SSN 680 Plan of the Day
The USS WILLIAM H. BATES (SSN 680) West reunion for 2025, LAS VEGAS 25, is coming together and we need your action and feedback.
First, the critical information.
WHEN: 5 - 8 MAY 2025 - only 167 days away as of today!
WHERE: Tuscany Suites & Casino, Las Vegas, NV
WHO: You, of course, and as many SSN 680 shipmates as we can convince to join us!
Early May should allow us to miss the searing southern Nevada heat. The hotel is located off the strip, so we won’t be bombarded by the bulk of the tourist traffic, but within a relatively short walking distance (15 minutes) for those who wish to take the unique sites, sounds, and smells of Las Vegas in all its glory, and ground transportation is available for those longer trips.
We are not planning activities for this reunion expecting that, given the wide range of entertainment available, group activities will emerge spontaneously. That doesn’t rule out a reunion dinner and the traditional tolling of the bell ceremony, but we will await your feedback before we get carried away.
So, what to you need to do?
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Back in June we first announced REGROUPEX 25 as the next USS WILLIAM H. BATES (SSN 680) reunion.
What I expected was not what turned out. Things got complicated.
It had been over seven years since our last REGROUPEX reunion. The bell has tolled for some of those who were with us in Orlando in 2017. All of us are seven years closer to ‘shipping our own oars’. Yet there are still things to do, sights to see, places to go, and sea stories to be told.
Time and tide wait for no man, it is said, and we cannot afford to miss an opportunity for shipmates to gather. Deliberation over the where, when, and what regarding a reunion led us to an unexpected conclusion - that one is not enough!
As a result, 2025 will bring us not one, but two reunions.
The first, to be held in early May, will be organized simply, much in the fashion of REGROUPEX 09 and will take place in Las Vegas, NV, just off the strip and the excitement that is Las Vegas!
Designate contact LAS VEGAS 25!
“The Dink List has grown to unacceptable proportions!”, the COB bellowed at the assembled mass of non-quals in the Crew’s Mess. “There will be no liberty until that, that, that damn list”, his finger pointing at the wrinkled paper taped to the bulkhead, spittle flying from his lips, “is EMPTY!”
At least that’s how I remember it! Your experience may have been either more or less fun.
Our dink list is a bit different, but just as unacceptably long. It represents all the Bates shipmates registered at coldwarboats.org whose email addresses are no longer valid, as indicated by our ‘bounce’ tracker.
If you recognize a name here, and have a way of tracking them down, please do so, post haste, and get them to update their email, street address, and phone number on the website.
And don’t forget to let them know that, until they do, they are missing out on much, including planning for REGROUPEX 25!
It’s been seven years since our last reunion. In 2017, the last time we met in Orlando, the consensus was that we ought to be getting together every three years or so.
2020 came and went, with the lockdown and isolation squashing our reunion hopes fast than you can say “liberty ports confirmed through Hobart!”
2023 looked like a possibility, but the Navy was still restricting access to bases and boat tours, and before we knew it, 2024 was on us like a Sturgeon-class stretch hull on a Victor III - undetected, unexpected, and soon to vanish.
So here we are.
Miles Bradley poked us awake, as surely as a messenger yanking back the rack curtains. Ron Squiers and Scott Elder joined in the conversation, all starting with Miles’ question, “Any more reunions?”
The answer was a resounding yes, and now more than ever, which is how it must begin.
REGROUPEX 25 will be the next USS WILLIAM H. BATES (SSN 680) reunion. At the moment, we don’t know where, and we don’t know when, but we do know how.
That how depends on you…telling us what you think, volunteering to help, making your voice and support heard. After all, it’s you we do this for!
Deck Logs were the UNCLASSIFIED records of ship's position, arrival and departure ports, and significant UNCLASSIFIED events that occurred during an average day in the life of the USS WILLIAM H. BATES (SSN 680).
One could determine the location, how that position was determined, which port the boat departed from, where it was heading, and who had the OOD at any given moment during the day.
Significant events recorded included casting off, mooring, emergencies like fires and injuries, reactor startups and shutdowns, drills that affected the ship as a whole, and even adminsitrative actions like Captain's Mast.
Deck Logs for January, May, and October 1978 have been recently uploaded to the SSN 680 site.
These three months show the full range of ship's activity recorded in the logs, from the sheer boredom of daily routine tied to the pier, through fast cruise, underway surfaced, submerging and surfacing, and drills and routine tedium that help fill our days on the 680. By October, we were somewhere in the Sea of None of Your Business doing what we were trained to do, so the October log is essentially empty, it being classified and all.
