The Navy's first kiss tradition enters the post Don't Ask, Don't Tell era If you're like me you may never have heard of the Navy's first kiss tradition. But it's not unusual for a ship returning from deployment to run a contest or raffle which gives the winner the first kiss with their sweetie on the dock;
you can find wikipedia media showing past events. After tonight's news broadcasts pretty much everyone in the country will have heard of it because you can be sure, whether it's portrayed as a step forward or a sign of the end times, every broadcast is going to lead with the first same-sex Navy first kiss between disembarking Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta and her girlfriend, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles.
posted by phearlez
on Dec 21, 2011 -
82 comments
The U.S.S. Carl Vinson, which has
provided relief in Haiti after an earthquake,
launched air strikes in the Middle East after 9/11 and, most recently,
dumped Osama bin Laden’s body out at sea hosted an uncharacteristically maritime event this evening: a
basketball game on the flight deck.
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posted by obscurator
on Nov 11, 2011 -
34 comments
Not content to keep funding expeditions of Westerners to learn about Tanna, in 2007 the National Geographic funded an expedition of five men from Tanna's
Prince Philip movement cargo cult to visit England, stay with families, and eventually meet Prince Philip himself whom they revere as the son of their God. Jimmy, who was a member of the expedition and the narrator for the film has posted the video on his
youtube account.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
In 2009 the Travel Channel aired Meet the Natives: USA, which brought five men from
another group from Tanna to the United States. Their tribe within Tanna reveres Tom Navy, an American World War II sailor who generations ago had taught the inhabitants to live in peace. The Tanna ambassadors were taken across, visiting five states, and eventually meeting former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell and verifying with him that the spirit of peace taught by Tom Navy lives on in the current U.S. President, Barack Obama. While visiting with a family on Fort Stewart, a US Army Major-General conferred a World War II Victory Medal and an Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal upon the chief in representation of the contribution the people of Tanna in World War II.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Be sure to look for Jimmy's responses to questions in the mercifully uncharacteristic youtube comments
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posted by Blasdelb
on Oct 31, 2011 -
16 comments
The
ambulance that was used to carry the body of John F. Kennedy from Andrews Air Force Base to Bethesda Naval Hospital was sold at auction last night for $120,000. Or was it?
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posted by fixedgear
on Jan 23, 2011 -
10 comments
In 1975, desperate to escape Vietnam following the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, twenty thousand refugees boarded the few remaining ships of the South Vietnamese army and fishing boats. They were escorted by the
USS Kirk, a Knox-class destroyer escort, which led them to the Philippines. This mission,
Operation New Life lives on as one of the largest humanitarian missions in the history of the United States military, but has been largely forgotten by history.
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posted by honeybee413
on Nov 24, 2010 -
15 comments
In 2015, if all goes well, the
USS Gerald R. Ford, the
most powerful warship ever
built, will begin
service in the U.S. Navy - retiring the venerable
Enterprise (CVN-65). Though displacing the same 100,000 tons as her Nimitz-class counterparts, increased automation will let her operate with hundreds fewer crewmembers.
Capable of launching 90 planes, including the
F-35C Lightning II, on 220 sorties a day, she will
defend herself against anti-ship missiles with the
Raytheon RIM-162 ESSM.
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posted by Joe Beese
on Oct 30, 2010 -
138 comments
Less than a year after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States detonated
the fourth and fifth nuclear weapons under the name
Operation Crossroads in July 1946. Beyond testing the capabilities of nuclear bombs,
the Navy said it wanted the Bikini tests treated like "the story of the year, maybe of the decade, and possibly of a lifetime." Only two of the three bombs were detonated, and the project was shut down over the next months. To celebrate the efforts of Operation Crossroads,
a cake in the shape of a mushroom cloud was featured at a publicized event on November 5, 1946. In response to this display, Reverend Arthur Powell Davies, the minister of the Unitarian All Souls Church in Washington, D.C.,
gave a sermon on the "utterly loathsome picture" and the message it sent to other nations. That sermon
set off a flurry of replies and reactions, that extended around the world, including a connection formed between
Reverend Davies' All Souls Unitarian Church and school children in Hiroshima.
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posted by filthy light thief
on Sep 8, 2010 -
62 comments
Choice of Broadsides is a choose-your-own-adventure game set in an alternate 19th Century world that is much like our own, where Albion and Gaul fight for naval supremacy. You can choose to be a gentleman in a standard patriarchal society, or a gentlewoman in a matriarchal one. Later on in the game you can choose your sexual orientation. Originally there were no options for a same-sex relationship, but after demands from players,
it was added in. Spoilers below the cut.
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posted by Kattullus
on Jul 14, 2010 -
42 comments
Started in
1930 (by the by the lieutenant governor while the sitting governor was out of state) to protect the great state of Nebraska from all that wish it harm, Nebraska has it's own
navy. Want a commission?
Just ask the governor and join
these notable members.
posted by 1f2frfbf
on Mar 19, 2010 -
26 comments
I've never really had a clear understanding of how mechanical computing worked, until today when I watched these US Navy training films from 1953.
Part 1 focuses on shafts, gears, cams and differentials.
Part 2 explains mechanical component solvers, integrators and multipliers. More information about ship gun fire-control systems
here.
posted by drmanhattan
on Feb 14, 2010 -
28 comments
The
Fore River Shipyard was in service between 1886 and 1985, first under the management of the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company, then Bethlehem Steel, and finally General Dynamics. She helped to close out the age of sail with the construction of the
largest sailing vessel in history without any kind of engine. Besides providing a substantial number of liberty ships, surface warships of various classes, and submarines during WWII, it may also be the source of the
"Kilroy was here" graffiti.
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posted by rmd1023
on Nov 4, 2009 -
3 comments
It began with an innocent-looking Valentine's Day card in 2005.
Inside the card were several slips of paper, a hastily cut-up printout of names of 550 secret detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The human rights lawyer who received "this weird valentine" handed it over to authorities, and this week the court martial begins for JAG LtCmdr Matthew Diaz, facing 36 years for divulging state secrets.
Whither goest thou, American Jurisprudence?
posted by planetkyoto
on May 15, 2007 -
47 comments
The Navy's detention facility at Hanrahan has a created a secret prison-within-a-prison and, per the article, developed elaborate plans to dodge public scrutiny of its operations to detain enemy combatants. "In detaining American citizens, full constitutional rights are afforded except where curtailed by higher guidance or accepted prison practice,"
the report said.
posted by Malor
on Feb 25, 2007 -
23 comments
Added January 8, 2007: The US Navy has a message for you(Tube) concerning the Navy Seals: "They are warrior diplomats and trusted teammates in the war against terrorism. They understand the political and cultural sensitivities of the countries in which they operate."
Added October 22, 2006: This former Marine commander has a message for you(Tube) as well, concerning "cultural sensitivities". Speaking of his part in the assault on Fallujah: "I started to cry... the woman seeing my reaction... put her hand on my cheek and said Insha'Allah... cause these people over there can accept it as God's will... but no, it wasn't God's will, it was my fucking order. I gave the order to fire those rockets into the building, and I killed her family. I have to live with that..."
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Jan 9, 2007 -
29 comments
The cruiser Emden was launched in 1910. When World War One broke out, she was under the command of Korvettenkapitän Karl Friedrich Max von Müller, with Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke as executive officer, who "was as extroverted as his commander was modest." When Graf von Spee, commander of the East Asiatic Squadron, decided to keep it united and head for Chile to coal up, Müller said he'd rather go off on his own and harass British shipping. Spee agreed, and the
Emden embarked on a spree of destruction that made him a hero not only to the Germans but even to the British; when it was over, the
Telegraph said: "It is almost in our hearts to regret that the Emden has been captured and destroyed.... There is not a survivor who does not speak well of this young German, the officers under him and the crew obedient to his orders. The war on the sea will lose some of its piquancy, its humour and its interest now that the Emden has gone."
posted by languagehat
on Aug 19, 2006 -
35 comments
