Fire, Fire, Fire...

I believe they alternate between aviation and SWO COs, meaning the current XO would be a SWO. This has been the case for sometime on the amphibious big decks. It’s usually a complementary partnership.
 
Don’t some earn both the SWO badge and Aviators wings? My DS’ NJROTC SNSI has both. He got his SWO before he went to flight school and flew F-14’s. Maybe that’s why we are the best NJROTC school in the Country.
 
NJROTC-CC said:
Don’t some earn both the SWO badge and Aviators wings? My DS’ NJROTC SNSI has both. He got his SWO before he went to flight school and flew F-14’s. Maybe that’s why we are the best NJROTC school in the Country.
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Please don’t call any Navy warfare insignia or pin a badge. But that’s just me never calling them badges, may be different now.
There are occasionally SWOs who manage to laterally transfer to the aviation pipeline, but it’s rare, because it is a matter of the needs of the Navy always determining required staffing in all officer communities. The SWO community must have been able to spare him that year, and aviation needed bodies. When he left the SWO community, he would have earned the basic qualifications for the pin (OOD Inport and Underway, etc.), but not the later advanced milestones such as command-eligible. But it’s always cool to see someone with more than one warfare pin.
 
It’s not uncommon for aviators to command an amphibious ship as a stepping stone to commanding a carrier. Recent example: Capt. Crozier, a career aviator, commanded the USS Blue Ridge before his ill-fated stint leading the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
 
AOEs and AORs used to be deep draft ships that prepared aviators for command of a carrier but Big Navy doesn’t own them anymore. I was on an AOR and had two COs during my time onboard. One got his carrier and one did not.
 
Capt MJ said:
DH was an aviator, had an LPH and a CV.
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Damn! That's legit.

Back to the point, I am no Sailor but I from my limited understanding many of the "traditional" means of fighting or containing fire would be hampered by yard status (systems disconnected, hatches normally closed having to be open, etc). The thought of a ship on fire is absolutely terrifying and hopefully all those hospitalized are able to make a speedy recovery.
 
It is terrifying. I’ve been in three. Two at sea. One was a main space fire that took awhile to put out. The one inport was a Class Alpha fire in CPO berthing. A friend of mine was the IDC on the Samuel B. Roberts the day it hit the mine. Lots of people are still walking the planet today because of him. One of his therapies was to replay the event to me a couple times a year. The CO ordered the firefighting to be stopped for a period of time. They were putting so much water on the fire that the ship was in danger of sinking.
 
Capt MJ said:
For historical purposes of comparison, the fire on USS FORRESTAL was one of the all-time scary ones. At sea, with ordnance cooking off on the flight deck.
The Naval Institute put a good video together.
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my first cruise was on Forrestal. you could see the welds on the passageways where the "new" part of the ship was built to replace the burnt part that had been cutaway. that damage went very far below the flight deck, and below the hangar deck. there was serious risk of losing that ship.

any fire onboard a ship, even in port, is terrifying. that is why every person who will deploy is required to undergo shipboard firefighting training

hope they can get the fire on Bonny Dick under control and nobody is seriously hurt
 
Very tough situation. As a SWO, this hits very close to home. I've experienced fires aboard ship both at sea and
in port and it is scary indeed. As a fairly junior LT, I was CDO (Command Duty Officer) of my ship when we had a main space
fire and explosion - a fire in one of our main engineering spaces at about midnight on a Saturday night and luckily, we managed
get it out in an hour or so with the only injury being a bruised shoulder on one of my guys. In the aftermath, I kind of lost sight of
which was worse - actually getting through the fire itself or dealing with the investigation, the staff and others who all had to get
THEIR view of what happened.

One relevant insight to SAF - we'd lost electrical power and comms were difficult so I used runners/messengers and for that I grabbed
the 10 or so USNA and NROTC midshipmen who happened to be aboard and used them to get information to Damage Control Central,
the Quarterdeck and other places as I moved around the ship. They were also extra eyes and ears when I needed them for that.

This fire is reported to have started in Lower Vehicle which is a large garage of sorts fairly low in the ship. It's not a main space so the
Engineering Plant was probably not involved but it is large and frequently used to store large quantities of stuff and in a yard period
like they were in, it could have a lot of materiel temporarily placed there as work was being done elsewhere. That space has installed
sprinklers but they are often disabled during yard periods like this one. A common source for shipboard fires in yard periods is welding.
Because of this danger, all welding operations must have people standing fire watch in each space around the welding. while this is
not known at this time, I can tell you that many past fires have been traced to fire watch "issues".
Again, in this case, once the fire established in Lower Vehicle, it likely moved up into the berthing and administrative spaces that
are located in the decks above. When fires get up into vents and cableways, then can move and are very hard to cut off/put out.
 
I interviewed a retired RAdm, aviator, and he told me that one of the choices they have to make between O-5 and O-6 is which path to take: CAG or basically SWO. He said if you go "deep draft" you get an XO tour on a carrier and then a "deep draft" of "something" (that's the SWO portion) prior to going back to a carrier as CO. If you go CAG...then you fly.

He flew and got his star after that...well, after a tour at Sodom-on-Potomac.

Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83
 
NJROTC-CC said:
An aviator. Long on air group experience but looks like he doesn’t have his “water wings” in his photo.
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1310s/1320s (1310 = Naval Aviator, 1320 = Naval Flight Officer) are actually no longer able to earn a SWO pin on a disassociated tour I believe (although I believe they could until the early 2000s or sometime around there), although they are able to earn Conning Officer, OOD (underway and in-port), and CDO (underway and in port) qualifications on their disassociated sea tour(s) (disassociated from flying). I suspect the only 1310s/1320s you would see with a SWO pin these days are people who began their career as a SWO, earned their pin, then redesignated to an Aviation designator.
 
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kpmom2013 said:
Two of my kids have been onboard this ship, one as a Sea Cadet on a two week cruise, one as a SARC/SOIDC on a special mission in the Middle East. Too close to home for me... Relieved to see there was no loss of life!
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Had to look it up:

sofrep.com

The Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman pipeline: A crucial part of the Marine Corps Special Operations machine

Editor's note: Special thanks to Anthony Bunkley (SARC) for his work in compiling the information in this article as well as providing all photos. It is
sofrep.com sofrep.com
 
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