You’re invited to a special presentation by the Commanding Officers of PCU Arizona (SSN 801) and PCU Utah (SSN 803). These amazing submarines are under construction and the Commanding Officers are in Pearl Harbor over the next week and will be providing these presentations in person. There is no charge to attend.
Please join us thisThursday December 5, 2024, Noon to 1:00pm at the Arizona Memorial – Pearl Harbor National Memorial Theatre for a historic presentation by
The Commanding Officer of the Future CDR Chris Hornung, U.S. Navy Commanding Officer PCU USS Utah (SSN 801) Read more HERE.
Please join us thisSunday December 8, 2024, at 10:30am at the Arizona Memorial – Pearl Harbor National Memorial Theatre for a historic presentation by
The Commanding Officer of the Future CDR Tom E. Digan Jr., U.S. Navy Commanding Officer PCU USS Arizona (SSN 803) Read more HERE.
NOTE: Please be advised that bags are not allowed in the park and there is a $7 parking fee for those who drive and park at the park.
Today, across the nation and here in Hawai’i Nei, we celebrate Thanksgiving – a day to gather with family and friends and give thanks for the many blessings we enjoy in our lives every day. It is also a time to be thankful for the many people who contribute every day to our communities and country.
As we take this time to pause and reflect, let us remember those who are quietly celebrating while underway or forward deployed around the world. While we talk with family, they have the watch. We’ve all been there and know those mixed feelings of pride at accomplishing the mission, but also missing our loved ones while deployed during this time. For those at home, please keep these shipmates in your thoughts and prayers.
But, Thanksgiving is also a time to remember those less fortunate, and to show compassion to those in need – not only today, but every day.
“In this spirit, Thanksgiving has become a day when Americans extend a helping hand to the less fortunate. Long before there was a government welfare program, this spirit of voluntary giving was ingrained in the American character. Americans have always understood that, truly, one must give in order to receive. This should be a day of giving as well as a day of thanks.” Ronald Reagan
So today, as we give thanks for all our blessings, let us look for new ways to give generously of ourselves, too. All of our actions, no matter how small, have an impact.
From our ‘Ohana to yours, we wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving (Hau’oli La Ho’omakika’i)!
The USS Minnesota arrived Tuesday at Naval Base Guam, the first Virginia-class fast-attack submarine to be homeported in the strategically important U.S. territory.
The Navy has determined that leasing out land for construction and operation of a pair of biofuel and solar energy plants at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam would pose no significant environmental impact.
One 10-acre site would house a biofuel-powered generation plant. A separate 15 acres would hold a photovoltaic solar generating system. Both sites would house lithium-ion battery storage systems.
The locations would be connected to the existing distribution system operated by Hawaiian Electric Co., which provides roughly 95% of the state’s electricity.
Submarine Museum Scholarships Lay Foundation for Future Trade Careers
As part of its commitment to preparing students for the local trade industry, eight Honolulu Community College students recently received scholarships funded by the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum (PFSM) to further their education.
An initial endowment of $26,000 – provided by the submarine’s Pacific Fleet Submarine Memorial Association and managed by the University of Hawai‘i Foundation – provides $3,000 scholarships to each of the HCC eight students for this school year. Submarine museum officials and the board of directors visited the HCC campus last week to meet and acknowledge the scholarship winners. Read more HERE.
A wide-ranging veterans policy bill that would bolster home caregiver programs and support for homeless veterans, among other areas, was approved by the House on Monday evening after election-season politics stalled the bill for months.
Tweaks were made to the legislation between when it was first introduced over the summer and Monday’s vote that got Democrats on board with the bill, allowing it to easily pass the House in a bipartisan 389-9 vote.
As the Navy battles ongoing schedule delays, supply chain problems, and workforce challenges in its effort to produce more submarines, the service may need to turn to private repair shipyards to rebuild capacity, says the vice chair of the House Armed Services Committee.
“I would argue that there is some additional capability at existing yards. But one of the untapped potentials there are the ship maintenance yards,” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., said at a Defense One event. “Ship maintenance yards have a whole bow wave of work that comes in, they get the work done, and then the work drops off.”
The lead ship in the Navy’s new class of nuclear ballistic missile submarines will deploy in 2030, a service official said Thursday.
Speaking at the annual Naval Submarine Symposium, Matt Sermon emphasized the Navy’s commitment to delivering the future USS District of Columbia (SSBN-826) on time.
“Shipbuilders out there, supply chain, major mechanical equipment out there, stakeholders out there, we’re going to have District of Columbia on patrol in 2030,” Sermon, the executive director of the strategic submarines program executive office at Naval Sea Systems Command, told the audience.
A Navy sailor assigned to a nuclear submarine scaled the wall of a burning apartment building to save multiple people, including an entrapped woman and her son Tuesday, an act captured on video by a bystander.
The video shows Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Journey, an Electronics Technician Nuclear, assigned to the USS Albany fast attack submarine in Norfolk, climbing to a narrow ledge on the exterior of an apartment as a woman calls for help from a window and as smoke and flames close in. Journey pulled the woman and her son from the flames, easing them into the arms of the crowd beneath.
Journey also helped rescue two more people from a different window using a ladder before the apartment was fully engulfed.
As we go about our busy lives tomorrow, let’s not forget to take a moment to celebrate the service of all U.S. military veterans past and present.
Originally known as Armistice Day. In 1918, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in World War I, then known as “the Great War.” Commemorated in many countries as Armistice Day the following year, November 11th became a federal holiday in the United States in 1938. In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day became legally known as Veterans Day dedicated to American veterans of all wars. There are an estimated 20 million living Veterans today, with approximately 100 thousand in Hawaii.
Veterans Day is a time to honor not just those who have fought for us in battle, but all of the outstanding men and women who served in our nation’s armed forces since our founding 245 years ago.
Not all veterans have seen war, but a common bond that they all share is the oath, to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, an oath that expressed their willingness to die defending this great nation and our way of life.
Every individual who has ever served in the U.S. military has taken an oath to “Support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic… So help me God.” But with this oath, there was no expiration date. And many veterans take this oath as seriously today as the day they enlisted (10, 20, 30, 40, 50 or 75 years ago), an oath that everyone of them will keep, till their last breath.
Perhaps, most significant in preserving our way of life and defending freedom, are the battles that America does not have to fight.
I believe President Lincoln said it best,“Honor to the Soldier, and Sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country’s cause. Honor also to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as he best can, the same cause —honor to him, only less than to him, who braves, for the common good, the storms of heaven and the storms of battle.”
We salute all our veterans who have made our great country possible.
As we commemorate those that served, let us be mindful of the 81,248 Americans who remain missing from WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Gulf Wars, and other conflicts.
God bless you, God bless Hawai’i, and God bless America!
Bowfin Pearl Harbor Base 