Fire Prevention Week is an opportunity to call attention to the importance of fire safety, especially in the home, and to honor our Nation’s firefighters for their heroism.

Americans can help reduce home fires by taking simple steps such as regularly inspecting furnaces and fireplaces, keeping space heaters at least 3 feet from flammable materials, and checking the condition of electrical cords. Making sure that smoke alarms and fire extinguishers work can also help minimize the impact of home and building fires. I encourage all Americans to remember this year’s theme — “It’s Fire Prevention Week: Prevent Home Fires!” — and to check their homes for fire hazards to help prevent disasters.

Across our Nation, firefighters put themselves at risk to protect our communities, and their selfless dedication has saved countless lives. America’s Bravest hold a cherished place in our hearts, and we honor those who have paid the ultimate price to protect citizens in harm’s way. The sacrifice of these men and women is an inspiration to all and epitomizes the true meaning of heroism.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 5 through October 11, 2008, as Fire Prevention Week. On Sunday, October 5, 2008, in accordance with Public Law 107-51, the flag of the United States will be flown at half staff on all Federal office buildings in honor of the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Service. I call on all Americans to participate in this observance through appropriate programs and activities and by renewing their efforts to prevent fires and their tragic consequences.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this third day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Everyday in the Navy is Fire Prevention Day and every Sailor in the Navy learns firefighting - here is one reason why;

2009 Military Pay Chart

Fire Prevention Week

Part One
battle stations

Part Two
battle stations part 2

2009 Military Pay Chart

Boot Camp Battle Stations

“The streets were new to us, the signs with the engrish on them (attached photo) and the way just everything was situated. This will be our new home for a while and it was a lot to take in. On the base there are cliff like faces, the area itself seeming to be a sharp hilly terrain that was molded to allow buildings.

One off the base (after stopping by an ATM and getting yen out, 103 yen to the dollar) we entered the greater Yokosuka area. As an instant immersion, everyone around us was Japanese, all the buildings were labeled in Japanese with smatterings of English below the large Japanese lettering. We walked a ways that we thought was the train station (the brief we had gotten on locations having been back in may so our memories were a little fuzzy. After walking for 15-20 minutes, we decided we must have remembered wrong and went back the way we had come and went the opposite direction from the entrance to the base. I started asking people, “eigo wakarimasuka?” which is do you understand English?” which I got a few no’s to, so I then asked “Yokosuka-Chou wa doko desuka?” which is saying “Where is Yokosuka-Chou?” (the name of the train station, but also separately Yokosuka and Chou were both towns that were right there), I couldn’t remember the word for train at the time, but the first person I asked that to understood what I was looking for immediately and pointed and gave loose directions which I only caught most of, “…go straight this way…. it should be on the right… make sure to keep going straight… (advice we didn’t listen to exactly…)”. We were emboldened by our senses of direction now and after going down the street for a ways, decided on a sort of Y connection to make a right instead of going loosely straight which lead us slightly to the left. Well needless to say we didn’t find the train station in a timely manner and I stopped and asked for directions again. This time we were told a specific street to turn left at to get there. But after nodding profusely and setting out again, we realized that all the street signs were in Kanji and we couldn’t read them. We did however gauge accurately the distance in which she said it was and turn on the right street (whew) and made it to the Yokosuka-Chou train station!

It was there that we were met with 8-10 machines that looked like they gave tickets and 6 or so entryways that had ticket slot things. It seemed easy enough, we bought PASMO cards and put like 50$ (5000Y) on each card and went up to the machines, and with abandon each put out plastic cards into the paper ticket slots simultaneously jamming 4 of the 6 entryways. (oops.) The service guys were behind a window right next to the machines so they saw it all happen and came out and wordlessly opened each machine and returned each of our cards. He also pantomimed just whooshing the card in the air above this black square on the gates and viola it popped up with the amount of money on your card with a soft beep. We uttered a lot of “sumimasen”s and “gomennasai”s (pardon me, sorry) and walked quickly away from the scene. Who knows how many people jammed the machines that day and the day before. But now inside the train station we could see the interweb map of the trains of Tokyo/Yokohama. Its a crazy crazy map of like 20-30 train lines interconnecting and criss crossing all over with Japanese names all over the place for towns and stops and cities.

Luckily every place that had a Japanese name had its English written form below it. So we just found our destination (Akihabara) and saw which lines ran where. We would have to take the Zushi Line to Yokohama, then from there take the Tokaido Line in through Tokyo to Akihabara. As simple as all of that sounds, the 90 minute train ride that that is turned into a 3-4 hour ordeal of going more out of the way then in the right direction most cases; mistaken trains, mistaken directions, at one point we thought we were on the right train only to discover that we were about to arrive in a town that wasn’t close to where we were going, it took us 5 minutes to find where that town was on the map and realize we had again gotten on the wrong train (it really isn’t THAT hard, but for some reason we just had bad luck. lol) Sometimes a train that isn’t listed on the main placard will stop at that station, and you just have to check the signs ON the train itself to know. We just assumed that if it was stopping on that gate that it was the right train :). Lessons learned.

I will tell about Akihabara and Tokyo in another email.”

Son, I do look forward to it

2009 Military Pay Chart

First Day In Japan - Mass Transit

Congrats Millington!

Full speed ahead: Millington celebrates 10 years as heart of Navy

By Tom Bailey Jr. (Contact), Memphis Commercial Appeal
Sunday, September 28, 2008

Ten years ago, the Navy officially changed the purpose of its work in Millington from a technical training center to the service’s personnel headquarters.

Navy Personnel Command will celebrate its first decade at Naval Support Activity Mid-South with three days of events this week from Thursday through Saturday.

“I think we were all surprised when the decision was made to move everything out” to Millington, Rear Adm. Sonny Masso said of the recommendation in 1993 by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

“But we absolutely grew to have the feeling this was profoundly the right thing to do,” said Masso, commander of Navy Personnel Command.

Why? Millington is centrally located, Masso said. The former headquarters, Arlington, Va., is in the East.

The Personnel Command draws 60,000 visitors a year, mainly to sit on boards that make promotions and assignments.

“They come from the four corners of the nation,” Masso said.

Navy Personnel Command writes the assignment orders for more than 330,000 sailors worldwide.
Read the rest

2009 Military Pay Chart

A Decade in Millington

You must have vision correctable to 20/20, normal color and depth perception, normal audio metric hearing levels: Pure tone at 500, 1000, and 2000 cycles per second for each ear of not more than 30dB on the average with no individual level greater than 35dB at those frequencies. Pure tone level not more than 45dB at 3000 cycles per second or 55dB at 4000 cycles per second for each ear.

Must meet MANMED Article 15-97 standards for critical flight deck personnel.

Aviation Machinist’s Mate requires a 4 year enlistment obligation.

Non-US citizens are eligible.

You must meet all other qualifications for a regular enlistment in the United States Navy and the job must also be available for selection. See your Recruiter for additional information.

2009 Military Pay Chart

Aviation Machinist’s Mate

The Navy will be reducing the end-strength in 2009 requiring the overall billets available for Senior and Master Chiefs to decrease due to the caps dictated by Title 10. The Flag Officer number will increase in the face of these reductions.

When are we going to raise or eliminate the 1% cap on E-9 and the 2.5% cap for E-8?! If high year tenure restrictions were in place across all services why is this be a problem?

2009 Military Pay Chart

More Admirals, Less Master Chiefs?

You must have vision correctable to 20/20, normal color and depth perception, normal audiometric hearing levels: Pure tone at 500, 1000, and 2000 cycles per second for each ear of not more than 30dB on the average with no individual level greater than 35dB at those frequencies. Pure tone level not more than 45dB at 3000 cycles per second or 55dB at 4000 cycles per second for each ear.

Must meet MANMED Article 15-97 standards for critical flight deck personnel.

Aviation Boatswain’s Mate requires a 4 year enlistment obligation.

Non-US citizens are eligible.

You must meet all other qualifications for a regular enlistment in the United States Navy and the job must also be available for selection. See your Recruiter for additional information.

2009 Military Pay Chart

Aviation Boatswain’s Mate

Mullen Praises Recruiters for Success in Challenging Environment

By Army Staff Sgt. Michael J. Carden
American Forces Press Service

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 23, 2008 - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told more than 100 military Recruiters here yesterday that their work is vital to mission accomplishment, especially in an environment in which people who influence potential recruits are reluctant to steer them toward service in uniform.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen spoke to the Recruiters at the University of Southern California.

“We just cannot be a military without successful Recruiters,” Mullen said. “Recruiting is as important a duty assignment as any, and we need good people from every branch of service to recruit young people into the military.”

The military is busier than at any other time in the nation’s history, Mullen said. The past six-plus years of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the frequency of deployments, the lack of time at home stations between deployments and the expectations for success have made serving in today’s armed forces more challenging than ever, he added.

“The environment you’re recruiting in is the toughest we’ve ever known, and it’s a tough world to be engaged in,” he said. “We recognize there are challenges, but we just can’t move forward without what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.”

The fact that the military has sustained such a high tempo as an all-volunteer force makes it the best military the United States has ever had, the admiral said. Recruiting has been surprisingly successful in recent years, he added, but he noted that the characteristics that make the current generation of service members so great are the same ones that make the Recruiters’ jobs more difficult.

Today’s generation lives in a time of persistent conflict, he said, and a great many young people feel a responsibility to serve the nation in a time of need. But parents, teachers and other mentors are more reluctant to support the military, knowing that if their young people join, they’re likely going to war.

The stress of two wars is straining on the military, as thousands of Soldiers and Marines have deployed to combat three or four times since 2002. Mullen said increasing time between deployments, thus reducing the number of deployments by individuals, will be helpful when it can happen, but as long as the military needs to sustain its current high-tempo pace, Recruiters are going to be among the Defense Department’s top priorities.

“Your avocation to recruit young people into the military is as vital as any part of our profession,” he said. “I depend on you as great leaders, and there’s no success that gets generated more quickly and can be sustained more readily than that which occurs through great leadership.”

2009 Military Pay Chart

Success in Challenging Environment

When I was in NJROTC in high school our enlisted instructor was a retired Master Chief Electronics Technician who was Submarine Warfare qualified, he was very proud of his “Dolphins”. It was not until the early 1980’s (as I recall) that enlisted personnel could earn a surface warfare device, enlisted submariners have earned and worn their warfare device since about 1924. He was the main reason I choose ET school when I joined. Don’t really remember what made me stay on the surface…

In today’s Navy, Submarine Programs (not including jobs in the Nuclear Field) include Advanced Electronics Field/Missile Technician (AEF/MT), Submarine Electronics Communications Field (SECF), Machinist Mate Submarines (MMS), Culinary Specialist Submarines (CSS), Store Keeper Submarines (SKS), and Yeoman Submarines (YNS). You must exhibit the highest standards of personal conduct and reliability involving the operation and maintenance of a nuclear powered submarine. Only those who volunteer for Submarine Duty can and will serve on those boats that sink on purpose!

Contrary to what many people might think, you can in fact serve on submarines if you are color blind. Understand though that you will be restricted to CSS, SKS, and YNS. Submarines is currently only open to males (no exceptions) and cannot have yet reached your 31st birthday (age waivers can be sought).

It should be no surprise that you must demonstrate a high level of maturity and emotional/mental stability to be accepted. Your MEPS physical is good enough for initial entry but you will undergo additional physical screening while at boot camp and Submarine School.

As I mentioned, I am NO expert on Submarine Service but have found some solid resources which may help you get a sense of who chooses the Silent Service (I think I got a fair mix of officer and enlisted).  Here is a good list to get you started;

The Stupid Shall Be Punished
Molten Eagle
The Sub Report
SSN-687
Submarines Forever
Decks Awash
Sleepy Eyed Whiners of the Deep
Chapomatic

2009 Military Pay Chart

Boats that Sink on Purpose

Should human resource spending be legislated and packaged completely separate from project spending? Oh, what am I thinking, how would anything get approved if they can’t put a face on it… thoughts?

Minimum wage went up playing a part in weakening the dollar forcing investors to place assets into commodities (oil), driving up the price, making it more expensive for companies to operate driving up the cost of everyday items making the new minimum wage actually worth less than the previous.

Should military recruiting be a joint command? Currently all five services are spending money and resources looking for the same people… Could a Sailor find a Soldier? Could an Airman find a Marine? Heck, just think of the money we would save reducing our efforts down to a single NASCAR!

When was the last time you gave blood?

Libya to receive reparations for Reagan air strike. Country will be paid ’settlement’ for U.S. retaliation after terrorist attack. It wasn’t long ago the victors wrote history, today the victors pay reparations…

If authorities tell you to evacuate an area and you make a decision to stay how are you a “victim” if the worst happens? If you have to be rescued should you have to pay for the resources used to come get you?

How is it a $700 billion bail out is a good idea but tax cuts to corporations are not?

Congratulations to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays!

Until next time, Stay safe!

2009 Military Pay Chart

Weekend Wonder