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I hope you have the best day possible. You put your 6 on the line. Please know your service does not go unappreciated.
Pete
3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division 70-73
Our local Denny's restaurant sets aside a huge room every Wednesday morning for "veteran's coffee". There is usually over a hundred guys and gals that attend. That was before Covid. During summer the event was held outdoors in a local park. A local veteran started this successful venture a few years ago.
I served in Coast Guard for 7 years active duty. The entire time in Maine - Portland, Lubec, and Rockland. Portland was on 2 Weather Ships - Lubec was Quoddy Head - Rockland was on board CGC Laurel, a buoy tender.
Weather Ships were 30 days in - 30 days out. Lubec was at the Lifeboat Station. Laurel was a 180' buoy tender servicing buoys and lighthouses along much of the Maine coast.
This is how I acquired my fondness for Maine. Met many wonderful people in Maine during those years.
I served on the USS George C. Marshall SSBN 654 (b), from 1977 to 1983, where I made six deterrent patrols, then I got out.
I attended college for four years and I had learned the importance of a pension.
I re-enlisted in 1987, and I served onboard USS Simon Lake AS-33 until 1990.
I got a shot of shore-duty in Connecticut working as Military Police on the Groton Subase.
In 1992 I went onto the USS Casimir Pulaski SSBN 633(g) I made one deployment on her and then took her into the shipyard for Decommissioning in 1994.
In 1994 I reported on board the USS Alaska SSBN 732 (b) where I completed seven patrols, until 1997.
Then I went to Naples Italy where I served as an MP again, until my retirement in 2001.
Living in Italy I got sucked into the quagmire that was Kosovo [the military action to cover for a stained dress and some soaked cigars]
4th Bn 20th Infantry, 193d Brigade (Canal Zone)
US Army Infantry School, Ft Benning GA
1209th US Army Garrison, 98th Div (USAR)
HHC, 3d Bde 42d ID NYARNG
USTRANSCOM Reserve Augmentation Unit Scott AFB
Got to know many good/decent/hardworking/reliable guys from Maine during my time in the Coast Guard. For a change of pace, Went into the Army after my time was up for a new adventure. (My late dad..Navy/WW2)..was ecstatic about that move..NOT..as I recall. The instructors at the FT. Knox armor school got a lot of mileage from pointing out to anyone about the former Coastie , now in a tank.
I spent one day on a nuclear sub. It was the SSBN Andrew Jackson. I was at Port Canaveral to fly Navy photogaphersout to the Andy Jackson to film the first launch of the A-3 Polaris from a submerged sub. The missile back then was blown outof the tube by a "cool gas generator like the air bag in a car. In the Gulf Stream the water is very clear and it was around noon when the hatch opened. Some bubbles came up and then the missile launched. The missile heqved out of the water and leaned over toward ME!
Then it fired. What a blast and what an awful stink from that exhaust. The noise of the rocket was incredible. The exhaust enveloped my helicopter. What a stink! Our eyes slammed shut and we could barely see. You have to be able to see to fly a helicopter. The rocket went straight up, then arced off to the southeast. We flew in to the helicopter pad at Port Canaveral, got some coffee and about a half hour after the launch everybody started yelling. I aked what that was about and they said they had hit the target. I said, "Good." They said it had not only hit the target area; it had struck the large buoy at the center of the target area and sunk the buoy!
Last edited by Northern Maine Land Man; 11-17-2020 at 05:47 PM..
Reason: typo
I participated in two 'Fleet Operational Test' launches of FBM missiles. The first time was in the 1970s [USS George C. Marshall SSBN 654], and second time was in the 1990s [USS Alaska SSBN 732]. Two different subs. Both times we launched four missiles in rapid secession from off the coast of Morocco, aiming for targets in New Mexico.
When you launch missiles it sets up a harmonic vibration in the hull of the sub. When we did it on the Alaska it was right after the Florida had done it. When the Florida did it, they miss-timed the sequence of launches which then caused thousands of micro stress fractures to open in their hull. Sea water was seeping through their hull in thousands of places. Those hulls are over 3 inches thick solid HY-80 spring steel.
The hulls are designed to flex like a guitar string or tuning fork to release stress. But once they start vibrating you must be extra careful of when you introduce other stresses. A single depth charge going off near a sub will make the hull vibrate like the string of a harp. Given a few minutes the vibration dies down. I have seen videos of tests when they were setting off depth charges next to a sub hull, it is neat to watch.
I have never been outside of a sub when it was launching FBM missiles. But I can tell you that inside the sub they do make a huge noise. We launch from 150-foot depth btw.
I participated in two 'Fleet Operational Test' launches of FBM missiles. The first time was in the 1970s [USS George C. Marshall SSBN 654], and second time was in the 1990s [USS Alaska SSBN 732]. Two different subs. Both times we launched four missiles in rapid secession from off the coast of Morocco, aiming for targets in New Mexico.
When you launch missiles it sets up a harmonic vibration in the hull of the sub. When we did it on the Alaska it was right after the Florida had done it. When the Florida did it, they miss-timed the sequence of launches which then caused thousands of micro stress fractures to open in their hull. Sea water was seeping through their hull in thousands of places. Those hulls are over 3 inches thick solid HY-80 spring steel.
The hulls are designed to flex like a guitar string or tuning fork to release stress. But once they start vibrating you must be extra careful of when you introduce other stresses. A single depth charge going off near a sub will make the hull vibrate like the string of a harp. Given a few minutes the vibration dies down. I have seen videos of tests when they were setting off depth charges next to a sub hull, it is neat to watch.
I have never been outside of a sub when it was launching FBM missiles. But I can tell you that inside the sub they do make a huge noise. We launch from 150-foot depth btw.
.....Curious..you mention depth charges..does anyone still use those drum type depth charges anymore?
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