12 Years Ago Today

Yes, the Oklahoma City bombing occurred 12 years ago yesterday, but I did not hear about it until a day later.

At the time I was on the staff of Commander, Destroyer Squadron 22 (CDS 22) as the Staff ASW Officer and the Submarine Operations Officer. Our flagship was USS TICONDEROGA (CG47) which was serving as REDCROWN in the Adriatic Sea as part of Operation Sharp Guard. This included enforcing UN sanctions and the No-fly zone that was in effect. We were only one month into our 6 month Med deployment as part of the Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group (commanded by then RADM Fallon), and we were on our second of 4 weeks straight in the Adriatic. The Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group (they had 24MEU on board commanded by COL Marty Berndt) was also out there.

At that point in time, there was much strife and conflict in the countries which used to be Yugoslavia. Lots of other ships around from various countries, but we had the largest contingent. This was back in the good old days when lots of ships deployed with the carrier. In our case, we had two CGs, one CGN, one DDG, and two FFGs. We also had two SSNs attached, although they were for the most part out conducting other missions.

I think Tico and ARLEIGH BURKE were in the Adriatic, while the TR, HUE CITY, and MISSISSIPPI had gone on to the Arabian Gulf. Since my boss was the next senior guy, he became Commander Task Force 60, the Med Battle Force Commander. Since at that time the DESRON staffs were considered “Tactical Destroyer Squadrons” we only had about 12 people on the staff (we were not the ISIC for the ships as that went to CDS2 in Norfolk; the ISIC, Immediate Superior in Command, was responsible for admin, maintenance, manning, etc.) so we were very busy handling upwards of 1000 messages a day, none of which dealt with events outside the Med.

This particular day, I had an uneventful morning watch, and then had lunch in the wardroom. It was a beautiful day outside so I figured I would go hang out on the missle deck by the aft Mk26 launcher after lunch. It was so clear that we could see the mountains, even though we were 50-60 miles from shore. I remember thinking what a wonderful day it was and how much it was going to suck to go back to the space we used for our office to review message traffic and prepare the Commodore’s daily intentions message.

Now remember that this was 1995. We did not have email at sea or continuous live TV feeds. We only got news through the broadcast or when you pulled in and got mail. Because we had so much operational traffic to review and act upon, I barely gave the news and sports messages a second glance.

There was a third way to get the news: shortwave radio. One of the other guys on the staff had one of those radios that receives HF. He would go out to the missle deck after lunch every day, smoke a cigarette, and listen to the BBC.

Anyway, as I approached him, he asked me if I had heard the news. I, of course, said no, to which he replied listen to this. The BBC was carrying a story about how the Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City had been blown up by a truck bomb and that over 150 people had been killed.

Stopped me dead in my tracks.

I did not think Islamic jihadist or Al-queda POS. No, I figured it was some pissed-off American with a grudge who figured he would take out some fellow Americans as a means of protest. This was two years after Waco and only 2 ½ after Ruby Ridge. There was still lots of talk about militias here in the US and that is immediately who I thought had done it. It made me extremely angry. Here we are 50 miles off the coast of a country that has committed genocide and God knows what else and some SOB back home has to go kill a bunch of fellow Americans? Women and children? Man, I was pissed. We are trying to prevent the same thing from happening in Yugoslavia and it happens at home because a dumbass has his priorities wrong? Made me wonder how safe my wife was back in Chesapeake.

Anyway, I got over it pretty quick. Too much work.

We only got spotty news on it until we pulled into Genoa a couple of weeks later. Still sucked. That was definitely not the highpoint of the deployment, but it is one which I will never forget.