Month: May 2023

Source: United States Navy

This year’s Surface Line Week iteration saw Sailors participate in more than 20 camaraderie-building events and competitions. USS Forrest Sherman (DDG 98) won the medium-platform category and USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) won the large-platform category.

“Winning this was a whole ship effort,” Capt. Thomas Foster, Kearsarge’s commanding officer. “Every Sailor on Kearsarge contributed to this win. This is what morale looks like.”

The theme for this year’s Surface Line Week was “North Star 75 – Get Ready.” Vice Adm. Roy Kitchener, Commander, Naval Surface Forces, and Commander, Naval Surface Force U.S. Pacific Fleet, stated that Northstar 75 is a goal for 75 mission-capable ships “ready on any given day.”

Competitions held throughout the week emphasized the discipline, professionalism, and culture of excellence expected of a combat-ready surface unit. Several events highlighted the theme of a strong, independent, and self-sustaining surface force. SURFLANT partnered with the Anchor Scholarship Foundation for a 5K run/walk and golf tournament, with entry fees from those events funding scholarships for Surface Navy families. 

Participants’ seamanship skills were put to the test with a Damage Control Olympics, a welding competition, and the Seamanship Olympics. Surface Line Week also included team-building events like a chili cook-off, a softball tournament, and the cardboard regatta. The event was capped off with a picnic and awards ceremony, where hundreds of Sailors from different commands gathered.

Surface Line Week is an annual competition hosted for all subordinate SURFLANT commands.

“This has been a very competitive Surface Line Week,” Rear Adm. Brendan McLane, Commander, SURFLANT, said at the closing ceremony.  “It was also great having Mutts for a Mission out here with us, and I want to thank the Anchor Scholarship Foundation for all their support.”
 
SURFLANT mans, trains and equips assigned surface forces and shore activities, ensuring a capable force for conducting prompt and sustained operations in support of United States national interests. The SURFLANT force is composed of nearly 80 ships, 17 pre-commissioning units, and more than 30 shore commands.
 
For more SURFLANT news and photos, visit Facebook.com/SURFLANT, www.surflant.usff.navy.mil, and Twitter – @surflant.
 

Source: United States Navy

The successful evolution also marked the first live-fire event for the MOD Hebrides Range during Formidable Shield 2023 and underscores the complexity and utility of the exercise in honing missile defense capabilities.

“We are thrilled to have successfully completed this air-to-air event during Formidable Shield,” said Italian Air Force Capt. Mattia “Uni” Nucciarelli, Chief Test Pilot. “This exercise challenges our capabilities and makes us a stronger fighting force, as we continue to adapt our tactics and procedures to evolving threats.”

The scenario was dubbed “Umberto Nobile” in honor of Italian aeronautical engineer and explorer Umberto Nobile, who broke barriers as a dirigible designer and pilot and polar explorer in the 1920s. During the Nobile event, the Italian F-2000s successfully executed a Defensive Counter Air (DCA) tasking, engaging a Banshee Jet 80 target acting as a “leaker.” In the scenario, the simulated leaker posed a threat to French, Italian, and U.S. surface units operating in the vicinity.

This accurate reproduction of a combat scenario is a hallmark of the Formidable Shield exercise series, and the success of Umberto Nobile is the result of many months of deliberate planning among Allies.

“The Air Planning Cell for this exercise could not be more excited to see our planning bring about the first air-to-air live-fire event of this series,” said Cmdr. John-Michael “Guts” Gutierrez, Formidable Shield Air Operations Lead Coordinator. “The professionalism of our Italian Air Force Allies and the extraordinary capability of the world-class MOD Hebrides Range shone through in successfully completing this complex air-to-air scenario.”

As in previous iterations of Formidable Shield, the strong support and technical expertise of planners and exercise participants, including those at the MOD Hebrides Range, directly led to the success of the scenario.

“We want to congratulate the Italian Air Force on their recent success in the early stages of Formidable Shield 23. We look forward to further achievements during this series of exercises,” said Jim Graham, Managing Director of Air within QinetiQ’s UK Defence Sector. “This exercise series provides a perfect opportunity to continue advancements in technology, tactics, and interoperability, and we in QinetiQ are proud to be an enabling partner for Formidable Shield 23.”

For all involved, this groundbreaking engagement is not a finish line, but rather another mark in the continued evolution of Formidable Shield as the premier integrated air and missile defense exercise and live-fire rehearsal in the European theater. As NATO Allies continue with the exercise over the next two weeks, there just may be another Italian pilot up in the air, breaking barriers just like Umberto Nobile.

Source: United States Navy

Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, presented awards to three Navy divers and a medical corpsman during a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Muscat, Oman.

Chief Navy Diver Davin Jameson was traveling on a highway in Oman with three other Sailors, April 23, when they spotted four victims of a car accident who needed medical assistance. Without hesitation, Jameson along with Navy Diver 2nd Class Nicolas Arpaia, Navy Diver 2nd Class Benjamin Ching and Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Alec White, stopped to help.

“Being of service that afternoon was a humbling experience,” said Jameson. “The corpsman on our team is trained for a lot of different scenarios, but it was the first time the rest of us were responding to an emergency situation like this.”

While waiting for Omani medical services to arrive, the team provided first aid to the victims suffering from shock, heat stress and traumatic injuries. Although one of the accident victims died due to the severity of his injuries, the Navy dive team’s life-saving efforts were crucial to the survival of the other three.

“It made me appreciate the training we do because it made responding to the crash much easier,” said Jameson.

The Sailors are members of U.S. 5th Fleet’s task force for expeditionary combat forces that operate across the Middle East. Expeditionary combat forces specialize in explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), naval coastal warfare, naval construction, expeditionary intelligence and expeditionary logistics support.

The U.S. 5th Fleet operating area includes 21 countries, the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea, parts of the Indian Ocean and three critical choke points at the Strait of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandeb and Suez Canal.

Source: United States Navy

Strunc was recognized for administering lifesaving cardiopulmonary resuscitation on an unconscious civilian at the beach on Oct. 2, 2022. Strunc provided lifesaving measures to Todd Rowan, a resident of New Jersey, who was visiting family in Virginia Beach.

Strunc was surfing when he heard the cries for help from Mr. Rowan’s wife Donna.

He and fellow surfer Tyler Volpe, a physician’s assistant in Virginia Beach, performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) on Rowan until paramedics arrived.