Leahy (CG 16) - Naval Cruise Book

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LTJG Scott Dugan DCC James Stuart HTI Ronald Chavez lWRl Fernando Pitchardo DC3 Dale Archie DC3 Mike English H T3 David Hollier DC3 David Owen DCFN Alan Currier H TFN Shawn Duncan DCFN Albert Gonzalez FN Ricky Rands ,iizife if ,M R DIVISIO R DIVISION consists of Hull techs CHTI, Damage Control- men QDCI and Machinery Re- pairman CMRI. They do every- thing from welding equipment to unclogging toilets. They're the repair specialists on LEAHY. 6429C9t 21

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Now each of us from time to tlme, have gazed upon the sea And watched the mighty warshrps pulling out to keep this country free And most of us have read a book or heard a lusty tale About these men who sarl their shrps through lrghtnlng, wrnd, and hall But there s a place wrthm each shlp that storres never breach And there s a special breed of man that legends rarely reach I lt s down below the waterllne and It takes It s llvrng toll A hot metallic lrvlng hell, that sailors call the hole It houses the engines run by steam that make the screw go round A place of frre, nolse, and heat that beats your sprrlts down Where engines like a helllsh roar and blood of angry steam Are armored gods wrthout remorse that haunt your every dream The threat from the flre s roar IS like a llvlng doubt That any minute would with scorn, escape and wlpe you out Where turbines like tortured souls, alone and lost rn hell Ordered from somewhere up above, answer every bell They re locked below men fore doomed, who hear no battle cry Its well assumed rf there s a hrt, the men below wrll due There s not much difference, down below, whatever fate may bring For threat of ugly vrolent death, down there s a common thlng Now there are generators, run by steam, electric power they put out And If you don t respect them, someone above IS sure to shout The men who tame their awesome power, by wllls of Iron they ablde Because lf their tasks they shrrk the ship wrll surely due That electricity rs the lifeblood that keeps the shlp moving ahead For without the sparkmasters and the power they produce The ship s lrfe In battle would surely be reduced Then there are the Hull Techs, which few thunk llve ln the hole But when there rs a flre down below, they are the frrst ones to go For thelr job IS to fight the flames that seek to consume us all If they fall at this appointed task, then our makers wlll come to call For every day s a war down there, when gauges all run red Twelve hundred pounds superheated steam, can quickly krll you dead And every man down In the hole, he has learned to hate so well, When you speak to them of fear, their laughter s heard In hell The men below are not fools who would let their sprrlts due Who of them cant remember how a cloud looks In the sky People, as a general rule, dont hear a dying soul So llttle rs heard about the place these sarlors calls the hole But I can talk about this place and try to make you see The hopeless lrfe of the men down there, cause one of them IS me Ive seen sweat soaked men fight In superheated arr To keep their shlp allve and rlght, though no one knows they re there And thus they ll fight for ages on, trl warshlps sall no more So damn the boilers mighty heat, the engines mighty roar And when you see a man o war pull out to meet a warlike foe Remember faintly lf you can, the men who sall below I 1 A w ' , . I , , . . . , , , . . . I I - , . , . . . , . . . , . . , . . . . I . . . l've heard it said, by sailors old, now long gone and dead . , . . I . , , I . , . . , I 1 - . . , . . . , , I ' 1 - - . ' I ' - , . ll - - n .

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22 GPERATIU DE WERT STGR l As LEAH Y heads off to War, QM2 Annas conveys the feelings of the crew. With little more than a month to our departure date, the first air attacks on Iraq and Kuwait began Operation Desert Storm. It seemed that the inevitable had happened and LEAHY was being drawn into war in the Middle East. To hear of war in some distant land is one thing. To face the prospect of in- volvement, to actually go to war and per- haps pay the price all wars require, is an- other. Each of us had to find the answers within. E- fb Q '-1: 52 N. 9, many jo azejqe 11 Kuwait City