REMEMBERING THE

USCGC WHITE ALDER

By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, December 8, 2020

 

The following is from https://coastguard.dodlive.mil/2018/12/the-long-blue-line-buoy-tender-white-alder-lost-50-years-ago-but-not-forgotten/   Coast Guard buoy tender WHITE ALDER was the former U.S. Navy lighter YF-417, one of eight YF-257-class Navy lighters acquired by the Coast Guard and converted to buoy tenders. With generous cargo space, an open deck, a large power plant, and a boom for lifting large objects, WHITE ALDER proved a capable short-range aids-to-navigation (ATON) buoy tender. From 1947 until 1968, the buoy tender was stationed in New Orleans. During the buoy tender’s more than 20-year career, its primary mission was tending river aids-to-navigation, but also performed traditional Coast Guard missions, such as search and rescue, and law enforcement.

On Saturday, December 7, 1968, WHITE ALDER was steaming down-bound on the Mississippi River. At approximately 6:30 p.m., it collided with the up-bound motor vessel Helena, a 455-foot Taiwanese freighter. The accident occurred above Head of Passes near White Castle, Louisiana, causing the 133-foot buoy tender to sink in 75 feet of water with three of its crew surviving.

Immediately after the accident, divers located the buoy tender and recovered the bodies of three WHITE ALDER crew members. However, sediment from the swift current of the Mississippi River buried the wreck site so quickly that continued recovery and salvage operations proved impossible. 14 WHITE ALDER crew members were entombed in the sunken cutter, which to this day remains sealed in the river bottom.

After the WHITE ALDER accident, the Coast Guard suffered the loss of Cutter CUYAHOGA in 1978, and buoy tender BLACKTHORN in 1980. Soon after the loss of BLACKTHORN, the service made sweeping improvements to cutter policy, doctrine, training and standardization. It created the prospective commanding officer (CO)/executive officer (XO) afloat course, mandated that all COs, XOs and officers of the day (OOD) pass the deck watch officer examination, required prospective COs and officers in charge (OINC) to conduct underway familiarization rides, and promulgated commandant cutter navigation standards. All of these steps improved the proficiency and safety of afloat operations and resulted in higher levels of cutter and crew readiness.

On December 7, 2020, the 52th anniversary of the cutter’s loss, please pause to remember WHITE ALDER and its lost crew members:

Seaman Apprentice Walter P. Abbott, III
Electrician’s Mate 2nd Class Michael R. Agnew
Chief Warrant Officer Samuel C. Brown, Jr.
Seaman Frank P. Campisano, III
Fireman Maurice Cason
Quartermaster 2nd Class John R. Cooper, Jr.
Seaman Richard W. Duncan
Seaman Apprentice Larry V. Fregia
Seaman Apprentice Ramon J. Gutierrez
Seaman Roger R. Jacks
Seaman Steven D. Lundquist
Yeoman 2nd Class Joseph A.R. Morin
Commissaryman 2nd Class Charles R. Morrison
Engineman 3rd Class Walton E. O’Quinn, Jr.
Engineman 1st Class John B. Rollinson
Chief Engineman William J. Vitt
Boatswain’s Mate 3rd Class Guy T. Wood

wow!

 

SLANTED

How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism!

Written by Sharyl Attkisson

Reviewed by Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, December 3, 2020

WOW!  That pretty much sums up my opinion of the latest book by Sharyl Attkisson.  I have read all of her books and they are all extremely enlightening regarding the underbelly of American Journalism. 

Attkisson confirms in her latest book what I have personally suspected for some time.  Of late I have completely stopped watching the news because I felt it is no longer news that is being presented or worthy of being watched, at least by me.  No matter what television channel or what news program you tune into, you are getting nothing but information that “someone” wants you to hear and see instead of the news that is actually happening and that can also be verified as being true.

I have read and watched Attkisson’s news programs for decades and have always felt that I received the factual news and I was permitted to make up my own mind in regards to the news story being covered.  As time went on programs and specials like hers have disappeared from our news media.  Attkisson points out from an “insider’s” point of view how what we see and hear on our television sets have been doctored and changed to create a “narrative” (her word) which is what I would refer to as an agenda.  If you are told that 2+2=5 enough times you tend to believe that is true.  When you hear others refute that proposition and who are then targeted by their fellow so-called journalists, the idea that 2+2=5 becomes more and more valid and eventually becomes what you personally believe to be true.  That is what has happened to our, with the emphasis on the word OUR, news media, electronic and print.  We are being fed “stories” and not being introduced to the news. 

Attkisson goes even further to point out the unabashedly bias of the journalists we see and read who fail to just do their job.  There was a time when it was almost impossible to determine the political slant of a television journalist (Walter Cronkite), not to be confused with a television commentator (Sean Hannity).  The news consisted of verified facts and lacked obvious opinions inserted into the stories we are now being told.  That is exactly what they are, STORIES with enough facts interspersed to make them appear real and truthful.  Attkisson gives example after example of news media bias; unverified and false news reports and she is not afraid to call out the perpetrators by name and company affiliation.  At the end of the book she identifies the number of serious untruthful stories printed about President Trump. This is not a book about Trump but instead the media coverage of Trump only is used to demonstrate how far the media has fallen in the eyes of the American viewers and readers.

The only part of the book that I disagree with is when Attkisson attempts to paint a picture of where and how the media might correct itself.  She identifies news sources that she feels go the extra yard to present the facts and not opinions or “stories.”  I, contrary to her hope for the future, feel we as a country have reached the tipping point on “our” press and therefore “our” journalists.  Journalism as I once knew it to be is dead.  I am far more pessimistic in that regard; I do not think it can ever become what it once was – a trusted AND UNBIASED source of news.

As bad as the news media is portrayed in Slanted, I still fault my fellow citizens even more than the media because we appear to be focused on one to two-minute sound bites to form our opinions and then move on.  Unfortunately, those two minutes are probably the worst spent two minutes of most of our lives when we form opinions that become beliefs based on lies, misdirection’s, personal agendas and personal narratives all designed to mold the viewer/readers mind to believe what the journalist wants you to believe.  When we stop thinking for ourselves, we have become the sheep defined in the book, 1984 written by George Orwell.  Like it or not, we have become brainwashed and 1984 has become 2020 with our unconscious approval.  As for 2+2, it equals 5 just as Orwell predicted in his book!

Who should read this book?  That’s easy.  EVERYONE unless you don’t care that you are being brainwashed by opinions, narratives and untruths.

Would I read it again?  Probably not except to look up specific instances of news media biases.  Re-reading it would not bear any fruit at least for me.  Hard to be any more disgusted over our failing news media.

Would I give it as a gift?  I like to think that if I give someone a book as a gift, they would read it.  Sadly, so many Americans today have no desire to learn the truth and therefore the gift would be meaningless if they refused to read it to its end.