gatt wrote:
Hey, ain't funny. I was aboard the USS Kearsarge back around '62 when
the same thing happened on the hanger deck of the aircraft carrier

A close relative just completed a tour aboard the Oak Hill, which was
supporting Kearsarge in the Gulf earlier this year.

Recent sea story: (As always, take it for what it's worth, but two separate
people told me about it.) Earlier this year they responded to a freighter
hijacking and found out that the pirates had killed the crew. The Marines
of the MEU in the fleet were bored off their ass an itching for a fight and
then somebody told them "The Navy is handling it."

That didn't go over well at all until a helicopter filled with SEALs landed
on one of the ships at which point Jeremy said the Marines pretty much stood
down. The SEALs prepped for a full assault of the ship and launched in
zodiac(s). The hijackers holed up inside the hull and prepared for a
gunbattle...remember, all the crew had been murdered...and the SEALs drew up
alongside, planted some charges around the hull, withdrew and sank the whole
damn thing where it sat.

The other fellow--a maintenance type aboard a minesweeper in the same
fleet--just grinned and nodded his head. As a sailor apparently he's not
allowed to talk about that sort of thing, but basically alluded to the idea
that you don't hear a fraction of what they're doing out there with regard
to Somali pirates; only the cases where the media finds out. In those
cases, the Navy has to keep mum and play nice.

The ol' Kearsarge is still out there getting some!

-c
I found it interesting how much maritime piracy occurs and how little we hear
about it.
I only started looking at it when some friends got "mugged" aboard their
sailboat in the Carribean.
Some of these cats, particularly in Indonesian and some African coastal
waters, are pretty desperate and murder of entire crews is on the rise.
"The Outlaw Sea" was a pretty good read on the matter.

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