Humanitarian aid ship
Two Ohio State grads leads US Destroyer McFaul into Georgian port
By now you’ve probably heard the USS McFaul has arrived in port in Georgia as part of a three ship convoy of humanitarian supply ships. What I didn’t know until checking the website of the vessel is that both the Captain and Executive Officer on the McFaul were graduates of Ohio State. Not entirely sure if that is a good or a bad thing. On the one hand, they are probably used to dealing with a lot of stubborn jerks (i.e. their fellow students) so that will help with some of the attitudes they may encounter from the Russians, but on the other hand they might have graduated from the OSU on the ‘football plan’ and gotten most of their academic credits for things like “light bulb replacement theory” and “Ikea Wicker Basket management” or something.
Interesting to note one of the next ships in port will be the USS Mount Whitney, flagship of the 6th fleet and which is a command and control and Intel vessel. One suspects the leaders in Washington would like a little more on the ground intelligence coming back from the region rather than hearing about things second-hand.
Mount Whitney can receive and transmit large amounts of secure data from any point on earth through HF, UHF, VHF, SHF and EHFcommunications paths. This technology enables the Joint Intelligence Center and Joint Operations Center to provide the timely intelligence and operational support available in the Navy.
In other news from the region,
* A train full of fuel blew up after hitting a mine left on the railroad tracks.
* Russian troops have pulled out of the Senaki military base
]]>