I suppose I ought to make a log entry regarding yesterday's decommissioning of the USS Los Angeles (SSN-688). I served on said vessel from 2000 to 2005 and made 3 of her 18 Western Pacific deployments. As you can read here and here, she served her purpose better and longer than anyone expected her to. More applicable to this blog's family, she surfaced just as many times as she dove and never lost her way (well, I do recall a couple of times on watch when RLGN #1 and RLGN #2 were diverging at such rate that I had to shift to Mode II Fix Expansion until we could get to periscope depth and slew both channels to a GPS fix, but I was never really uncertain of our position beyond 1000 yards give or take). So, I would think just like a stubborn work-horse, the LA was usually a pain in my neck, but when the going got tough, I was glad we had her.
I was aboard the LA when the Russian submarine Kursk sank, and I remember how we as a crew, even though "enemies," mourned for them and their families. Not too many people in the world can relate to that feeling. They were fellow submariners, men in our brotherhood, and they had tragically departed for eternal patrol leaving their young wives and children behind. That could have happened to any crew on any submarine, but the LA kept us safe.
And it did happen to another crew on another submarine. We were on one of my three deployments when just a couple hundred miles south of us the USS San Francisco violently ran aground while transiting to Australia. We were in Guam at the time and were told to immediately begin preparing to get underway to assist in rescue/salvage operations in case she couldn't limp her way back home. As a testament to her (and the LA's) engineering, she was able to. I recall sitting on the hood of my rental car parked at the water's edge of the channel in Guam watching her slowly, humbly, work herself up the channel and to the pier where there were ambulances, firetrucks, media, and lots of military brass anxiously awaiting. News helicopters hovered overhead. Three days later at the base chapel was the funeral service for MM2 Ashley, and all the submariners in Guam were invited to attend. What made the SFO tragedy so significant to me was that the contributing factors to the grounding and Ashley's death were navigational errors. Thus the things I did every watch on every day underway became literally matters of life and death. A humbling reminder.
I was also on board the LA, but this time in port at Pearl Harbor, when we received word that just a couple miles south of us near the entrance to Pearl Harbor channel, the USS Greeneville had struck the Ehime Maru, killing 9 Japanese students, teachers, and crew members. Obviously not only was Pearl Harbor abuzz for many days afterwords, but the entire island was caught up in the international tragedy. We were told for the time being not to tell any civilians that we were submariners - to avoid a risk of injury. And the military courthouse where the ensuing investigation took place (and that the entire country was focusing on) was just down the street from us. It was a media mad house!
So, even though a submarine's call is to remain silent and unseen, three of the most well-known submarine tragedies of the past decade all happened in close proximity to me and the rest of the crew of the LA. That's not to say that we never had our own share of difficulties on board, because I can assure you we did, but it does make me thankful that they were never as significant as the ones the media heard about. And in that way I suppose I'm touched to see the Los Angeles decommissioned - she did her time and did it well. She's earned her rest, and I'm thankful to her for keeping me safe. Maybe we'll even drive up to Bremerton sometime and try to see her.
