Originally Posted by OMCHamlin
Not riding any subs, but always being where they are based, I can say I’ve seen more than one boat come in covered up, and perhaps dry docked at night with big tarps placed here and there. These were pretty much during the 80s and 90s as the Cold War was winding down. Sometimes you heard stuff, sometimes you heard about the weather.
One of my R4 Division Officers was the A-Nav on Parche back “in the day”. You could sure tell he wanted to share some sea stories, but he was the consummate professional warrior, and the most John would ever say was “read the book, Chief”…
I heard he passed only a few short years after he retired, he was a Mustang and taught me a lot (more then your average “O-ganger” should) about being a good Chief…


Chief Hamlin, I’m I worked with your shop in Groton while doing special equipment installs and system certifications of deploying attack submarines 84-87. The OMs there were hard working guys and always went above and beyond to put in the many extra hours to get boats to sea ready to go and on time. Never heard of a boat that your guys did that had an optical failure of any type. Exceptional work. I worked at SSEP in Bldg 448 up on the hill. Funny that you mentioned Parche, she was the last boat I served on. Who was your division officer that served aboard her?

Oldhat you certainly have strong opinions which you are definitely entitled to. My question to you stands, You ever serve on active duty in theater? Any type of active duty?

Last edited by fshaw; 10/10/21.