Thursday, March 15, 2007 by The Chief.

Cinnamon Stillwell is my favorite writer at the San Francisco Chronicle. She’s also one of my favorite Bloggers. Her latest column, Anti-War Miseducation in San Francisco, does an outstanding job of documenting San Francisco’s attacks on all things military, and on the Navy in particular. San Francisco has introduced an anti-American textbook, passed numerous anti-military resolutions, banned NJROTC, and refused to allow the USS Iowa to berth there.
This isn’t new, of course. Communist labor leader Harry Bridges managed to keep the Pampanito out of San Francisco for a very long time. However, San Francisco used to have a huge Navy presence, and a reputation as a great liberty port. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I spent yesterday on the Pampanito. At the end of WWII, Pampanito underwent refit and overhaul at San Francisco’s Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.
Hunters Point has long since been out of the shipyard business, and will eventually be cleaned up and turned over to the City. San Francisco, ever blind to its own hypocrisy, has decided that now is a great time to ask the Navy for a favor: S.F. seeks Navy’s help in effort to keep the 49ers.
In their effort to keep the San Francisco Forty-Niners from moving to Santa Clara, the City wants to offer them Hunters Point. But first, they need to convince the Navy to speed up the clean-up, and turn the site over to San Francisco within the next couple of years.
I’d like to see the Navy tell San Francisco that they’ll get around to working on Hunters Point after the city finds a new home for USS Iowa (I wonder if Hunters Point has room for a Battleship?), reinstates NJROTC in the schools, and repeals each and every anti-military resolution passed by the School Board and the Board of Supervisors. I wonder what Nany Pelosi thinks about this?

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Thursday, March 15, 2007 by The Chief.

— Meet Blue, a retired Australian Submariner (Sub mare in ar). When we found out that Blue was in the US to visit his lady friend, Kathy, my son and I took the day off to meet Blue at the Pampanito.

Blue brought a set of Australian Dolphins and presented them to Sweet Old Bill (SOB) who was the Pampanito’s Docent, and our most gracious host.

Other Submariners (Sub marine ers) Ron and Harry joined in to share stories and help solve all the world’s problems.

The Pampanito, with a fresh coat of paint, looked fantastic. After an extended tour of the Boat, we had a leisurely lunch at Boudin’s on Fisherman’s wharf. I need to play hooky more often.

More Pictures Here

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