What in the world is the Navy thinking.

I had this little article passed on to me by a friend living back in Norfolk. From the Daily Press, Next Northrup/Grumman Newport News Aircraft Carrier may be named after President Ford.

Now I understand the need by the powers to be in the 5-sided wind tunnel to open the congressional purse strings a little bit to pay for their new pet projects. I also know that sometimes to get this to happen you name ships after famous people or after states, cities, rivers that the congressional critters you love come from. It happens all the time. Yet since the introduction of the CVN-68 Hulls they have been named for politicos after Chester Nimitz. What is even worst is that some of these politicos where never completely friendly to the US Navy. Harry S. Truman wasn't a friend of the Navy. Truman was famous for cutting the complete military to the bone just after World War 2. Then during the debates about the defense budget in 1949, he killed the planned aircraft carrier named "United States" the first super carrier design and instead paid for the large intercontinental bomber the B-36. This lead to the famous "Admirals Revolt" which a number of influential, important, and famous US Navy admirals and the Secretary of the Navy chose to retire or resign instead of being told to plan for a Navy whose sole purpose was to ferry army troops overseas to occupy hostile land after the USAF had nuked everything in sight. It wasn't until the Korean war the the influence and power of the carrier was proven to both the SecDef Louis Johnson and Truman, but that is another history lesson for another time.
So what is the Navy thinking letting the next carrier be named after another politico?
There are a large number of currently unused that they can name the next carrier. Names that bring back names of history, of sacrifice, of heroism. Names like Lexington, Saratoga, Ranger, Yorktown*, Hornet, Franklin, Coral Sea, Midway, Hancock, Oriskany, Langely, Valley Forge, Intrepid, etc. I could possible go on. I mean the Royal Navy re-uses named with a regularity and they seem to stay true to thier naming conventions for thier ships. So why can't we?




*Yes I know that we have already re-used the name Yorktown for a guided missile cruiser, but that ship has recently been decomissioned. So the name is up for grabs again.

It wasn't love! This wasn't anything but rape of a child period!

Being bored early in the morning and looking for the TV to try and help me to fall I asleep I ran across a replay of Larry King on CNN. Sometimes he has interesting people on and talks about interesting subjects. However, I started to quit watching him after his almost constant coverage of the Michael Jackson and O.J. Simpson cases. Only recently has he started to turn around and cover not only actors but other news worthy people. This time though he was interview a former Seattle area teacher by the name of Mary Kay Letourneau and her new husband and former student Villi Fualaau. For those of you that don't know the story here is the long version over at Court TV's Crime Library.
Short story is basically this, a 35yr old woman started to have an affair with her 13yr old former middle school student. Through this affair she gave birth to not one but 2 children and ultimately went to jail for the crime of child rape. Caused the break-up of her previous marriage, which she had 2 children with her former husband. Threw a bunch of egg on the face of the school district where she worked since she was known to be seeing this child by co-workers and other students still no one said anything. A couple of weeks later a male teacher was caught just after her first arrest and had the book thrown at him; where she just had received some psychological counseling and a commuted sentence. Yet, somewhere in between her first and second arrest (where she and this student were going to run out of the country) she has become a national hero. Why?
I paid attention to this off and on from the day it happened up to the day she was released, because I use to live in the area. At first I thought this kid was lucky, but that was when I was a young 18-19yr myself with raging hormones. Now, though I see it for what it was. That was rape pure and simple. I don't care if they professed that they loved each other or that they have now gotten married. There is still something in my mind stinks about this whole situation between those two. I can't completely put my finger on it, but it just irritates me that this nation has fostered the 15mins of fame on a child rapist and her victim. Making them out to be the victims of the legal system some how.

Basically what I am saying is this and please repeat after me:
Mary Kay Letourneau is a Child Rapist!
Mary Kay Letourneau committed a crime!
Mary Kay Letourneau is a Sex Offender!
Vili Fualaau is not lucky, he is a victim!
If the genders were reversed and this was a man doing it to a girl we would of thrown him in the deepest, darkest, hole and let him rot.

Okay, now that I have this out of my system. Take a step back a look at what other cases have come up because of her and again look at how differences in media treatment were between them and men that were caught doing this to their students. Something is screwed up here folks and I don't think it is my way of thinking.

A lost patrol from world war 2 found

A friend of mine forwarded the link from the Honolulu Star Bulletin about a the USS Largarto being found in the Gulf of Thailand.
Passing it on for the rest of you to read, here. Just one of the 52 US submarines that were lost in the Pacific during World War 2. They are still considered by the US Submarine Force Pacific to be on patrol.

Where in the world is Southern Air?

Well folks I haven't been posting much since Memorial day because of a couple of reasons. One I just found out the day after the holiday that I was going to be part of an advance det with my squadron when we deploy overseas. So I have been running around like a jack rabbit trying to get all my affairs in order before leaving. On top of that there have been so many events going on that I just can't keep up with it all. Maybe if I have some time before I leave I will drop a long post about all sorts of things that have annoyed me recently. The biggest being the Hadiatih case and all the BS that has occured around it.