It's the first Sunday from home, and the crew was quite ready for the first Steel Beach Picnic of the deployment. So, with the wardroom as the hosts, we rolled out the grills and turned on the music.
Fires lit
Breaking out the ammo
Were you able to stroll the passageways of the RUSSELL this morning, you would find the members of the division that’s the focus of this inaugural division in the spotlight with springs in their steps and big grins on their faces. If you asked an ordinary Sailor what the cheer was for, they would likely answer, “Oh, he’s getting to play with things that go boom today.” You guessed it, the “G” in CG Division stands for “gunnery”.
CG Division is manned by our Gunner’s Mates, a few select Fire Controlmen and the ship’s sole Master-at-Arms. Collectively they maintain and operate the ship’s small arms, guns and launchers, and they store and handle the ship’s ammunition. For RUSSELL, that job begins with the ship’s two launchers that can carry up to eight Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles.
In addition, they maintain and operate our two Close-In Weapons Systems (CIWS), each sporting a six-barreled 20mm electric gatling gun for point defense against missiles and boats. And of course, CG Division also maintains the ship’s 5in naval gun on the forecastle, the two Mk38 25mm cannons on the port and starboard side amidships, and a variety of machine guns, grenade launchers and other small arms.
So, all of CG Division is gleeful because they get to shoot the 5in, 25mm’s and main gun today for operational tests and regular pre-action calibration (a test that ensures the rounds hit their intended target). And yes, faithful readers, there will be pictures.
Now, where are my earplugs?
Airdales lounging in the sun while everyone else works.
Many people are relatively familiar with the organization of smaller Army and Marine units, with companies being comprised of platoons and squads. Fewer have any familiarity with how we organize the crew on a warship, however. And of course, being the Navy, we have a stubborn adherence to tradition that can confuse things.
For instance, we don’t have an organizational unit officially designated as a “company”, though we often refer to the crew as the “ship’s company”. This practice originated in the very early days of Britain’s Royal Navy, when a warship was often nothing more than a merchant with company of soldiers embarked. The ship was run by a Master, and the soldiers were commanded by a captain with a commission from the sovereign.
Eventually, when the Crown formalized the navy as a service, and the crew officially became “the King’s Men”, the service merged the positions of Captain and Master into one commissioned office. Many of you may have wondered about the title of the novel and movie, Master and Commander, which was a rank in the Royal Navy that was a direct relic of the merger. This is also why the commanding officer of a warship is still called "captain" regardless of his or her actual rank.
To take us back to today and the U.S. Navy, the largest organizational unit on a ship is the department, lead by a department head. Old salts probably remember the old acronym, SNOWE, which was a tool to remember the departments that were common to all ships – Supply, Navigation, Operations, Weapons and Engineering. Due to the complexity of RUSSELL, we have an additional department, Combat Systems. “CS” typically is responsible for the electronics, while “Weps” is responsible for the launchers, guns and ordnance.
Within most departments are several divisions, each lead by a division officer. The naming of the divisions can be even more messy, again because those pesky traditions. As an example, we have 1st and OI Divisions in Operations, an E Division in Engineering, and an S-2 Division in Supply. Fear not, there’ll be more on all the divisions as time goes by.
[Update] Below are the divisions of the ship. New divisions are added as they get highlighted in the Division in the Spotlight series.
Just some pictures from the first few days at sea until I can post something more substantive.
You can't start a road trip without "filling up" first.
USNS BRIDGE (T-AOE 10) fuels USS MOBILE BAY (CG 53) as we prepare to make our approach.
Sailors, particularly ones who decide to make a life in the Navy, tend to measure their lives and careers in milestones. Some are long-range milestones, like promotions, changes of station or warfare qualifications. Others are short-range milestones, like starting or ending a deployment or major maintenance period, "chopping" from one fleet area to another, visiting the next liberty port or the mid-point of a deployment, "Hump Day". A few Sailors have even begun counting the days until our scheduled return. “A hundred and ninety something”, I heard a Sailor say just yesterday.
Why do I bring this up, you ask? Well, we reached the first obvious milestone in our mission to the West and back: Burger Day. On most Navy ships, Wednesdays are Burger Days. I'm sure this may seem like a small thing to most of you. However, in a world where the lines between days, weeks and months blur under the busy pace of operations, little things like serving hamburgers on the same day every week are the only landmarks by which a Sailor can shoot a bearing and mark the passage of time. And you can be sure, if we missed a Burger Day, our Supply Officer, the Command Master Chief and I would hear about it from the crew.
On this, the First Burger Day, our Food Service Division ensured the mess line was well-stocked, not only with regular and veggie burgers, but with an impressive array of fresh lettuce and tomato, sliced cheese, grilled onions and, yes, bacon. After all, everything’s better with bacon. The mustard-dill fish looked like it knew it was outclassed.
Maybe it needed some bacon.
Only 20-something more Burger Days to go 'till homecoming....
For the last two weeks, the ship buzzed with activity. But now, the storerooms and magazines are full, and the last items, the fresh fruits and vegetables, were loaded on Friday. Finally, after a deceptive calm overtook the ship for the weekend as RUSSELL’s crew finished their personal business and packing - and savored their last hours at home - RUSSELL took in all lines yesterday at 1:29 PM and headed fair for sea.
Here it is:
To deliver an authentic, unvarnished, informative and entertaining account of life aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer, report on USS RUSSELL's contribution to the Global War on Terror and execution of America's Maritime Strategy, and provide insight into the character of the American Sailor.
Our first objective is to offer a true-to-life picture of what American Sailors do day in and day out aboard a warship, in port and at sea. There are, after all, more blogs out there detailing life of the ground-pounding variety than you can shake a cat-o-nine-tails at, but precious few that tell about American Sailors at sea.
Second, most Americans know few if any members of the military and little more about the military than its general role in society. So, one way to think of this blog is an unofficial civil-military relations project keeping the West Virginia miners, Montana ranchers, Iowa farmers and Boston software developers up to speed on what their Navy's all about.
Third, we hope to provide insight into the U.S. Navy's participation in the Global War on Terror and execution of America's Maritime Strategy. To date, the Army and Marines have been grabbing all the headlines (both good and bad), and there's been scant reporting about what the Navy's been up to for the last six years. From the Philippine Sea to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Gulf, we're in it up to our main trucks and somebody's got to tell the story.
Enjoy!
The Destroyermen offers a genuine representation of life on a ship and records the day-to-day events aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer. The following are the rules under which the site will be operated:
