1) Submarine arsonist Casey Fury pled guilty and faces a recommended 15 to 19 year sentence. Although I would have loved to see them go for life, I'm really hoping they put him on the hook for the $450 million in damage after he gets out, such that the maximum allowed portion of his post-prison income goes to restitution.
2) A Russian Sierra II attack submarine (or "Seirra 2", according to ABC) has been detected off the East Coast, and is now heading home. It's a good sign of US-Russian cooperation when they send their boats to us for our submarines to get their training in. Thanks, Vlad! I'm just hoping that boats returning from deployment don't get delayed from coming home to join in the fun.
3) USS Boise (SSN 764), named after the capital of Idaho, celebrated the 20th anniversary of her commissioning this week, and returned from deployment yesterday, the day after the anniversary. I note with interest that she deployed on May 2nd, and returned from deployment on November 8th. I guess LANTFLT is adding 6 days to normal deployments nowadays. Here's an article with a video, and a picture:
4) The Iranians fired, unsuccessfully, on a U.S. drone over the Arabian Gulf. Having spent a deployment on a carrier in the Gulf and becoming very familiar with the Iranian claims of territorial waters vs. what we recognize (the Iranians claim some "straight baseline" water more than 12 miles from their shore that we correctly state is not in accordance with international law), I have no doubt that 1) our drone was over international waters as we recognize them, and 2) the drone was over waters the Iranians wrongly claim. When we were seizing Iraqi tankers back in 2000, we'd board them in those "grey" area waters, since the Iranians gave the tanker skippers charts showing how they could stay in Iranian waters, and they included the portions that we didn't recognize. I'm glad to see we're continuing to defend the international standard in determining territorial water, and hope we don't back down from the mullahs.
5) On a personal note, I just remembered I posted this right after the election 4 years ago. Now cancer-free for 44 months. Thanks to all the readers who supported me back in the day and throughout the process.
