USS Minneapolis-St. Paul Inactivated
USS Minneapolis-St. Paul (SSN 708) was inactivated today in a ceremony in Norfolk. Eleven
It's always a bittersweet moment when a boat ends her active service. For those of us, like me, who know that ships have "souls" (made up of all the blood, sweat, and tears of the men who have served on her) it's nice to know that a boat that has served honorably and well can get some well-deserved rest.Update 2156 24 June: Corrected to update the number of COs present; I had fallen for the classic blunder of believing the Navy NewsStand text that said 11 of 12 former COs were there, and assumed those were in addition to the current one.
Also, the MSP Family Support Group has a photo website that includes pictures the families took of the inactivation ceremony; here's one of them:
The other family photos of the inactivation ceremony are here.
posted by Bubblehead at 11:25 PM
13 Comments:
Actually, it was 11 of the 12 CO's were present (including three admirals- Beers, Metzger, and Lotring).
6/23/2007 8:06 PM
ut oh bubblehead, you got corrected. :-)
6/23/2007 11:14 PM
so which CO was missing?
6/24/2007 12:10 AM
The missing CO probably was the one in command when the Minneapolis-St. Paul ran out of food while underway.
I'm still wondering how the Supply Officer survived that fiasco. The crew should have used him for a water slug before the boat even got back into port. And then the CO didn't fire him. Say again, smarter?
6/24/2007 7:25 AM
The one CO that was unable to attend was CDR Ferrer, and I understand he really wanted to be there and didn't blow it off lightly.
No, the CO at the time of the food shortage was Admiral Beers, and they actually told that story at the ceremony. I don't think that was due to the Chop's poor planning so much as it was urgent national tasking. As I understand it, they had finished the mission and were supposed to come home when they got orders to turn around and go back on station. At the ceremony, Admiral Metzger joked about peanut butter and jelly being a hot commodity, and kind of hard to eat without any bread on board. :-)
6/24/2007 2:14 PM
It's my understanding (from one who was there) that the sum total of the number of "mission" days plus the number of days "back on station" was less than ninety. If so, then the food shortage was the Chop's fault.
As the story was told to me, they were pretty much down to jello before they got back into port. And when the CO said he didn't want his jello at one meal (that WAS the meal), two of the department heads almost came to blows over who got the CO's jello.
A different, warm-weather-homeported sub discovered at the North Pole that the Weps hadn't brought along any of the boat's exposure suits. Oops!
It just goes to show that each member of the crew, from the junior-most messcrank up to the CO, has to do their job properly or everyone suffers.
6/26/2007 12:27 PM
It sure is sad to see her inactivated. i served on her from 88-90. We had a scare once when we had a jam rise on the stern planes. she brought us all home to safety. what is her future now?
6/17/2009 11:58 AM
Rondorf was frocked to Radmlh just before his retirement. He is the one on the right of the ones in suits.
7/17/2010 12:07 PM
I served on board from 89-93, so many great memories for me. Rest easy you have done your job.
2/01/2011 2:06 PM
I was on that deployment when we ran out of food. The cooks let the crew eat too much because it was only supposed to be thirty days and turned into near ninety. The wardroom shoved pancakes into the chop's slot box because there was no butter to put on the pancakes. The RMs drew up Dolphins that were just the skeletons and we taped them on to our poopi suites.
They raffled off the last 5 jars of peanut butter for MWR. Adm Beers was a popcorn fan and had brought a movie theater style popper on board. When we got down to two meals a day, if you got off watch on a non meal cycle you ate popcorn. The guys put everything on the popcorn, hot sauce and even the nassty chutney that no usually ate. They broke off our "TMA Exercise" when the CO finally radiod in and said we were out of coffee and cigerettes. The last meal served prior to entering port was Dinty Mor Stew and sardines. I lost 20 pounds.
4/24/2011 11:10 PM
Does anyone remember the great storm of 1991? I was SK3(SS) Timothy Freeman who went to the bridge and the waves were so dreat we took on water through the bridge. contact me ASAP. IMPORTANT one2rock@hotmail.com
6/09/2011 6:02 PM
So, I don't actually believe this will work.
10/16/2011 11:55 PM
Anyone remember the great T-9 manual hunt?
Or angles and dangles to run the pinewood derby car race?
Or the XO losing his door?
Or the chiefs losing their table?
Or naval reactors coming underway for a dog and pony show 30 strong and leaving 1/3 of the crew behind in Ft Lauderdale
6/03/2012 2:59 PM
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