The 2024 Gathering of the Saints is finally over.

I have been absent from the keyboard for a while as we executed our latest reunion in Charleston SC.

The planning for the reunion started at the end of 2023 and was non-stop until the very last day of the event.

One thing about reunions is that you have to really pay attention to all of the details before during and after.

I had planned three previous gatherings in addition to close to a hundred business off-site meetings in my prior life as a business excellence manager.

First and foremost, I want to thank the crew members and their wives that participated.

It is always great to see old friends and make new ones. The USS San Francisco SSN 711 was built and commissioned in 1981. She remained active until a few years ago when they converted her to a Moored Training Ship (MTS). She is currently one of three vessels used to train the nuclear power professionals that serve in our Navy. The unique thing now is that we are also training the Australian Navy nucs as well. Our crew members that participated had several chances to interact with them and some of us shared fond memories of our visit to the Land Down Under many years ago.

Second, I am incredibly grateful to the Charleston USSVI Base for their hospitality.

We were invited to participate in several key submarine related events during our stay. The first was the Submarine Birthday and Holland Club initiation ceremony for 2024.

 

Our group was welcomed as true brothers of the Phin and it was an honor for me to be included (along with my great friend Master Chief Corpsman Raymond “Doc” Pelland) as we both received our Gold Hats and certificates. The Subbase Leadership went out of their way, and I am proud to be a part of such a remarkable team.

Friday afternoon, a number of us went to visit the After Battery which is a submarine shrine run by some awesome submarine veterans. If you are ever in the Charleston area and you need a submarine fix, this is the place to go to. We had a delicious Low Country Boil and some beverages. I can’t remember eating any better and having better hosts.

The After Battery Home

 

We also got to participate in the Annual Tolling of the Boats ceremony on Saturday morning. This ceremony is a tribute to the lost boats from World War 2 and beyond. RADM Michael Sharp gave the keynote speech and focused on the great sacrifices made during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. It was thoughtful and well received by all present. This year, the 711 crew also got to pay homage to some of their own.

We lost our friend and first Commanding Officer Captain Al Marshall earlier this year.

His daughter and granddaughter were in attendance, and they presented a plaque to the Subbase that Al had previously sent to me.

I am sure he would have looked down from heaven and smiled that day.

Joy Goode was there with her husband, and they shared in the remembrance of her son Keshon Askew that sadly passed while serving on board the boat.

We took a few moments to remember MM2(SS) Joe Ashley as well as so many others that have gone on eternal patrol.

I am personally very grateful to the Charleston USSVI Leadership for allowing us to be part of the service.

Third, it was amazing to work with the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command Family

We had several opportunities to be with the future of the Nuclear Navy. The first was at the Friday picnic that was given for the students, staff, their families, the USSVI base and of course our team. Several observations about the picnic. Either I am getting very old (I am) or they are really recruiting very young people (they are). Our interactions with the young people were very nice. Many asked us about life on a real submarine and what places we liked to visit. They were a polite and respectful group as a whole. When I see all the chaos around the country right now, I am glad that our servicemembers demonstrated that this new generation still has a lot of hope. We also got to intermingle with the Australian sailors and some of their officers. They are part of the AUKUS Team and we made a lot of great friends.

Members of the training command attended the Tolling Ceremony. The Color Guard came from the school and did an excellent job. Afterwards, our team got together for a family picture in front of the memorial.

Saturday evening was the Charleston Submarine Ball. The location changed a couple of times but the final choice at the downtown Charleston Marriott ended up being a great choice. A few days prior to the event, I was contacted by the training command about a speaker. As we talked, I volunteered, and the Command Master Chief was excited to hear my story. Since the theme of the birthday was the Nautilus and I had several personal connections to the Nautilus, things seemed to work out pretty well. The Nautilus is seventy years old and this May, I will turn seventy as well. Anyone who has read my blog knows that I am from Western Pennsylvania and grew up not far from Bettis Atomic plant. My Uncle Jack worked for Westinghouse and had a role in many of the early submarine power plant developments. Since this year coincided with my Holland Club membership, it gave me enough to talk about. My favorite picture was of the Four Warrants.

Lessons Learned – Please Read if you ever decide to organize a reunion (or visit North Charleston)

This is the fourth gathering that I have arranged. The first three were amazing and manageable. I learned some lessons from them but will freely admit that I did not learn quite enough for this one. The events were all pretty well received. We made a lot of new friends and renewed a lot of old friendships. It would be fantastic if I could give a stellar after-action report but there would be a big hole in this report if I wasn’t brutally honest. I would hope that anyone that takes on the task of arranging one of these in the future pays attention to the lessons I learned. They have come at a pretty great personal expense. More about that at the end.

There are several steps that I have tried to take in the past. First, contact the local visitor’s bureau and establish a local connection. The purpose for this is to find out if there are military reunion friendly hotels and venues. Once this is done, put together a list of priorities and make a spreadsheet so that you can measure the proposals that will follow. Important questions should include food and beverage options, room price and options, location to major transportation hubs (airports, trains), hotel ratings, hospitality rooms and frankly hotel experience in handling military reunions of any size.

We did this in Charleston, and I had several folks look over the list. I received ten different proposals and scored them. I also had conversations with the three hotels that floated to the top of the list. All three gave me answers that indicated flexibility with working with our unique requirements and needs. In the end, the North Charleston Marriott was selected. Being close to the airport tipped the scales since a number of the early responses had indicated that was important. My first lesson learned is that I should have tried harder to get someone local to check the hotel out a lot closer before signing a contract. I can assure you a different decision would have been made.

Things to look for in a hotel

First, don’t take their word that they are military reunion friendly. Get written references from people who have actually used that facility. I missed this step, and it was an expensive miss.

You can find out ahead of time that no outside food or beverage can be brought into the hotel despite some fleeting assurances from the sales team that they would work with you. In most cases, if it’s not in writing, they will not. And the sales team will not have any memory of any conversations otherwise. The result is that you end up paying for minimum quantities of food at outrageous prices per piece.

SO, at your hospitality room (where you have to pay a fee for the room) you can have four separate finger food items at four dollars a “piece” with a minimum of fifty pieces shoots your budget full of holes in a dash. To make it worse, the food was not appetizing, the service was horrible, and you only get to have it out for two of the six hours you contracted for. The young lady who came and fetched the remaining food at the two-hour mark was rude to several of us. About a third of the food that was brought out was still in the pans since it was so awful. I guess I should have thanked her for taking it away. I made a promise that night that I will never again pay four dollars for a jalapeno popper that was barely edible.

The overall response from the crew and family is that this was the least military friendly place they had stayed at. Kind of surprising considering the history and presence of such a large navy facility. 

The Bar was a trip as well. Since we were not allowed to bring anything of our own, they placed us in a room next to the bar. After the event was already underway, the barman informed me that he had to charge me a twenty percent surcharge. Another lesson learned is to get that in writing as well.

The second big thing that we discovered was that not all three-star hotels are created equally. The shock on Debbie’s face when we were shown to the first room was terrible. The room was one of the smallest rooms I have seen in my fifty years of traveling. There was no place to put any clothes and there were no drawers at all. One of the hidden perks of arranging events like this is that every other hotel recognized the effort the organizer put into the event and made sure the room was special. Think about that for a moment. As the organizer, you are basically doing their job for them. Even if you don’t make the minimum number of rooms you first thought, every guest room that are filled runs for over two hundred dollars a night (for four nights), people eat breakfast in the hotel, drinks are purchased at the bar. All of this is like having a non-paid employee bringing in business. This is the first hotel that I used that gave that no thought at all.

They did move us to a room with slightly more space but still had no place to put your clothes. By comparison, we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express on the way down and the way back and you could have had an entire family in those.  With amazing amenities and a pool. Perhaps they thought that since we were submariners, the tight and uncomfortable rooms would make us feel at home. I was not surprised to hear from the rest of the crew staying there that they had the same experience. 

The third big red flag to look for is that the staff you dealt with never come and talk to you during the visit unless you make a big deal about the lack of communication. I have had hundreds of offsite meetings and sessions as a corporate trainer and organizer. In all of those years, I can’t remember a single time that I did not have the guest services or salespeople come and meet with me personally. I guess they were too busy.

The last thing I have learned is that even though you think you have verbal assurances that they will work with you if the minimum number of guests is not met, don’t believe it.

If you do, you should expect a charge on your credit card (with no notification) and there is nothing you can do about it. Since we are on a fixed income (I am now 90 percent service-connected disabled) we are going to scramble a bit now to cover the $6000.00 unexpected debt. The saddest thing is that we only found out about it when we got the Visa bill in the mail. No one talked to us before we left. They only responded when I called and tried to get an honest breakdown of the charges. That took two separate requests and I still have no assurance that I was told the truth. I guess customer service means something completely different than what I taught in all of those business classes over the past thirty years.

One good thing out of all of this is that I have a number of shipmates that are stepping up and helping us financially.

I am forever in debt to Mike Sharp for helping to organize the efforts to help us recover from this learning experience.

I have been getting hit with many emails and I am grateful to everyone for their help. 

Final note: If you walk into a hotel, look for a few indicators.

If it’s a nice place and cares about customers, they will have a coffee bar in the lobby that is free, fresh and open 24 hours like Holiday Inn Express and Sheraton Brands do.

It’s a small thing but it tells the customer they are welcomed and valued.

I can assure you that you will not find one at the North Charleston Marriott.

Bon Voyage

Mister Mac