SSN 680 Plan of the Day
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- Brad Williamson
We have our first listed Honorary Crew Member!
CTT1 John Whitmire was a rider back in the 74-75 time frame. (That would have been my first year at Texas A&M, to put that in the old man perspective!) I stumbled across John on a CT community website, while searching for former crewmembers. John generously agreed to let us post his photo of the boat, signed by CDR Arthur, the Bates' first CO. You can view the Logroom >> Ship's Archive article with photo here.
The Honorary Crew Members menu item under Honors is now active. After wrestling with this concept for a year or so, running across John's info made me realize that the concept of Honorary Crew Member existed way before I thought of it, and there must be many riders, midshipmen, and project staff that carry a Bates Honorary Crew Member card. Of course, that means that we have many more sailors that have served on the Bates under TDY orders that need to be tracked down. Any takers?
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- Brad Williamson
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!
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- Brad Williamson
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
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
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.
