Fleet Plan of the Day
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- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
Welcome Aboard, John Brandes!
John Brandes registered on the site today, bring the total number of former Commanding Officers of the USS WILLIAM H. BATES (SSN 680) checked in to five, which is half the ten COs that commanded the Bates during her 30 plus years of service.
Some of you remember John as the Engineer between 1979 and 1982, while those of you serving between 1988 and 1991 would have called him Cap'n. Either way, he joins Houley, Uplinger, W. M. Hicks, and Stevens here at SSN-680.org as former COs, and we are proud to have them all.
Shout him out when you get a chance, and make him feel welcome - he's one of us!
No comments- Details
- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
It has been a busy quarter. The real world has required my attention to complete a project I've been involved in, and I've had precious little time to dedicate to the site. I've kept up with the postings and communications, but any effort to push the site forward has been on hold.
Recently, however there has been conversation regarding our shipmates that have passed on, regarding who is missing and who is deceased. Until now, my practice was to not post information regarding deceased shipmates until there was some 'official' or 'formal' confirmation, such as an obituary, public record, or notifcation from a family member. This was primarily to protect friends and family from the inadvertent or erroneous announcement of someone's demise.
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- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
How the year has flown by - it seems like only yesterday we were swapping stories under the trees at the Town and Country in San Diego. And now the bite of winter joins the snows of December swirling in the air.
The good news is, we aren't underway! See...feeling better already?
Hard to imagine that each of those Christmas days underway earned us the right to relax and enjoy this one with family and friends, and harder still to imagine that there are those out there even now, following in our footsteps, making it possible for Christmases to go on without interference from anybody else. Remember those that have sacrificed this season for us, and be truly thankful.
I can only hope to add to your Christmas cheer with this brief yuletide greeting featuring John Henklemen, Jeff Means, Rod Darling, the ever popular Marco Ahumada, and your humble scribe and minion, yours truly, courtesy of John Henklemen, who clearly needs a hobby!
Wishing you each the merriest of Christmases, and God bless us every one!
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- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
It has been over a year since Bill Byers asked that fateful question, "Are you the Brad Williamson that served on the William H. Bates?" On December 6th last year, I sent him an email that said that there was a little website up where we could coordinate the reunion. This is that little website, one year later.
A little over a year since this was just an idea!
Since then, we have had a reunion in San Diego attended by 38 former crewmembers. We have identified 1222 former shipmates as having been assigned to the Bates and Mark Gray continues to flesh out our Master Sailing List. 281 of those shipmates are registered on this site. Another 33 fellow submariners, including a former Soviet CO, friends, family, and enthusiasts, including one who was a friend of our namesake's, the Honorable William H. Bates' family, brings us to a total of 314 registered users on the site.
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- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
It's the Friday after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, as it's called in the world of retail, but not being a big shopper myself, I find myself relaxing in a hotel room in Canton, Ohio. I'm dropping off my teenage son tomorrow to audition for the Ohio Bluecoats, a precision drum and bugle corp of the marching variety. He's a fury of percussive energy on the practice pad next to me, but I have a few minutes to relax and reflect, and catch up on all the tasks I've been ignoring lately with the pressures of the current project. One of which happens to be this website.
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- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
For those of you that don't check the Tracking Party routinely, I'd recommend taking another look. I finally got tired of waiting for everybody to update their profiles, so in a fit of 'looking for something mindless to do' I went through and updated the locations for everybody not currently showing up on the Tracking Party map. (about 100 of you!)
So take a look and see who's nearby - you may have some 'new' shipmates as neighbors. If you don't find yourself on the map, it's because your address is not complete - go to your Profile, add a full address, street, city, state, and zipcode, then click 'Update'. If you still don't appear, notify me, and I will refresh the map database.
Time to get on the map if you aren't already, and check out who's nearby - you may find a shipmate or two that you'd like to get together with now that you know you live in the same neck of the woods!
- Details
- Brad Williamson
- POD - SSN 680
пр
иветствуйте на борту, капитан сначала занимают место
Igor Kurdin! We are honored to have you as our guest.
Politics made us enemies, but our chosen profession and the cruel sea herself has made us brothers. May God bless our future by making us friends.
With these words I would welcome Captain First Rank (Ret.) Igor Kurdin to the ssn-680.org website.
Steven Perry and I met Igor Kurdin at the USSVI conference that was being held in San Diego the week after our REGROUPEX 09. Since the International Submariners Association was also meeting with the USSVI, we happened to chance upon Igor and his friends and family at poolside below our suite on Monday after most everyone else had departed.
Captain Kurdin was the commanding officer of the K-84, the Delta IV missile boat 'Ektarinaburg' in 1990-94, served as the XO of the K-219 that was lost off the US coast in 1986, as well as the K-418 and K-241. He is noted as the co-author of the book 'Hostile Waters' along with Peter Huchthuasen, describing the explosion of a missile onboard the K-219, and her subsequent sinking as she was being towed back to her homeport.
Please welcome Igor onboard, and extend to him every courtesy due a fellow submariner and submarine commander.
As a gentle reminder to the crew, as is our strict policy on this website, ensure that your posts do not contain any references to things that never happened during patrols that we didn't go on in places we never went. Security restrictions, though 25 years old or more, have not necessarily lapsed, and references to information that doesn't exist is not appropriate for many of our guests.
