My youngest son, for whom I have developed a long and lasting affection for, is now at sea on a conventional aircraft carrier and will be so assigned during the roll over. What do you all think his duty will be if we GI's are correct? I think perhaps he will be occupied in evacuating US personnel from countries in the mediteranian. What do you think?

Bill in South Carolina

-- Bill Solorzano (notaclue@webtv.net), October 17, 1999

Answers

It's so good to see someone else from S.C. I'm near Columbia.

-- cURLY~q (Curly@Q.COM), October 17, 1999.

Bill,

I'm not sure if you had a chance to read or hear any of the testimony given on October 13th before the Senate. One of the gov reps, a woman named from the State Department, said that at the end of this month there will be a determination made as to where and which non-essential personnel well be "evacuated". I believe that the evacuations will be made through the month of November with the goal of having all completed by December 1.

The end of this month should be an interesting time.

I think it's very wise actually that all active Navy vessels be deployed out to sea during the rollover.

Mike

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-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), October 17, 1999.

There's a good chance that the US Navy will play the role of the old Cavalry for retreiving US citizens and other Westerners from harm's way around the world. Hopefully it will not require sending in the Marines for any operation. We really don't want large numbers of American troops going ashore when the concern should be about getting Americans offshore. But in any event I wouldn't limit where your son might end up to just the Med.

More trouble-prone areas would be the Persian Gulf, where the large community of American workers could be endangered. And also the US troops in-country for air operations over southern Iraq and those troops supporting the stockpile of US equipment located there for possible use against Saddam. Then there are the African, Central and South American countries where Y2k troubles may spark anti-American activity.

In any eventuality, your son could be in for a very busy year's end and first half of year 2000. Be assured that some of us will be very seriously adhering to the call "PRAY FOR OUR TROOPS".

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), October 17, 1999.

Another US Navy question would be to ponder when the US sub fleet will go silent before Y2K.

After all, they are the one type of military vessel immune to any civil unrest, but would you want to be 1000 feet underwater in a classified place as the on-board clocks rollover on the computers?

In order to maintain some nuclear deterrent, I believe there will be NO communication from them by DEC 1 at the latest.

IF anyone out there has a relative or family member onboard a sub, it would be good to hear your comments.

-- profit_of_doom (doom@helltopay.com), October 17, 1999.

Communication for any sub "on station" for personal information is one-way, to the sub. The sub didn't use to transmit messages from the sub for personal messages to minimize detection risk. Once your out there you are out there...

-- Squid (itsdark@down.here), October 17, 1999.

* * * 19991018 Monday

Hmmm... Hope the Navy has trained the swabbies to use those Y2K- COMPLIANT(!) sextants from 1,000 feet under the surface!

My brother, USAF, is in Japan, where they've practiced at least a half-dozen base-wide blackout contingency exercises since March, 1999!

His, his family's, and his comrade's Y2K fates will be in their own hands.

Bill: I wish you and yours well!

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus@hotmail.com), October 18, 1999.

What has always been an annoying little suspicion in my mind is just how are our troops (about 50-60% of our total strength) supposed to get home if Y2k deteriorates into REAL chaos? If they can't be re- supplied, how "welcome" will they be in an Infomagic scenario? WHY do we have that many troops and personnel (AND dependents) dispersed overseas? Or is that three suspicions? :)

-- chairborne commando (what-me-worry@armageddon.com), October 18, 1999.

Political, Political, Political. The present commander in oval office op's thinks the military is HIS personal little toy. He has no feelings for his own top people (remember the funeral where he was laughing until the camera caught him.) The military will remain at most of their stations to prevent panic at home and maintain the everythings all right view. The cannon fodder is also positioned to perform actions in defense of area's that are "in the vital interest of the United States." There were reports from army operations at a small local US airport with the local power turned off. This pissed off the locals and scared the extremists that this was training for local US op's. More likely this is training for the possibility? that US troops will have to secure a hostile foreign airport to remove US nationals and/or military personnel. This shows the problem for the military, how to train without feeding panic. The biggest threat is a combined attack by both North to South Korea and China at Taiwan. We would have trouble fighting two conflicts under normal operations. What if the foreign airports we forward operate out of are unavailable? Pass the spam....

-- Squid (Itsdark@down.here), October 18, 1999.