The Submariner’s Lament; When you remember

The story called “When you understand” was posted originally on Facebook in April 2014. It has been shared over 9711 times in the time it has been on Facebook On May 22, 2018, the short story I composed in October of 2014 (originally titled “When you understand”) was formally registered with the United States Copyright Office with the […]

With all this new stuff, why is everybody so unhappy?

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the state of the Navy and the other seagoing forces. To be sure, there have been a lot of technological advances in the past twenty years since I hung up my sword (literally). Submarines have reached new levels of sophistication that make them more efficient than ever before. […]

RIP Dex Armstrong, After Battery Rat and Well Loved Submariner

Robert “DEX” Armstrong, Legendary ‘After Battery Rat’ on Eternal Patrol Submitted by: Pat Householder on 7/8/2014 ——————————————————— Dex cast off the lines of life at 6:20 AM EST July 8, 2014 and sailed off on his final patrol. A larger than life character with a remarkable talent for writing thoughts and actions that all […]

A little respect… 42 years later, its still not that big of a deal

Recently I was following a post on one of my submarine Facebook pages. The original guy had posted about a lack of recognition. To be fair, he had a lot of supporters and frankly I can’t give him a hard time since I have seen some of this through the years myself. “Okay I have […]

AFDB-7 Los Alamos Holy Loch Scotland “IN THE BEGINNING…”

For the second time in the history of theleansubmariner, I am posting an article from a Shipmate that I have come to know via our common interests in history and events that shaped it. This article comes from Norman Rachels SWE4 (formerly of the United States Navy). Norm was one of the guys who arrived early […]

March 29 … Coming Home

Originally posted on theleansubmariner:
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. (Robert Frost) Can there be any better feeling than coming home after a journey? It’s always exciting for me to travel around the world and in the past forty two years I have been…

When it comes to security in the world, not much has changed since 1964

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuQ-3wxPCtM

shhhhh… Can you keep a secret?

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack Submarines by their very nature are designed to operate in an atmosphere of stealth. The fact that they operate beneath the ocean’s surface places them in a dangerous environment under the best of circumstances. From the very beginning of […]

“hey… you have the next watch”

Watches in the military have been around since the beginning of recorded time. The Jews, like the Greeks and Romans, divided the night into military watches instead of hours, each watch representing the period for which sentinels or pickets remained on duty. The proper Jewish reckoning recognized only three such watches, entitled the first or […]

“Ever a Submariner” by Jody Durham, MM2/SS (A Gang)

I am obviously a sucker for a great submarine story. I spend much of my free time researching stories about a rare breed of men who chose voluntarily to sail on ships designed by their creators to sail beneath the oceans surface. I was recently introduced to Jody Durham, a fellow Cold War sailor (and […]