SSN 680 Plan of the Day
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- Brad Williamson
It's Tuesday night - 72 hours from now about 30 of us shipmates will be trying to figure out who's who, after 25 years. Seems hard to believe that we are down to the wire on this one. It was only the first week of last December when I heard from Bill Byers, who said, "are you the Brad Williamson that used to be in RC division on the William H. Bates?"
We felt that we were way too optimistic thinking we could pull off a get-together this year. Next year seemed like a much more conservative guess, but after a few phone calls, and a dozen emails, we had a core group from E and RC divisions in the early eighties, and the next thing you know, we were talking about a reunion - nothing major, mind you, just a 'let's all get together in the same place for a day or two and catch up' kind of reunion.
I volunteered to put together a little web page to help us coordinate, and the next thing you know, www.ssn-680.org is taking over the planet - at least the SSN-680 planet, anyway. Last week we had 47,000 page views from 2400 unique visits.
Bill kept pushing on the reunion thread, and Friday night we kick off REGROUPEX 09. Still hard to believe.
Bill is already checked into the Town and Country in San Diego, and other shipmates start arriving tomorrow night. I'll arrive Friday afternoon, and be there through Wednesday morning.
So, it's not too late. If you haven't registered, you're dink. Get hot, sign up, and show up. There is no trophy for second place.
I'll post here periodically when I get a few minutes so all you non-quals that couldn't make it can see what you're missing.
But don't take it too hard - I do hope to see you there.
And there is always next year.
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- Brad Williamson
Only nine days until REGROUPEX 09!
That's right - nine days left. September 4th, sometime in the evening, we will start convening in the rented suite at the Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center in San Diego, California, for a weekend of sun, surf, suds, sea-stories, and the occasional 'sea'-gar. (Sorry, I was working on the 's' words and just ran out.)
We currently have 28 former shipmates registered which is liable to make it a standing room only crowd, but we'll have to wait and see when we get there. There is still time to register using the REGROUPEX 09 button on most pages, and, quite frankly, it's not too late until the weekend is over, so if you are willing, we'd be glad to see you, even if you can't spend the whole weekend there.
In keeping with the finest traditions of the USS William H. Bates, and in deference to the principles by which this reunion was organized (using the word loosely) we have absolutely nothing planned. Seriously. We may arrange a group meal or two out, we may just send out for pizza. Who knows! We may take a cruise on the bay, we may just sit by the pool and swap sea-stories. The USSVI meeting starts Monday and they have more than enough organized for anybody who can stay and take some of it in, so we are just going with the traditional laid-back, Battlin' Billy Bates attitude, and see what happens.
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- Brad Williamson
While we currently have 278 registered members on board the site, Ernesto Maisonet, Yeoman First Class, on board from 1988 to 1991, is our 250th former shipmate to join the site.
That means we only have about 1000 more crew members to locate before we can take a breather.
So, if you remember 'Ernie' from back in the days, shout him out, and let him know he is welcome.
Regarding locating all our other missing shipmates, you're dink - get hot!
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- Brad Williamson
Roger Loesch, step-brother of Donald M. Pfannenstiel, reported back in April that Don, or "Puff" as some called him, had been hospitalized with back problems in Wichita, Kansas.
Don served on the Bates from about 1972 to 1975 according to his Classmates.com information.
Roger sent this update a few weeks back and I'm just getting around to updating the site. So, with apologies to Roger and Don...
...About Don, this is all the information I know:
He has recently returned home from Wichita where our sister Karen was caring for him. He had a couple surgeries on his back, plus for some reason he had a lot of fluid in his abdominal cavity. He ended up where he is paralyzed in his right leg and has been under going therapy to get him walking again...
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- Brad Williamson
Most of you have heard about the Maersk Alabama, the merchant ship seized by Somalian pirates back in April. The one where the Navy stepped in, popped a few caps, and reduced the net inventory of Somalian pirates by four, three of them permanently. The one where we all collectively sighed and said, "Finally, somebody is willing to send the message that we just aren't going to put up with this anymore!"
What you may not know is that the Chief Engineer on the Maersk Alabama is Mike Perry, brother of Steven Perry.
Steve was a shipmate of ours back in the 80's, a QM, who, despite all the abuse we gave him on the boat, turned out to be an pretty decent guy! Steve works up in the San Francisco Bay area in ship traffic control, and has recently joined the site here and has already contributed to our growing list of Sea Stories.
