Only saw Pahlavi once when he was on an inspection tour at Bandar Abbas. We had to "show the colors" in support. Which, by the way was an interesting formation as all of our dress uniforms and supporting Pomp and Ceremony stuff was back in the P.I. By the time I was there or around the Iranians any at all, security was pretty tight and interaction greatly discouraged.

Watching that before I take off to get propane and with a couple of guys who run local boat salvage projects out of their barns.

 

Walking by in the flag pways, CIC/CVIC work spaces, he wore a well-tailored working uniform, and i could nosh*t feel the power or ego off him. There was only the pomp when arriving and departing. But on a windy flight deck that's kept to a minimum too lol.

Really. Like some of the ROKs and all the Turk soldiers tho that was for a short time. The Japanese sailors are very friendly, esp the neighbors and submariners. Brits and Aussies too. Good allies.

Thanks for the reminder - gotta' fill a little tank to start woodpiles with.

 

Ain't no better party than a beach BBQ (keeping it SFW) hosted by the Aussies or the New Zealanders......well, as long as it is one or the other. They never did play too well together. Their 13% beer was good stuff and you didn't have to worry about Formaldehyde poisening.

 

Ken, i didn't mean anything personal by my "1% of the population" remark, it was just part of my train of thought (no cracks lol). We lifers in the military do often live in our own world and attitude, and the whole team's joint purpose is to defend and attack. If i can presume, without meeting you, from your writings that i think you believe the same. In our war machine I tried also to make my little part in the Nav more efficient and less costly, and know there are many others (still, i hope) making the same effort. It is esp hard to watch a piece of my outfit fall to base graft like those bums did.

Anyway, my apologies if i inferred something not meant by me. And i read and welcome your comments here and throughout your forum(s) past and present as thoughtful, well informed, and straight-intentioned.

That sounds pompous but its really me getting mushy.

Edit: DOD and HHS and Government mantras ought to be "Cut waste, fraud and abuse...do your job" ommm

 

Hoho ain't that the truth. Just a fer' instance us and a Aussie boat crew get together after ops and maaan, talk about big eating, drinking and belly laugh parties. For two days we lit up the beach with sandbaked pig in banana leaves, and should have bought a cask of rum instead of a case of bottles. Snorkellin', surfin' and Vballin'.

The vball games reached world class with little guys sitting on big guys shoulders swinging bottles and banana clumps to spike the ball. The pig was delicious. Sand, sun and warm ocean with pals and gals are hard to beat.
And don't forget the Brits, dem guys are hardworking party animals too.

But their boats, whew. Old then, like our soon-to-retire last diesel attack boats. Salt water leaks, diesel leaks, old equipment like the a/c and CO2 scrubber breaking down. Come off those and the wife gags and says "take your clothes off outside and throw em in the tub." (It only takes once to make the plans.) Good duty but kinda nasty lol.

And any formaldehyde in the beer from cleaning out the vats would make sure we are well preserved

 

Merkel vs Trump? She's getting a cool reception !

As for the thread comments - You can add the USMC photos scandal. That's rapidly widening. Shame !!

 

The best savings of taxpayers money I remember were when we dug into the leftover parts we were not supposed to have kept in hidden stashes on night shift and AMAZINGLY -

Next morning there was a lot of RFI gear that could not possibly have been repaired if we followed the rules...

*The way the system worked is that any leftover parts from repairs were supposed to be turned back in to supply, OR if there was an audit of the work center they had to be gotten rid of before they were discovered (EI: Ditched over the side). The real techs quickly decided that this was idiocy!

I doubt anything like that could be pulled off in the Air Force, but sailors are pirates at heart

We pushed and shoved a lot of times - and came to be allowed to have "In Shop Pre Expended Bins" (PRE-EX's) provided we inventoried them. "KNIGHT SHIFT" was also notorious at Miramar NAS for cannibalizing units that were awaiting parts to make as many RFI (Ready for Issue) components as we could. We literally robbed stole, and raped WRA's that had modules that we could use to get things up and running, airplanes flying and mission capable, no matter what it took - and transferred the parts ordered documents on them to the smoking NARF carcasses that were left as a result...

But we were the "BAD GUYS" who were hidden away from official notice most of the time. There was only one requirement to become a Night or MID shifter:
YOU HAD TO KNOW YOUR STUFF!!!

I hope this makes you feel better about your tax dollars. But the reason we did that and got away with murder was because it was a challenge - and because somebody had to

We took great pride in what we did, even if we had to break the rules.

It was not unusual to get a letter through ship to shore mail to the shop - asking if we had any parts that could be sent to our guys on detachment afloat because supply didn't have any and the wait for those parts was looking bad.

So we would send a "CARE PACKAGE" that might in fact contain a couple of thousand dollar modulator tubes for an E-2C transmitter from crap that we had stashed away (and a couple of Playboy and Easy Rider back issues). It would get there in a few days - problem solved.

The NAVY was always good about getting mail out to the troops. One guy got a package full of brownies from Mom and Dad at home, someone else got a picture of his high school sweetie, and someone else got a box of very expensive and hard to find parts to get an airplane off the deck...

It was what worked.

And what is seriously funny is that in Leadership and Management school they belatedly began to teach about "NETWORKING". Like they just discovered it

But what QA wanted us to do with that stuff is pitch it in a dumpster out back...


'Tends to reinforce the notion that the good guys wear black

 

Greywolf that sounds like our "Maintenance Mafia" in the 80's and 90's. The global supply system couldn't keep up with the parts requirements. We needed magnetrons, waveguides, dashpots, new Flukes, mini/micro repair gear, crypto guns, PCBs, etc. Now. Not in two weeks or months. If one shop had a spare then mail it to the shop that needed it. Or cannibalize a spare or the hangar queen.

We liked it, but it screwed up the system worse because parts that were supposed to be stored somewhere were missing. Like your a/c parts they are expensive to stock and money is always a problem. So in about '94 we got enough attention on it by NavSup to start streamlining the requisition process, cut out two layers of bureaucracy and it helped, at least in our domain. The system is so huge...maybe Amazon could run it. But most Amazon workers or the little brown trucks wouldn't want to go where we go.

 

At I level it was a bit different. Much easier to smuggle a thyratron or two than an entire WRA-30, or set of pin diodes for a duplexer.

We used to do occasional flightline support trips to help troubleshoot problem birds too. At Miramar one day I thought a maintenance guys eyes were going to bug out when I popped the side covers off a suspicious modulator to check for signs of high voltage arcing on the tubes.

At the same time - tools and test gear were strictly controlled and inventoried. I was able to carry a top of the line swiss army knife, and eventually had a couple of belt tool kits that I wore with the utility uniform that I guess were not noticed because of my jacket - or were deliberately overlooked. I still have a couple of them, but seldom belt them on.

I thought about getting a pocket sized butane fired soldering iron - but every one of them that I saw at the time worked like crap!

 

I wondered if those mini butane soldering irons became reliable.
you can tweak and eat with a swiss army knife, sounds like everything a maintainer could want.

#ad

 

never did,i still have 3 in my tool box . all have the name snap on on them to boot.tool truck guy didn't even want the bad ones back said just heave it.

 

Figured so, but it was a good try to make mini-torches.
I got a nice Weller milspec electric soldering kit long ago from the Navy DRMS, a gov't office that sells surplus. Like new with 14 tips. I've only used five or six of them. Some tips also suck and blow to be real tidy.

Welp we did it. Got this thread far off topic. That's good, the OP was depressing.