Preserving a piece of US Maritime History - invaluable

The USS Olympia is a cruiser that fought in the Spanish American War in 1898 and has been preserved in Philadelphia. She's a one of a kind ship, a national historic monument, and in danger. She needs approximately $10-15 million in repairs to keep her a viable museum for years to come. If you have the resources, or connections to those resources, please consider helping. (full disclosure - there is no financial benefit to me to ask the question - we need to save this ship for posterity). Please contact me at 612-599-1935 or bdskon@fedex.com if you have additional questions.

Pages

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Frigates double up in California dry dock - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Frigates double up in California dry dock - Navy News News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

The Three Hero's of Midway June 4 - 6, 1942



USS Yorktown CV 5

The Enterprise was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for her service during World War II.[12] The citation states: 


USS Enterprise in 1945
For consistently outstanding performance and distinguished achievement during repeated action against enemy Japanese forces in the Pacific war area, 7 December 1941, to 15 November 1942. Participating in nearly every major carrier engagement in the first year of the war, the Enterprise and her air group, exclusive of far-flung destruction of hostile shore installations throughout the battle area, did sink or damage on her own a total of 35 Japanese vessels and shot down a total of 185 Japanese aircraft. Her aggressive spirit and superb combat efficiency are fitting tribute to the officers and men who so gallantly established her as an ahead bulwark in the defense of the American nation.
In addition to her Presidential Unit Citation, Enterprise received the Navy Unit Commendation and 20 battle stars for World War II service.

USS Hornet shortly after commissioning

USS Hornet CV 8 at the Battle of Santa Cruz where she was sunk

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Obama Solicitor General: If you don't like the mandate, earn less money

"President Obama's solicitor general, defending the national health care law on Wednesday, told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn't like the individual mandate could always avoid it by choosing to earn less money."

"Kaytal responded by noting that the there's a provision in the health care law that allows people to avoid the mandate.

“If we’re going to play that game, I think that game can be played here as well, because after all, the minimum coverage provision only kicks in after people have earned a minimum amount of income,” Kaytal said. “So it’s a penalty on earning a certain amount of income and self insuring. It’s not just on self insuring on its own. So I guess one could say, just as the restaurant owner could depart the market in Heart of Atlanta Hotel, someone doesn’t need to earn that much income. I think both are kind of fanciful and I think get at…”
Sutton interjected, “That wasn’t in a single speech given in Congress about this...the idea that the solution if you don’t like it is make a little less money.”


Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/06/obama-solicitor-general-if-you-dont-mandate-earn-less-money?sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4de7e72810fb3d71,0#ixzz1OAe3aGLH
 
Wharf Rat says - liberalism at its finest - suggest earning LESS is the way to go.  No folks, that is not what America was built on. 
 
We build the finest warships in the world because we are the best at it.  We work to do our best, and this kind of message to do LESS is exactly what liberals would have our country go.  Incredible.

Plan extends some ships’ service to 70 years - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Plan extends some ships’ service to 70 years - Navy News News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

This is significant news about our shipbuilding plan over the next 40 years............

Take what you will from it, but I want more subs and carriers...................

From Military Times - Please note that the Wharf Rat knew this was Nimitz-class and figured they used some stock photo for the announcement

I’m thinkin’ that’s Lincoln

A photo illustration released by the Navy over the weekend // Navy
An eagle-eyed reader named “Mike” wrote us over the weekend to make an interesting point about the Navy’s photo illustration released the day the Navy announced that the second Gerald R. Ford-class carrier will be named in honor of John F. Kennedy. His point? That ain’t no Ford.
“There’s plenty of renderings of the Ford Class available for use, and with the differences between classes you might as well be showing a picture of the Forrestal.”
Right you are. The carrier below JFK’s head is actually the Abraham Lincoln. The image was shot March 2 as the ship made its way across the Pacific near the end of its most-recent deployment. You can see the photo in its natural habitat here.
Ford and its follow-ons will look more like this.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Found over at Lex's place........all three...

“Once each May, amid the quiet hills and rolling lanes and breeze-brushed trees of Arlington National Cemetery, far above the majestic Potomac and the monuments and memorials of our Nation’s Capital just beyond, the graves of America’s military dead are decorated with the beautiful flag that in life these brave souls followed and loved. This scene is repeated across our land and around the world, wherever our defenders rest. Let us hold it our sacred duty and our inestimable privilege on this day to decorate these graves ourselves — with a fervent prayer and a pledge of true allegiance to the cause of liberty, peace, and country for which America’s own have ever served and sacrificed. … Our pledge and our prayer this day are those of free men and free women who know that all we hold dear must constantly be built up, fostered, revered and guarded vigilantly from those in every age who seek its destruction. We know, as have our Nation’s defenders down through the years, that there can never be peace without its essential elements of liberty, justice and independence. Those true and only building blocks of peace were the lone and lasting cause and hope and prayer that lighted the way of those whom we honor and remember this Memorial Day. To keep faith with our hallowed dead, let us be sure, and very sure, today and every day of our lives, that we keep their cause, their hope, their prayer, forever our country’s own.”
Ronald Reagan
May 31, 1982
(h/t Maggie’s Farm)

“When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today”

New Navy destroyer arrives in Mobile, Ala. - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

New Navy destroyer arrives in Mobile, Ala. - Navy News News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times