The USS Minnesota (SSN-783) was officially commissioned into the fleet on September 7, 2013.
Tag Archives: Naval Station Norfolk
PHOTEX: USS Theodore Roosevelt underway for first time in 4-years
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (Aug. 25, 2013) USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) departs Newport News Shipyard August 25, in Newport News, Va. The air craft carrier is underway for the first time in four years, conducting Sea Trials, following Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH). U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Cory Asato (Released) 130825-N-OO032-069
US Navy will only sell alcohol between 6AM and 10PM
Here’s the key quote:
“If people are going to drink, they’re still going to buy it wherever,” Seaman Bryan Free said after buying a bottle of vodka from a Naval Station Norfolk gas station.
If a policy looks like PR puff, walks like PR puff, and quacks like PR puff, then it probably is a duck.
Systemic cultural change, education, etc., those are the difficult changes. So, you know, a little quacking PR puff is probably easier.
Anyway, full article follows…
Navy Changes How Alcohol Is Sold on-Base
NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. August 17, 2013 (AP)
On the world’s largest naval base, sailors can pull into a gas station and buy a bottle of liquor before sunrise.
But as the Navy works to curb alcohol abuse in a push reduce sexual assaults and other crimes, the days of picking up a bottle of Kahlua along with a cup of coffee are coming to an end.
The Navy’s top admiral has ordered a series of changes to the way the Navy sells booze. Chief among them, the Navy will stop selling liquor at its mini marts and prohibit the sale of alcohol at any of its stores from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
“It’s not going to fix everything, but it is a real step in the right direction,” said David Jernigan, Johns Hopkins University’s director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. “Historically, the military, as elsewhere, has viewed these problems as individual problems to be dealt with by identifying the individual with the problem. While that’s important, the research shows it’s much more effective actually to look at it as a population problem and to deal with things that are affecting everybody across the population.”
The changes are the latest addition to a broader, long-standing alcohol education and awareness program that appears to have had some success. Throughout the Navy, the number of alcohol-related criminal offenses dropped from 5,950 in the 2007 fiscal year to 4,216 in the 2012 fiscal year. The number of DUI offenses dropped from 2,025 to 1,218 during that same period, according to Navy Personnel Command.
Liquor will still be sold on U.S. bases at a discount of up to 10 percent for what it can be bought at in a civilian store, but sales will be limited to dedicated package stores or exchanges that sell a wide variety of items.
At Naval Station Norfolk, the main exchange is comparable to a small shopping mall that sells clothing, electronics and jewelry, among other things, at a discount. At smaller naval bases, the exchanges aren’t as sprawling but still often have the feel of big-box retail. While hours at those stores vary, most open at 9 a.m. close by 9 p.m.
The Navy’s minimarts at the Norfolk base currently start selling liquor as early as 6 a.m. That’s four hours earlier than people can buy at Virginia’s state-run ABC stores off-base that are typically open from from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays.
Jernigan said a growing preference among young people for distilled spirits over beer and wine means the Navy’s moves could be particularly helpful.
“But that said, alcohol is alcohol, so reducing the availability of one kind is a step in the right direction, but you can certainly get just as impaired from drinking beer and wine as you can from distilled spirits,” he said.
In the 2012 fiscal year, the Navy reported $91.9 million in distilled spirits sales, compared with $39.3 million in wine and $62.3 million in beer. The Navy uses 70 percent of the profits from its sales of alcoholic and non-alcoholic products to support morale, welfare and recreation programs.
Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert also ordered the exchanges to display alcohol only in the rear of its stores. The new rules are set to take effect by mid-October.
Greenert’s order on alcohol sales was issued the same day in late July the Navy unveiled other initiatives to battle sexual assaults that range from hiring more criminal investigators to installing better lighting on bases.
The effort follows a Pentagon report, released in May, that estimates as many as 26,000 service members may have been sexually assaulted last year.
Alcohol is often involved. In a survey, 55 percent of Navy women said they or the offender had consumed alcohol before unwanted sexual contact.
Navy officials have stressed they’re not trying to keep sailors from drinking, but they want them to do so responsibly.
The Navy is already giving many sailors random alcohol-detection tests when they report for duty, and soon the devices will be found on store shelves for personal use. The single-use product will sell for $1.99.
Jernigan suggested the Navy may want to eliminate its discounts on alcohol — just as it recently did with tobacco — if it wants to make further strides.
Not all sailors think the new rules will help.
“If people are going to drink, they’re still going to buy it wherever,” Seaman Bryan Free said after buying a bottle of vodka from a Naval Station Norfolk gas station. “So if they take it out of here, it’s not going to do nothing because they’re going to go to the package store right out of base. That’s usually where everybody gets it. So it doesn’t really matter.”
Most of the Navy’s large bases are in urban areas with plenty of convenience and grocery stores nearby.
And in the Navy, on-base housing options are typically limited, leading Free and other sailors commute to work rather than living in barracks.
Robert Parker, a University of California at Riverside sociology professor who has studied the links between alcohol and crime, said restricting on-base alcohol sales should help even if there are places to buy it nearby.
“If you make something like alcohol harder to get, you restrict the hours, you restrict the places it can be bought, then generally consumption goes down in that community or that area because people have a lot of things to do in addition to buying alcohol,” Parker said. “There will be some individuals that will be determined no matter what, and they’ll travel 100 miles to buy a six pack, but most people won’t do that.”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/navy-alcohol-sold-base-19990751
USS Stout will deploy to Sixth Fleet OPAREA for 9-months
The USS Stout (DDG 55) is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer home-ported at Naval Station Norfolk. The deployment to 6th Fleet OPAREA comes at a time of increased unrest in Egypt and Syria.
Norfolk-based destroyer Stout to deploy Sunday
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Michael D. Stevens, left, shakes hands with a member of ship’s security during his visit to the guided missile destroyer Stout on Aug. 14, 2013. The Stout is scheduled to depart Norfolk Naval Station Sunday, Aug. 18 for a nine-month deployment to the Mediterranean Sea. (Petty Officer 3rd Class Jackie Hart | U.S. Navy)
The destroyer Stout will deploy Sunday, the Navy announced Thursday.
The Stout, a guided missile destroyer, will be deployed to the Mediterranean Sea for nine months.
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Michael D. Stevens visited the Stout Wednesday at Norfolk Naval Station.
Cruise of the Randolph (1954)
Naval History and Heritage Command, Photographic Section, UMO-18.
US Navy Court Martial Results, January – June 2013
The following reports the results of every Special and General Court-Martial convened within the United States Navy from January through June 2013. The cases are separated by the Navy Region in which they were tried.
http://www.navy.mil/docs/MasterCourtMartialSummariesRegionalized_01-062013.pdf
USS Enterprise (CVN-65), photo 19 June 2013
Apropos of the Big E’s inactivation, here’s a photo I took of her on 19 June 2013 at Naval Station Norfolk. She was towed across to Huntington Ingalls at Newport News the next day.
Huntington Ingalls to inactivate the Big E
Huntington Ingalls will inactivate the Big E at Newport News, after which she’ll be towed to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for reactor disposal.
Navy and shipyard sign $745 million Enterprise contract
June 29, 2013|By Michael Welles Shapiro, mwshapiro@dailypress.com | 757-247-4744
What does it cost to defuel and take apart one of the Navy’s most famed ships?
About $750 million, it turns out.
The Navy and Huntington Ingalls Industries came to terms on a contract for the inactivation of the USS Enterprise. The cost-plus-incentive fee contract allows for the ultimate price tag to be adjusted based on a formula under which the Navy and the shipbuilder would both share some of the burden of cost overruns.
The work will be done at Newport News Shipbuilder, the sole builder of U.S. aircraft carriers, which built the Big E and has handled its spent nuclear fuel rods in the past.
The 51-year-old Enterprise is the country’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and as a result the contract is the first inactivation of such a ship.
“Although Newport News Shipbuilding has defueled and refueled many ships, including Enterprise, this is the first inactivation of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier,” said Chris Miner, the shipyard’s vice president, of in-service aircraft carrier programs.
“Our shipbuilders know Enterprise well, and have enjoyed working on her over her decades of service,” Miner said in a news release. “We are extremely proud of her great legacy, so it is with heavy hearts that we will work to retire this one-of-a-kind ship.”
More than 1,000 shipyard workers are expected to support the inactivation, and the work in Newport News is set to run through September 2018, according to a contract award description posted by the Naval Sea Systems Command.
At that point, the ship will be towed to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., which according to the Navy is the only yard that can dispose of the Enterprise’s eight nuclear reactors.
The reactors will be cut out of the hull of the ship and barged to the desert of Eastern Washington, for burial at a Department of Energy site.
The Enterprise was towed to Newport News Shipbuilding on June 20 from Naval Station Norfolk.
That voyage capped off a career that spanned more than half a century.
The flat top was the only ship in its class, and was built before the Nimitz-class carriers that now make up the U.S. carrier fleet.
Built by Newport News shipbuilders, the Big E aided in the naval blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis and took part in operations Enduring Freedom and New Dawn.
The ship once steamed through the seas with 200,000 horsepower and became one of four carriers in naval history to record 400,000 arrested landings of jet aircraft.
Enterprise completed its final combat deployment in November and was removed from military service the following month.
Since then, sailors have worked to prepare the ship for its eventual decommissioning.
The combat crew of 2,500 sailors has been whittled down to about 1,300. Eight gaping holes were visible in its hangar bay during its tow to Newport News.
Naval Matters 