usual in the Persian Gulf.

 

[Nords]

We used to call these actions gunboat diplomacy. I believe Nords is correct this is business as usual in the Persian Gulf.

We're "showing the flag"!

Here's the press release:
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,116005,00.html?ESRC=navy-a.nl

 

[Zoocat]

US Naval exercise in Persian Gulf?

(I don't know how my post ended up on this thread. But, whatever.)

There are reports that the Iranians are taking this very seriously. I can't imagine that the Bush administration would launch an attack. They wouldn't do that, would they? Gunboat diplomacy indeed. I just hope the Iranians don't get the wrong idea.

 

[Nords]

Re: US Naval exercise in Persian Gulf?

There are reports that the Iranians are taking this very seriously. I can't imagine that the Bush administration would launch an attack. They wouldn't do that, would they? Gunboat diplomacy indeed. I just hope the Iranians don't get the wrong idea.

The battlegroup commander should be smart enough to invite all the Iranian flag officers, with their cell-phone cameras & other spy gear, onboard to watch the exercise. They can serve halal food and even break out the good stuff from the flag mess' liquor locker.

It's the same thing PACOM did with the Chinese during an exercise off Guam a few months back. As long as you're going to the trouble & expense of throwing a party, you might as well invite the neighbors. It'll keep the complaints down, maybe make a friend or two, and impress the heck out of them.

 

[Zoocat]

Another perspective, albeit from "The Nation." http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/lindorff

Quote from Colonel Gardiner, who taught at Naval War College, regarding PTDO (prepare to deploy orders): "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done as a training exercise."

"I think the plan's been picked: bomb the nuclear sites in Iran," says Gardiner. "It's a terrible idea, it's against US law and it's against international law, but I think they've decided to do it."

Also, if you want to read Col. Gardiner's complete analysis the link is here: http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=PB&pubid=578

 

[Mr._johngalt]

Another perspective, albeit from "The Nation." http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/lindorff

Quote from Colonel Gardiner, who taught at Naval War College, regarding PTDO (prepare to deploy orders): "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done as a training exercise."

"I think the plan's been picked: bomb the nuclear sites in Iran," says Gardiner. "It's a terrible idea, it's against US law and it's against international law, but I think they've decided to do it."

Well, it would certainly "send a message" although I will leave to you good
folks to decide just what that message might be.

JG

 

[Nords]

Quote from Colonel Gardiner, who taught at Naval War College, regarding PTDO (prepare to deploy orders): "You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done as a training exercise."
"I think the plan's been picked: bomb the nuclear sites in Iran," says Gardiner. "It's a terrible idea, it's against US law and it's against international law, but I think they've decided to do it."

While Gardiner may not have ever been on a naval deployment, I think he's right about a contingency plan to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. In fact that plan has probably been on the books for 20 years.

But this is one that I'd want to contract out to the Israelis...

_______________________________________________________________________

And on a different military phobia topic, here's an excerpt from my weekly Military Officers Association of America newsletter:

Army Defies Odds in Meeting Recruiting Goal

The recruiting goal the Army set for FY2006 looked daunting as the year began.

After falling 6,000 short of its 74,000 goal for FY2005, the Army raised the bar to 80,000 for FY2006. They began the fiscal year last Oct. 1 with only 12% of that goal "banked" in the delayed enlistment program, compared to 25% a year earlier. Further, Congress didn't enact needed new bonus incentives until January, more than three months into the fiscal year. So many - including MOAA - had doubts whether the new goal was attainable.

But the Army met the challenge by adding over 1,300 recruiters since 2005 and expanding various criteria to widen the prospect pool. So we congratulate the Army and the other services, all of whom met or exceeded their active duty recruiting goals.

Nevertheless, other numbers offer reasons for legitimate concerns for FY2007 and beyond.

First, only two of the six Reserve components met their goals. The Navy Reserve missed the mark by the largest margin, enlisting 87% of its goal. The Army Reserve enlisted 95% of goal (still, an improvement over last year's 92%). The Army National Guard narrowly missed with 99% -- still a big upgrade from 80% last year.

Second, the Army had to pull out virtually all available stops to get the job done.

Recruit Quality: Defense Department quality standards are that 90% of entrants should have a high school diploma, and 60% should score above average on armed forces aptitude tests. This year, only 82% of Army recruits had diplomas, and 61% met the aptitude test standard - down from 92% and 72%, respectively, since 2004.

Enlistment Standards Adjustments: The Army raised its maximum enlistment age first from 35 to 40 in January 2006, then to 42 in June 2006 and increased waivers for previous restrictions on tattoos, legal infractions, etc.

Increased Bonus Budgets: Enlistment bonus costs jumped from $166M in 2005 to $238M in 2006. Reenlistment bonus expenditures for FY2006 may exceed $650M - vs. an average of $120M for FY2000-2004. If reenlistments drop among overstressed servicemembers and their families, recruiting goals will have to get even bigger.
So while it's good news that the Army met its recruiting goal, the not-so-good news is that service leaders had to stretch every available tool to do so. And some trends - particularly on recruit quality - pose significant concerns for the future.

To further examine the future of the All-Volunteer Force, MOAA is hosting a Military Professionals Symposium on Thursday, November 16, 2006 from 1-3 p.m. at the Doubletree Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. In cooperation with the National Defense University Foundation, experts from the administration, Congress, the Pentagon, National Defense University and the national media will discuss whether the country can sustain the All-Volunteer Force in an extended conflict.

For more information or to register online for this free event please visit MOAA's Web site.

[Edited to add the MOAA excerpt]

 

[Mr._johngalt]

This author (http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/200601009_bushs_nuclear_apocalypse/) is obviously a bit overwrought, but I find it more than a little bit alarming that we have sent a carrier group to the Straits of Hormuz all of a sudden. Why would we do this?

Lots of talk about The Straits of Hormuz.
How about the gays of Hormuz? Don't they deserve some attention too?

JG

 

[samclem]

Can you imagine starting Basic Training at 42 years old? I guess this could be a money-saver for Uncle Sam--the guy/gal draws a pension for 20 fewer years and the retiree will be eligible for Medicare 3 years or less after retiring.

Still, lowering the bar in all these areas is going to haunt the Army long after the present situation ends.

 

[Leonidas]

Can you imagine starting Basic Training at 42 years old? I guess this could be a money-saver for Uncle Sam--the guy/gal draws a pension for 20 fewer years and the retiree will be eligible for Medicare 3 years or less after retiring.

Still, lowering the bar in all these areas is going to haunt the Army long after the present situation ends.

I did it twice before 21 (Parris Island and a police academy run by former Marines) and swore off all forms of basic training after that. But, there are folks doing it in their 40's and doing well.

Margie Black had wanted to enter the military as a teenager, but having her first child at 19 put off her ambitions. So when she learned the Army raised its enlistment age, Black, now a 41-year-old grandmother from West Columbia, Texas, didn't hesitate to join. The decision took "about 30 seconds," she said. "It has always been a dream of mine to be in the military and now I am fulfilling that dream," Black said.

A few older soldiers won't hurt the army - but I would worry about the effects of lowered educational standards. Today's military is much better trained, lead and motivated than what we had after Vietnam that they can probably expand the recruiting pool without too much harm - provided that they are rigorous in eliminating anyone who doesn't measure up to standards in training, performance and discipline. In those areas there should be no lowerng of standards.

Maybe Nords can comment on this aspect: The Eisenhower is relieving the Enterprise, which has been deployed since May and is due back home in November. Enterprise has been working its butt off, supporting missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan and has been without a port call for more than 150 days. The aircraft flying missions into Afghanistan have to fly as much as 1,000 miles per mission - sometimes requiring three refuelings to stay aloft. Pilots are reporting flying as much as 100 hours per month. All of that has to take a toll. Is it possible that the Eisenhower deployment was moved up a few weeks to the Enterprise people could get their relief a little early in light of what they've been doing for almost six months?

 

[Nords]

Can you imagine starting Basic Training at 42 years old? I guess this could be a money-saver for Uncle Sam--the guy/gal draws a pension for 20 fewer years and the retiree will be eligible for Medicare 3 years or less after retiring.

The maximum age for military active duty is 62. (The waiver literally requires an act of Congress. Rickover & Hopper knew a lot of Congressmen but Rickover literally outlived his support.) So the current age 42 cutoff is to comply with Title X legislative entitlement to an opportunity to become eligible for an active-duty retirement. If the age 62 retirement is raised (as Rumfeld desires) then recruits could get even older.

Let's not forget all the Reservists in their 50s! There are grandparents on active duty in the desert troubleshooting logistics problems. I know a Navy O-5, a former Vietnam corpsman with three Purple Hearts (and a bunch of grateful Marines), who's pushing physically training his fellow Reservists through Fort Bragg enroute desert points east. He's 59, he has to demob before he turns 60, and I think he's given max value for your tax dollars.

Still, lowering the bar in all these areas is going to haunt the Army long after the present situation ends.

A few older soldiers won't hurt the army - but I would worry about the effects of lowered educational standards. Today's military is much better trained, lead and motivated than what we had after Vietnam that they can probably expand the recruiting pool without too much harm - provided that they are rigorous in eliminating anyone who doesn't measure up to standards in training, performance and discipline. In those areas there should be no lowerng of standards.

I wasn't there but I've read that by late Vietnam the Marines had admitted over a quarter of their recruits in Category IV, the most undesirable. (God only knows what the Army did with the guys who not even the Marines wanted.) By the end of WWII over 10% of the recruits were being treated for active venereal diseases-- and these were just the recruits, folks.

I think today's marginal performers who slip through the recruiting process are still pretty much weeded out by the training commands-- especially the training commands staffed by vets who got shot up in a war zone. When I was at a training command, if we felt that someone deserved a failing grade then our chain of command backed us up-- subject, of course, to our remedial training plan for fixing the problem. And on submarines the marginal unmotivated performers are weeded out by their shipmates via a vicious Darwinian process of mutual humiliation. I wouldn't be surprised to see the same in an Army platoon.

The recruiting statistics of "no high school diploma" also lump in all the homeschoolers who've taken the GED. The military is hot for homeschoolers these days because they're an overlooked demographic of frequently very bright & talented people... but they're still counted as "no high school diploma". And even in the '90s, after a decade of "Not in my Navy!", it was almost guaranteed that my best, brightest, & most inquisitive shipmates also possessed a waiver for pre-service marijuana use.

Maybe Nords can comment on this aspect: The Eisenhower is relieving the Enterprise, which has been deployed since May and is due back home in November. Enterprise has been working its butt off, supporting missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan and has been without a port call for more than 150 days. The aircraft flying missions into Afghanistan have to fly as much as 1,000 miles per mission - sometimes requiring three refuelings to stay aloft. Pilots are reporting flying as much as 100 hours per month. All of that has to take a toll.

Why, you're describing the world's most capable, proficient, & experienced warriors! Why would we want to pull them back home just when they've achieved their peak performance? These top-of-their-game folks are the same pilots who last year were whining about not getting enough fuel for their training flights-- and now they're complaining again?!? They must be happy because their retention is at an all-time high!

Oh, you mean the toll on the families. Ahem.

But, no, the battlegroup will be back in homeport by day 180. It might be sundown on day 180 but they'll have the lines over before midnight.

Is it possible that the Eisenhower deployment was moved up a few weeks to the Enterprise people could get their relief a little early in light of what they've been doing for almost six months?

I don't get to see the schedules any more, but even if it's possible it's unlikely. Getting a battlegroup ready to deploy is a chaotic three-ring circus of football-frolicking monkeys who don't appear to have any brains, time, spare parts, or funds. Usually the critique of the graduation exercise reads something like "These guys suck but at least they didn't run aground or shoot down any allied aircraft, although if we didn't need them so badly over there..." And that's what the O-6s are saying to the flag officers. I can only imagine what it's like in the Chief's mess.

Usually the next deployer is sucking down all the contingency funds, blasting the logistics "system procedures" to smithereens, stripping the spare parts (even some of the operational parts) from the rest of the squadron, pirating the squadron's best people, blackmailing inviting the training commands to send a few instructors along on TAD orders, leaning on all the assignment officers for their prospective gains to report in before they get underway, involuntarily mobilizing every Reservist they can get their hands on, and generally burning every bridge they can't blow up in an effort to achieve maximum readiness potential before they leave town. In their shoes I'd do the same. However many military inquiries & courts martial have established the precedent that the boss doesn't want to send an undertrained battlegroup into a combat zone (think USS VINCENNES vs the Airbus) a minute sooner than scheduled-- no matter how "tired" the incumbents are.

Any Navy deployment over 180 days requires CNO approval-- and today's answer is a preformatted "#$%^ no" delivered in the requestor's fitness report. Portcalls, however, are widely perceived by cynics (me included) to be a lure designed to keep the crew from deserting before the deployment. ("Australia? Kewl, I'll be there!!") I've had more canceled portcalls than approved ones, and the only time our liberty request was approved turned out to be Subic Bay in time for the Mount Pinatubo eruption.

The first couple years of retirement I cheerfully waved bye-bye to every submarine heading down the channel. Nowadays, though, every once in a while I feel a twinge of envy at the thing they're going to be doing and the achievements they'll rack up. But after a frosty beverage and a trip down Memory Lane that twinge is usually gone by the time I wake up from my nap...

Tonight we're going to the wetting down of a Reservist who made O-6 on his fifth try. (That's about as likely as hitting the same Vegas roulette number three times in a row.) He's an explosive ordnance disposal expert who, in his civilian life, has been cleaning up Kaho`olawe. He's taking this promotion fully expecting to be mobilized for at least two of the next two years, and there aren't any 180-day limits on Reservists in the desert. But he's renting the Hickam AFB oceanside Marina Restaurant for three hours of open bar & pupus, just him and 60 or 70 shipmates, and even his parents & grown kids have flown in from the Mainland. He's 56 years old but he wouldn't have this turn out any other way.

 

[samclem]

I've heard lots of stories of the "Project 100,000" recruits that were admitted during the Johnson/McNamara years as part of the Great Society program (and to help out with the recruiting numbers). A disaster for the services and for the individuals. Admitting a lot of poorly qualified folks would be even worse today for two reasons: The generally higher level of complexity in most jobs and the transfer of many of the lower-skilled support functions to contractors. There are just fewer "safe" places put someone like this.

 

[Leonidas]

I wasn't there but I've read that by late Vietnam the Marines had admitted over a quarter of their recruits in Category IV, the most undesirable. (God only knows what the Army did with the guys who not even the Marines wanted.)

I enlisted several years after Vietnam was over and done with. The standards were actually pretty close to what they are today - although I think the percentage of high school grads may be been a little lower (and that's just a guess). The youngsters, like me, were all highly motivated life-takers and the majority of the NCO's and senior officers all had combat time in Vietnam. It made for a good mix - youthful enthusiasm countered by war weary experience. Not much bull**** went on. However, I do remember in the late 70's when the rust belt job market imploded and a lot of guys from the years immediately following the war came back in because they had families to feed. A lot of them were alcoholics or drug users or screwups extraordinaire. Most didn't last long and a lot of them wound up in the brig or federal prison.

I trained at two different Army bases and what I saw back then was sad. Walking near an army barracks at night was as dangerous as being in Detroit or Washington DC. One day at the PX a doggie sergeant, who had been a Marine, stopped me and we talked for a while. I asked him how he liked the army and he said "it's a job". I told him that I was not too impressed with what I had seen. He said that the army was definitely hurting and if they got into a real shooting war anytime soon he figured they would be burying guys in mass graves.

And even in the '90s, after a decade of "Not in my Navy!", it was almost guaranteed that my best, brightest, & most inquisitive shipmates also possessed a waiver for pre-service marijuana use.

You've mentioned that before and I am curious about that. I remember when they started drug testing in the fleet - and the Fleet Marine Force - and all the grumbling that we had to pee in bottles because the squids were all doped up. I never saw drugs in the Corps. I wasn't looking for it, it was there and some people got jammed up because of it, but I never saw anybody stoned, using or possessing. They all got jammed up because of the test, and I assumed most of it was off-duty use in clubs off-base. But I remember the Navy had a horrendous problem - with some spaces on ships not being safe for officers to enter, etc. I know you weren't there then, but any thoughts?

 

[Nords]

A bit of a delayed response, Leo, but the earthquake kinda interrupted me.

You've mentioned that before and I am curious about that. I remember when they started drug testing in the fleet - and the Fleet Marine Force - and all the grumbling that we had to pee in bottles because the squids were all doped up. I never saw drugs in the Corps. I wasn't looking for it, it was there and some people got jammed up because of it, but I never saw anybody stoned, using or possessing. They all got jammed up because of the test, and I assumed most of it was off-duty use in clubs off-base. But I remember the Navy had a horrendous problem - with some spaces on ships not being safe for officers to enter, etc. I know you weren't there then, but any thoughts?

I came in at the tail end. The Navy's law used to require druggies to be caught with evidence in hand. When you went to the fantail on any ship at sea it wasn't unusual for a different type of "lookout" to precipitate a shower of smoking objects into the wake, and we midshipmen on summer training were warned to stay clear of the fantail.

Inport was a bit more challenging, but a friend of mine a couple years ahead of me said he could go into any surface-ship engineroom in 1980 and find at least one marijuana pipe hidden in the overhead. Some were pretty inventive, like the guy who used his machine-tool training to hollow out the handles of socket wrenches and the sockets to hold the product.

It's a little harder to bring marijuana on a submarine because of the enclosed spaces and everyone's extremely sensitive sense of smell. The coke & heroin guys rose to the challenge, and at least one late '70s crew was hopped up in the Arctic Sea following the Russians around. (Sonar operators are always hallucinating elusive contacts but these guys must've been pretty scary.) Hawaii had a case in the late 1980s of a submarine senior chief petty officer (ironically the leading chief of the Supply Division) running a cocaine ring and the DEA actually asked the military to prosecute him because the punishment would be harsher (forfeiture of all retirement benefits).

That same friend of mine said that the first skill he used as an ensign was from Coach Smith's boxing class-- an inebriated sailor with a few hard-earned grudges against authority figures. I've heard stories of COs on big surface ships in the 1970s feeling safer with a Marine escort. I don't know if that's the case today, but the COs on big ships usually travel in groups anyway so that they don't get lost their traveling companions can tell them who they're talking with, er, get the benefit of their training, I mean keep them briefed and on schedule. OTOH submarine COs wander anywhere they want and frequently trip the scram breakers as they go by just to keep the troops on their toes.

In the early 1980s it got so bad that one of my USNA squad leaders was convicted of selling drugs as a young LTJG. His spouse, another active-duty USNA grad, only escaped punishment by pleading complete ignorance. (Her acquaintances and subordinates heartily endorsed this defense.) He was dismissed from the service but she went on to retire as an O-6.

I remember one briefing in the early 1980s where as much as 25% of the Navy had admitted to drug use (both officer & enlisted). The Army was in the 30% range and the Air Force was down in the low teens (better quality of life?). The Marines were in the high teens. Today every service is way down in the low single digits.

USS NIMITZ had a ramp strike in 1981 that kicked off the "Not in My Navy" campaign. There were quite a few legal challenges but after five years the results were a clear endorsement of the mandatory urinalysis program. Most of the troops know who the dopers are and they're usually much happier to have the chain of command get the unreliable shipmates off the watchbill. Of course there are still a few people turning each other in for refusing to share personal grievances but those usually come out in the investigation.

In the early years, manning & retention played an unfortunate part in the administration of the drug program. For example a young ensign in my nuclear power class tested positive for cocaine at submarine school. 60 days of restriction later he was going to sea as the newest member of a surface-ship crew. He probably never promoted to O-3 but the Navy was reluctant to lose a $250K asset. I think we've learned our lesson by now and anyone with a drug-related conviction is out of the service.

I had a radioman who tested positive for marijuana in 1986. Despite his innovative defense of "it was in the BBQ sauce at the family reunion" he was reduced in rank and sentenced to the restriction barracks, which meant I had to escort him over there while his young spouse was sobbing in the front seat of the pickup truck with us. It was also the end of his submarine career and it put the rest of our radiomen in port & stbd watches for a few weeks. I spent most of the ride to the barracks wondering ("sob sob") whether we were really doing the right thing. Yet when we got onboard the sub I was thanked by three radiomen who were happy to see the guy go. The senior chief said "Thank goodness, I didn't think the wardroom had it in them."

While the workplace is much better, the program isn't perfect. A sailor popped positive for cocaine in 1996 and, through DNA testing, was able to prove it wasn't his urine. From then on whenever I donated a sample at work I also donated a second sample to a private lab at my own expense. (Cheap pension insurance.) Another sailor tested positive for heroin in the late 1990s despite having just won her age category in a triathlon. Some of today's designer drugs may not show up via urinalysis (ecstasy). Another notable recent local case was the military's first meth lab in base housing. She got away with it for quite some time.

Overall, though, I much preferred being able to spend my training time teaching people how to fight fires & shoot weapons instead of how to treat a shipmate's LSD flashback.

Alcohol, of course, has been much more pervasive and continues to be a lifestyle problem.

 

[REWahoo]

... the Air Force was down in the low teens (better quality of life?).

Absolutely. Of course we always had the option of asking the concierge to request some 'enhanced' brownies when he arranged our dinner reservations.

During the eight years (1970-1977) I spent keeping the world safe for democracy fighting the cold war, I was never aware of any drug use by the enlisted or officer ranks I worked with. Alcohol abuse was rampant, hence the first lesson taught in applied aerodynamics class was “Don’t fly within 12 hours of smoking and don’t drink within 50 feet of the aircraft.”

I think I’ve previously mentioned that the first random drug testing done by the USAF in the early 70’s was officially named “Operation Goldenflow”.