USS Rich

From Chuck Weber, your Veteran Service Officer...

Miscellaneous Updates

Good riddance, blueberries!
Navy bids farewell to its worst uniform ever!

After 11 perilous years of parading around looking like victims of an airplane toilet explosion, the Navy finally is saying sayonara to the Type I Navy Working Uniform, a heinous half-nylon boondoggle that not only wasted hundreds of millions of dollars but endangered the lives of everyone who donned the accursed “blueberry." That’s because until 2012, sailors didn’t realize that a mere spark could turn them into blueberry flambé. A pile of blueberries and a lone Zippo might’ve solved the Navy’s NWU I problem in 2013 but, instead, the admirals embarked on a three-year process of swapping it out for what looks suspiciously like Marine Corps digital woodland cammies. At least sailors falling overboard today will stick out like a deciduous forest inexplicably bobbing from the sea and be saved.

Navy Brings Back Torpedoman's Mate Rating
in Nod to 'Heritage and Pride'

After more than 22 years, the Navy is bringing a historic occupational rating out of retirement. The service is re-establishing the "torpedoman's mate" rating, according to an announcement Monday. According to a yet-to-be-published Navy administrative message, officials expect the re-establishment of the rating to "renew the heritage and pride of the submarine TM." The Navy discarded the submarine torpedoman's mate rating in 1995, according to the release; it was merged with the machinist's mate (weapons) rating. The surface torpedoman rating held on for another dozen years before being merged with the gunner's mate rating in 2007. The initial torpedoman rating dates back to 1921; it was renamed torpedoman's mate in 1942.

Source: Marine Corps Times | Leo Shane III | April 5, 2018