VP-21/ VPB-111 Veterans Association Message Board and Discussion Forum

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VP-21/ VPB-111 Veterans Association Message Board and Discussion Forum
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No relief in sight for the USS Lincoln (part 2)

are wearing Osama bin Ladin T-shirts
> as they grab at our food and water. The ship has to steam out into
> international waters to launch and recover jets, which makes our helos
> have to fly longer distances and burn more fuel.
>
> What is even worse than trying to help people who totally reject
> everything we stand for is that our combat readiness has suffered for it.
>
> An aircraft carrier is an instrument of national policy and the big stick
> she carries is her air wing. An air wing has a set of very demanding
> skills and they are highly perishable. We train hard every day at sea to
> conduct actual air strikes, air defense, maritime surveillance, close air
> support and many other missions ? not to mention taking off and landing on
> a ship at sea..
>
> Our safety regulations state that if a pilot does not get a night carrier
> landing every seven days, he has to be re-qualified to land on the ship.
> Today we have pilots who have now been over 25 days without a trap due to
> being unable to use Indonesian airspace to train. Normally it is when we
> are at sea that our readiness is at its very peak. Thanks to the
> Indonesian government, we have to waive our own safety rules just to get
> our pilots off the deck.
>
> In other words, the longer we stay here helping these people, the more
> dangerous it gets for us to operate. We have already lost one helicopter,
> which crashed in Banda Aceh while taking sailors ashore to unload supplies
> from the C-130s. There were no relief workers on that one.
>
> I'm all for helping the less fortunate, but it is time to give this
> mission to somebody other than the U.S. Navy. Our ship was supposed to be
> home on Feb. 3 and now we have no idea how long we will be here. American
> taxpayers are spending millions per day to keep this ship at sea and
> getting no training value out of it. As a result, we will come home in a
> lower state of readiness than when we left due to the lack of flying while
> supporting the tsunami relief effort.
>
> I hope we get some good PR in the Muslim world out of it. After all, this
> is Americans saving the lives of Muslims. I have my doubts.
>
> Ed Stanton is the pen name of a career U.S. Navy officer currently
> serving with the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group. Send Feedback
> responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.