Or that anchor hanging down in front. Looks like the ship's fly is open.
What Does a Decaying Empire Look Like?
There reaches a point where having a ship put to sea in peacetime, regardless of her mission short of directly saving human lives, is a net negative to its nation.
Of all places, yesterday in broad daylight, the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) passed through the Singapore Strait.
After our national humiliation in Afghanistan roughly half a year ago, and in the face of a serious challenge from China, in a part of the world where the powerful must maintain appearances less they lose face...behold what an organization that bills itself as the world's premier superpower has showing its flag.
If that’s truly being neglected on purpose, or from lack of funding, it is a damn disgrace.
ReplyDeleteIt's very difficult to hang off the side and paint while wearing red high heels.
DeleteBesides, if you hand a tranny a paint brush it will try to keester it.
I can remember the days when aviation squadron CO's got relieved for the material condition of their aircraft.
ReplyDeleteI guess the anchor is like one of those curb-tickler devices you would put down low on your 50's car quarter panels.....
ReplyDeleteOoops!
DeleteI thouht that was the trolling motor.
All i can think of is the smells below deck. Can't paint means can't clean.Oh were on water hours this week.I know it's a gas turbine unit not a steam ship,but the over all attitude shows loud and clear. The smell of Chicken grease and Diesel fuel and un washed bad attitude crew, Looks like the old Russian ships we passed in the I.O during the 80's Yes you could smell them too. Makes me sad to see this.As a deck ape and snipe The old ways are the best kick ass till it shines.
ReplyDeleteYes sir, I figured you were deck department. Good on ya, Bill! Red lead and chipping hammers...
DeleteYeah, but I bet their pronouns are all correct.
ReplyDeleteThere are days when I think that the situation is past saving. If for no other reason that it's gone on too long. Too many levels of rank have seen nothing better, too many of the competent career sailors busted or pushed out.
It's like the owner of a furniture factory that closed it down twenty years ago to chase low wage workers around the world. But it got to expensive and his products quality kept getting worse until he decided to reopen his American factory. But the generation of workers that used to work there were gone; retired or settled into other careers. And the younger people available to work had no skills, no skills at all. Except they could quote Al Gores film line for line.
Too late, too late.
The state of affairs in our military is disgraceful. As a Navy submarine vet, I do not know if I would go to sea, today, on a sub due my concerns with how the military has degraded.
ReplyDeleteToo busy being woke...
ReplyDeleteEven after ten months of combat, Oct '44-Aug'45, the Big Badger Boat, ( BB-64 ), never looked that ratty. But I have seen photos of BURKEs that looked even worse.
ReplyDeleteEven after 40 days on the gunline in 1972 we looked better than that. It makes me sick.
ReplyDeleteIsn't this the same ship that ran into a freighter because the girl officers weren't talking to each other?
ReplyDeleteExactly! Affirmative Action at work. Another example of democrats pandering to a few at the expense of the many. Whatta wanna bet the paint used is environmentally friendly?
DeleteBack in the '60's the Gator Navy would pull into Hong Kong and the chinks (Garbage Mary as I remember) would paint the ship -using rags, and Navy provided paint. She'd do it for garbage and trash. By the way- that ain't no shit. Semper Fi!
ReplyDeleteGarbadge Mary ! wow her paint crew would use Marline twine as a safety rope. We were told Hide your socks because it was the best paint brush. And the work crew was all from prison, and had the VD,clap,ect, no you touch.....GI go home.1982-83. I do miss Hong Kong.......
DeleteWasn’t “Garbage Mary”. It was Mary Soo.
Deletehttp://schoonermoon.com/tag/mary-soo-painting-navy-ships-in-hong-kong/
And what’s with the “chinks”??? Are you a Neanderthal?
whats amazing is the comparison of that ship to the Indonesian destroyer KRI Raden Eddy Martadinata that came through next, looking immaculate and state of the art:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/33438735@N08/51892684366/in/photostream/lightbox
Commander Salamander hasn't had a good word to say about the US Navy in a very long time.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, before I would pass judgement on the material condition of this ship, I would have to know some details such as exactly how long it has been deployed and where. (Arabian Sea?) Passing through the straits of Malacca, they are probably on their way home from a long deployment. And, of course, the Indonesian destroyer probably isn't even a day out of port. Indonesia, after all, is right on the opposite side of the strait.
There is nothing good to say about Navy and maintenance. Sailors do not or can not work on their ships either for lack of knowledge or lack of leadership to push them to do it.
DeleteI see it everyday in my job as a Program Manager overseeing work on US Navy ships. I have a current contract where my company is to assist ships force with rehabbing some berthing areas. They have been sanding on the bulkheads and overheads of one space for 3 weeks and still can't get it correct to allow the paint to be applied. And they have 5 more to do!!
They are spending all of the effort and money and creating a woke military.
ReplyDeleteIt’s going to kill us in two directions.
I work for a company that contracts work on US Navy ships. The problem is Sailors these days do the barest minimum of maintenance. Easy tasks, things that sailors should be able to do, is contracted out to companies like the one I work for. When you go to scope out the work, it is evident that there has been no maintenance on the item in ages.
ReplyDeleteI was scoping work on a hangar door on on of the big amphib assault ships (LHD's). What I think was grease was congealed into a huge rock like ball. No wonder the parts seized and drug themselves flat.
Been in this business for 10 years (after retiring from the Marine Corps) as a project or program manager and the times I heard sailors using a needle gun or seen any one paint anything is rare.
I was walking down on of the piers at Norfolk Naval Base by the destroyers. On one side is a rusty hunk of ship, on the other is one that is painted and has no running rust to be seen. How could the Captain of the rusty ship walk down that pier everyday and have a sense of pride in his ve3ssel seeing it look like that?
This article hit a nerve with me as you can tell!!!!!