VC-12 VAW-12 Newsletter February 2008
Website: www.vc12vaw12.org All the old newsletters are there;
Members list: www.vc12vaw12.org/members/members.html
Contact me for rosters of the detachments you were on. We are continually adding to this database. (rgs@coho.net)
We are now at over 1900 members and know of 75 deceased men in addition.
Chairman: Richard Bray 765 Hosmer Rd Churchville, NY 14428 585-538-4252 Cell: 585-576-0595 leighbray@hotmail.com
Past Chairman: Edward Seykowski 607 N 70 E Valparaiso, IN 46383 219-462-3636 edseykow@juno.com FAX 219-462-2168
Treasurer, Scribe, & Membership Chairman for dues:
Roger G. Smith, MD Office: 561 SE Oak St Hillsboro, OR 97123
Home: 34464 SW Firdale Rd Cornelius, OR 97113 503-628-2229 home; FAX 503-693-9109; Cell 503-407-8436 rgs@coho.net
Dues are $10 a year for those who get the newsletter by post. New Year starts at the reunion. Send in your dues now or e-mail me for a status report on your account.
Many who get the newsletter by e-mail offer dues and we are grateful. We send e-mail newsletter to all who wish to see it regardless.
We are 1900 members. There are a lot of people we have still not found.
We have listed groups by detachments. Send me your request and I'll share your detachment list with you so you can contact the guys you want to meet at reunion. Tell us who you remember and let us help you find him/them. We have too many new contacts since the reunion to list them all. We have many incomplete detachment rosters. Send for yours and help me complete the lists. I call a lot of guys who have no interest, but if their old buddies call them, that may be a different matter. Our membership continues to grow. We have found people through the Navy Memorial Foundation and Military.Com.
People who send me old newsletters from the squadron and old orders, social notes, watch bills, cruise book lists and rapid recall bills have been very helpful.
Every once in a while I find a new member referred from a member who recalls where his old buddy is now.
Surprisingly few men that I have heard of have taken the roster of their cruise and made calls to old friends. That is another way to improve the list. Many of those rosters have names with incomplete addresses. Studying them may yield clues to where they may be now—wives’ names, birthdates or birth years, hometowns etc may be very helpful in finding men with more common names. Let’s have some stories of contacts made among old shipmates.
2008 Reunion
The 2008 VC-12/VAW-12 reunion will be held at the Holiday Inn at Patriot’s Point in Mt Pleasant, SC which is just over the Cooper River from Charleston, SC. The hotel is located at 250 Johnnie Dodds Blvd and is at the first traffic light after going over the Cooper River bridge on route 17 north. The reunion will run from Monday afternoon Sept. 22nd to Thursday morning Sept. 25th.
Reservations at the hotel can be made at 1-800-290-4004. Identify yourself as a member of the VC-12/VAW-12 reunion group. The room rate is $89 plus taxes. This rate is good from Sunday night Sept. 21st through Thursday night Sept. 25th. The room allotment is protected until 30 days prior to reunion so make your reservations early.
The Holiday Inn is just one mile from Patriots Point where the USS Yorktown museum is located along with the USS Laffey (DD 724), the USS Clamagore (SS 343) and the Coast Guard Cutter Ingham.
The registration fee will be $100 per person ($200 per couple). The fee covers:
* Overhead costs
* Snacks, sodas and coffee in the Ready room
* Welcome Reception Monday evening with Hors d’ Oeuvres – Cash bar
* Banquet Wednesday evening– Cash bar
* Breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings – juice not included
Two organized bus tours are being offered that will be operated from the hotel.
1. Tuesday Sept. 23rd from 9am to 2pm. Charleston City tour
Tour Charleston, one of the most beautiful and historic cities in the south. Her stately homes with their lovely gardens, her magnificent public buildings and her majestic churches will enchant you. As you tour you will see the College of Charleston, Charleston Village (one of the early suburbs of the city), the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, and of course the famous Battery with its elegant town houses built by planters and merchants in the 18th and 19th centuries. Spend some time shopping and browsing in the Old City Market and have lunch on your own at one of our fine restaurants.
Cost $30 per person Advance sign up required & space is limited
2. Wednesday Sept. 24th from 9:30 to 12:30pm Plantation tour
Visit historic Boone Hall Plantation, which was used in the filming of the television mini series, "North And South" and "Queen" and for background filming in "Gone With the Wind".
Tour the lovely Georgian plantation house, the slave quarters built from brick made on the plantation in the 1800's and watch the flower ladies making their sweetgrass baskets.
Cost $44 per person. Advance sign up required & space is limited
In addition SpiritLine Cruises operates several tours from Patriot’s Point that members can schedule on their own.
The Fort Sumter tour at 10:45 and 1:30pm. It is a two hour and fifteen minute tour and costs adults $14 and seniors $12.50.
The harbor tour is for one hour and thirty minutes and costs adults $14 and seniors $12.50. It departs at 3pm.
Tuesday evening Sept. 23rd you have the options of dinner on your own at a restaurant of your choice or:
* Buffet offered by the hotel restaurant (cost and menu TBD).
or
Dinner cruise from Patroit’s Point - Board at 6:30 pm Cruise from 7:00 to 10:00pm
Cruise Charleston's beautiful harbor aboard the 100' luxury boat, Spirit of Carolina. Enjoy the unique and beautiful sights of the harbor as well as a delicious dinner in a romantic atmosphere. Dance to the music of a live band. Entree choice may be made at the table. Alcoholic beverages and optional dessert menus are on your own.
Dinner Menu - Charleston She Crab Soup, Spirit Signature Salad with assorted home made dressings, Choice of a Beef, Seafood, Chicken, and Pasta Entree. Chef’s selection of potatoes, rice or pasta, Fresh Seasonal Vegetables, Freshly Baked Breads with Sweet Cream Butter, House Dessert, Coffee, Tea, or Decaffeinated Coffee
Cost $50 per person; Advance sign up required
Engraved name badges will be available again this year. Will provide hand written stick-on tags if engraved ones are not desired.
Please provide the following information as you want it to appear on either the stick-on or the engraved badges:
For a members badge we will need the following information: Name, Rank (highest held in the Navy), and the year(s) you were in the squadron (i.e. 1959-1961). The guest badge requires just the first and last name of the guest.
Engraved name badges/city shingles must be ordered through Dick Bray prior to the reunion.
A 2" by 3" engraved members badge can be ordered for $8, a 1" by 3" guest badge can be ordered for $7 and a 1/2" by 3" city shingle can be ordered for $4 each. Contact Dick so that the correct information will be engraved. Dick can send a picture of the engraved badges if anyone wants to see them before ordering. Badges/city shingles can be prepaid with reunion registration or paid at sign in. We can acquire city shingles for past reunions. If you attended any past reunions and desire a city shingle or shingles let us know which ones.
Note from Dick Bray, Chairman
We are going to be working hard to make this years reunion the largest in our history so please sign up early and contact your old shipmates as well. If you would like to volunteer to help us in our effort to expand our reunion attendance by personally contacting members in your area please let me know. We can supply you with the member’s names, phone numbers and email addresses.
To attend the reunion here are the necessary steps.
* Make hotel reservations at 1-800-290-4004
* Contact me at leighbray@hotmail.com or rbray1@rochester.rr.com phone 585-576-0595
Provide me with:
Names(s) and number attending plus contact information
Tour desires if any
Charleston city tour Tuesday
Plantation tour Wednesday
Dinner options Tuesday
Dinner cruise
Buffet at hotel
On your own
Banquet dinner choice Wednesday
Chicken Wellington
Filet of Beef
Badges choice
Engraved/Hand Written
City shingles
VAW-11 will hold its next reunion October 9-12, 2008 in San Diego. The date is firm.
They are on an every 3 years cycle. They include all VAW people including the active duty guys now. They naturally are predominately a West Coast membership. There is some small overlap with our people. Bob Allwine tells me they have over 500 committed to come and are on overflow.
NGC's Second E-2D
Advanced Hawkeye Pilot Production Aircraft Completes Successful First Flight (St. Augustine, Fla., December 19, 2007) -- The second E-2D Advanced
Hawkeye development aircraft, known as Delta Two, built for the U.S. Navy by
prime contractor Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC), completed its first
flight in just over two hours from the company's Florida manufacturing and
flight test center Nov. 29 followed by a second flight Dec. 4.
"The first flight of our second development aircraft signals another major
program performance milestone for the E-2 program and for Team Hawkeye. It's
clear by our consistent team effort that we're focused on delivering to the Navy
its arsenal of 21st century network-centric warfare and battle management
capabilities when we said we would," said Tom Vice, vice president of Airborne
Early Warning and Battle Management Command and Control Programs - Navy for
Northrop Grumman's Integrated Systems sector.
"Team Hawkeye and our Navy program team are performing in stellar fashion. We
are right where we want to be in flight test. The combination of commitment and
communication from the integrated Navy and industry team is the key to the
success we have seen in this program," said Capt. Randy Mahr, NAVAIR Hawkeye
program manager.
Piloting the test aircraft was Mike Holton, an 18-year Northrop Grumman
experimental test pilot veteran with 25 years of E-2 test pilot experience.
Co-piloting Delta Two was 21-year veteran and the Airborne Early Warnings
program's Chief Test Pilot Les Ryan, who has tested E-2s for over 26 years.
Joining them in the flight was Wyle Weapon System Operator Ray Collazo, an
experimental test weapon system expert with 17 years of test experience. All
three are Naval Academy graduates and flew with Navy E-2 squadrons during their
military careers. Collazo and Holton flew together in VAW-112 and Ryan flew for
VAW-114.
During the flight of the program's second system design and development
aircraft, the team conducted a series of air vehicle tests to evaluate airplane
flying qualities, engine response, and cockpit instruments.
"Our go-forward plan is to fly another flight to check out engine air start
capability, and high angle of attack flying qualities, and then we will complete
the installation of the weapon system. Once the weapon system is in, we will fly
approximately two hundred flights to evaluate the new radar. And just like Delta
One, which flew its first flight on Aug. 3, Delta Two flew just like an E-2C,"
Holton said.
In July of this year, Northrop Grumman was also awarded a $408 million pilot
production contract to build three aircraft, and the keel was laid for the first
production aircraft (AA3) on September 27. The original $2 billion SD&D contract
was awarded on Aug. 4, 2003.
"In late 2001, Northrop Grumman was asked by the U.S. Navy to build a new
Hawkeye. Northrop Grumman's goal was to deliver a capability that would be a
generational leap forward with new technologies-those that are more adaptable to
changing threats from the enemies of today and tomorrow, and that could protect
our nation and its allies well into the middle of the century," Vice said.
"The E-2D system gives the warfighter expanded battlespace awareness,
especially in the area of information operations," Vice added. "The E-2D
Advanced Hawkeye delivers battle management, theater air and missile defense,
and multiple sensor fusion capabilities in an airborne system. These advances
provide warfighters with the necessary situational awareness to compress the
time between initial awareness and active engagement. The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye
will provide joint U.S. forces and coalition partners' airborne battle
management command and control from the sea, in both over-land and over-water
environments."
Vice said the Navy plans to procure at least 75 E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes, all
which are manufactured at Northrop Grumman's Manufacturing and Flight Test
Center in St. Augustine, Fla. Today, more than one third of all current Hawkeyes
are flown internationally by Japan, Taiwan, Egypt, Singapore and France.
LT Babbitt
John M. Babbitt, one of our pilots from the VC-12 days, writes of his grandson, John T. Babbitt,
who had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and dropped dead at age 18 playing sports. There is a controversy concerning the issues relating to discovering this condition in young athletes in which he is featured. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17973731
I replied to John: Mention will be in the next newsletter. I’ve done student athlete physicals. They aren’t real physicals. A bunch of kids are lined up in a gym, not your doctor’s office.
Doctors often do them gratis because more than half the kids’ families aren’t willing to pay for it anyway. And the school district has no funds for that. So you listen to heart and lungs, check for lymph nodes and hernias (which makes the boys all goosey and self conscious) see if there are skin lesions, wiggle the knees and ankles, look in the facial orifices, slap ‘em on the ass and say, “Next!” And the girl students get less observation than that due to modesty considerations. How many families are going to send sons in to the office to have $150 physical with an extra $65 for an EKG and what about lab tests extra too? An echocardiogram is out of the question economically, unless there is a family history. It’s a huge problem. And it’s just one of many similar problems. My observation over the years has been people will pay $100 to get well but are loathe to spend $1 to stay well. It’s true!
A further note made by a medical colleague—Suppose a doc were to volunteer to do echos as well as exams for a group of kids—free. He would still be liable years later for a lawsuit based on failure to diagnose some condition that would appear later on in life. It happens—a lot. The whole “malpractice” scam is a giant racket that doubles the cost of medicine and medical care for everyone.
Captain Gooding
Many of you know Captain Niles “Whitey” Gooding. He attended our last reunion in Reno. He and his wife Bonnie lost their grown son, Mike, to brain cancer this month. May they find peace.
http://www.beloblog.com/WVEC/reporters/2008/01/my_first_best_friend.html
This is, in my opinion, a wonderful eulogy about his departed brother Rick.
Bonnie and Niles Gooding 369 Waugh's Ferry Road Amherst, Virginia 24521
whites528@peoplepc.com
This from Ed Cadorette relative to the VAW ready room on the Midway in San Diego:
This is my second note since the Midway VAW-VRC Ready Room Foundation became active on the net. I know you are all busy but I encourage you to take the time to go to the website and become involved in this effort to create a tribute to and an archive for the VAW/VRC community. To make the dream a reality will require your participation both in becoming a donor and in networking to others who were in the community or had an association with the community. The next few months will determine the success of this endeavor and your help is needed to ensure the creation of something that will make us all very proud. It will be a symbol and a remembrance of the patriotic service and dedication of the VAW/VRC Community. That Tribute does not exist anywhere and if we lose this opportunity it may never happen. It will be something you can reflect on with a sense of great satisfaction for being a part of preserving the heritage, the tradition of excellence and the outstanding service to the Nation of the VAW/VRC community. We would like to welcome RADM Dick Mauldin and Commodore Paul O'Connor
to the Board of Directors both will provide a wealth of information and keep us linked to the core constituency - our active duty, Fleet Sailors Maintainers, and Aviators.
Check your
beneficiary: Military
Retiree Account Statement forwarded from LTGEN Chuck Pitman, deputy commandant
USMC for Aviation:
"Just wanted to let you know that, the same as many of you, I recently
received my Military Retiree Account Statement. Please review the back of your
statement and verify who you have
designated as the beneficiary in case you die. Mine has changed to someone I
don't even know (Cathy J. McMillin, "wife") as getting 100%. Based upon the fact
that recently the VA had military retiree personnel information compromised it
is interesting that somehow my beneficiaries have changed. If you look at the
broader picture of what this means that many veterans probably wouldn't catch
this and that as we lose more of our fellow service men and women each day this
would leave their dependents without the benefit they deserve.”
Do One More roll for me
Capt Jerry Coffee, USN (ret) [a Vietnam POW] wrote:
One night during a bombing raid on Hanoi, I peeked out of my cell and watched a flight of four F-105s during their bombing run. As they pulled up, it was obvious that lead was badly hit. Trailing smoke, he broke from the formation and I watched the damaged bird until it disappeared from sight. I presumed the worst. As I lay there in my cell reflecting on the image, I composed a toast to the unfortunate pilot and all the others who had gone before him.
On New Year's Eve 1968, Captain Tom Storey and I were in the Stardust section of Hoa Lo (wa-low) Prison. I whispered the toast under the door to Tom. Tom was enthralled, and despite the risk of terrible punishment, insisted that I repeat it several more times until he had it committed to memory. He then promised me that when the time came, and they were again free men, he would give the toast at the first Dining-In he attended. For you civilians, a “Dining-In” is a dreary formal affair with drinks, dinner, and forced joviality and comradeship where officers get to dress up like the head waiters in "The Merry Widow" -- that's the American version; I've heard that the Brits, who created the damn things, have a rollicking good time. Tom's first assignment following release in 1973 was to the U.S. Air Force Academy. During that same year the Academy hosted the Annual Conference for General Officers and Those Associated Dining-In. The jovial clinking of glasses accompanied all the traditional speeches and toasts. Then it was Tom's turn. Remembering his promise so many years earlier, he proposed Jerry's "One More Roll." When he was finished there was total silence.
We toast our hearty comrades, who have fallen from the sky, and were gently caught by God’s own hands to be with him on high. To dwell among the soaring clouds they have known so well before, from victory roll to tail chase at heavens’ very door. And as we fly among them there, we're sure to hear their plea: Take care, my friend, Watch your six, and do one more roll for me. [A toast to all our comrades -- POWs, missing in action, living or dead, whatever their duty, whatever their war, whatever their uniform. Bless them all.]
Book
I have just finished a really good book and I enjoyed every page. The title of the book is: Your Signal Is Charlie by Ron Rypel. Ron started flight training in 1955. He flew ADs on his first tour and then A4s in Viet Nam. He got out of the Navy in 1967 in protest of the management of the Viet Nam war and became an airline pilot. The Navy portion of the book is very good but I learned a lot of interesting stuff about a lot of places in our world that Ron visited and wrote about. Ron worked for Saudi Airlines for quite a long time. His comments regarding that part of the world are enlightening. If you have an interest you can learn a lot more about Ron and the book at: www.yoursignalischarley.com
AVCAD-MARCAD Muster Pensacola May 1-3, 2008 Information at
Association Services 707 Crooked Oak Drive Pensacola, FL 32514 850-473-0804 jodi@associationservices.us
Past reunions:
1997 Newport 26 members; 17 guests total 43
1999 Pensacola 29 21 50
2000 Norfolk 21 14 35
2001 Charleston 16 11 27
2002 Newport 31 21 52 After which we started to really build membership
2003 Annapolis 40 26 66
2004 Gettysburg 43 21 74 hurricane retreat #1
2005 Fort Walton 43 29 72 hurricane retreat #2
2006 Washington 46 35 81
2007 Reno 23 13 36
LET’S MAKE THIS A HUGE EVENT. We already have a large number of affirmative indications from members who have never re-unioned with us before.