Bytemarks

En route on its mission: Pacific Partnership 2010, the USNS Mercy docked in Pearl Harbor to pick up supplies and volunteers from Hawaii, before heading off to Guam. The weekend stopover also allowed ship personnel to spend a brief moment in Hawaii. But judging from the amount of visitors filing through the ship, there was [...]

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The USS Chung-Hoon is an Aegis Class Destroyer that has a particular tie to Hawaii. The ship is named after Rear Admiral Gordon Pai`ea Chung-Hoon, a local of Hawaiian/Chinese ancestory who was the recipient of the Navy Cross and Silver Star for heroism as commanding officer of USS Sigsbee (DD-502) from May 1944 to October 1945. On April [...]

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A friend of mine in college was studying to be a nuclear engineer and after graduating headed off to the Navy to do his tour of duty on a submarine. At the time I could not comprehend what 6 months on the sub really meant. I probably still don’t fully understand although having the opportunity [...]

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We stood near the achor point of the arrest cable used to catch the planes as they land. From this vantage point you can almost touch the F-18 as it approaches and flies in for a landing. The arrest cable is about 3 inches in diameter and when the F-18 catches it you can feel [...]

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Without a doubt watching the F-18 Hornet catapult off the flight deck of the USS Nimitz is an intense, awesome and full-body experience. The jet engine noise will penetrate to your bones. We had both foam ear plugs and over that wore headphones. Even with the double protection you could hear and feel the power [...]

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I just put together this Animoto video of some photos from my embark to the USS Nimitz. The entire set of photos are on Flickr for your viewing pleasure. I am also working on posting my videos. So bear with me as I unfold all this content of my trip.

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I’ve got my mission orders. It was sent from Theresa Donnelly, LTJG COMPACFLT via email to meet at the Nimitz Gate at Pearl Harbor Naval Base this morning to embark on a tour of the US Navy Aircraft Carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68). With all this excitement I could barely sleep last night. The mission [...]

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