Working on getting out in late April. I will see Chef Harants later this week at the NE Regional. If there any other Adopt A Ship participants going to Hershey, let's all get together and swap sea stories!
Chef its always gret to not only read about your adventures, but also great to feel your passion about the program in what you write.
Hope everything is going well with you.
Mark
I went out with them April 07. It was just before they were deployed overseas so I was aboard while they were engaging in war games for inspection. It was a GREAT experience!
Chef,
I don't want to age myself, but I remember when we had a Steel Beach Picnic on July 4th of 1986 about 50 miles off the line of death that Lybia and Kadafi had put in place. We had two F-14's in the launch position and the Pilots were eating their burgers and chips right outside of their jets. We had the yellow gear in place to push the grills into the water if we needed to. The following day on the 5th I was launched off the ship in a mail plane (COD).
USS Roanoke AOR-7 out of Alameda, Calif. made an extended WESTPAC because of the Iranian hostage situation '79-'80. Spent a lot of time in the Phillipines, and Singapore along with all the other WESTPAC stops.
McMurdo was very cool...pardon the pun. I was there for a year from October to October. Summer pretty much starts in October through February and then the base population really drops. When I was there we had about 2, 000 people during the summer months and then about 70 for the remainder of the year. Sorry, I wish I had hook-ups there, but now its strictly a civilian operation. If you would like to find out more about the ice (our nickname for it) you can visit the OAEA web site and it will have you hit enter on a typing computer. That way you know you have the right site.
Chef,
I envy the opportunities you have had with the adopt a ship program. When I get a chance to get away I will do it myself. Its just everytime you post some new photos I am taken back to my prior career in the Navy. Thank you