Reunion 2013 Planning Starts

Great news!

The planning for Reunion 2013 is in its early stages and you are invited to participate.

Some people thought that there was not enough input into the last reunion. Although there will always be some that will feel they were not heard we would like to hear input from all.

We have set aside July 21st as a planning and social meeting to determine the date and some ideas for events to take place at the reunion.

Ed and Darlene Hammond have offered their back yard for a BBQ along with the planning session starting at 11am. All food and drinks will be provided so you only will need to provide your voice and body to make this a success. Further agenda TBA.

The place for Reunion 2013 was set by unanimous vote at our last reunion. The gathering will take place again in Oak Harbor, WA.

We will need to have a RSVP by July 7th so we can plan to accommodate all folks interested. Please RSVP to my email at darl_p@juno.com. Make any an all comments to this web posting so everyone can see the comments and respond accordingly.

Look at this as  building unit camaraderie or as just an opportunity to get together with old buddies.

For those people who will be traveling and staying overnight there may be a oppurtunity to stay at the Navy Lodge on the Seaplane Base. Check it out for availability at Navy Lodge or call the local number … 360/257-2529

Welcome

Welcome to the VP-69 Forum. This is the place to have an open discussion of topics concerning the alumni of VP-69 and friends as well as members of other  Patrol Squadrons of the Northwest.

This site was designed to allow old shipmates to have a dialog with each other on-line rather than  individual questions and discussions via e-mail. This provides an avenue for all members to join a discussion on all topics.

You may comment on an active topic or you may like to start a new discussion of interest. At this time the Forum is set up to start new discussions or topics by way of “Authors” currently designated by the administrator.  If you have a topic you would like to post, you may send it to darl_p@juno.com . During the posting it may be edited for clarity and brevity.

Daryl “Flip” Phillippi … PH1

Charlie Theisen’s Funeral Planned

Charlie & Geri at the 2011 Reunion

The Funeral is set for Friday the 25th of May at 0915.   It will be at the Mt Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent, Washington.

There will be a gathering at the Auburn Eagle’s afterward.  Charlie volunteered a lot at the Auburn Eagle’s.

Hope to see some of you there.

Information supplied by Ron Young

Letter From VP-2 Association Regarding the Turtle

P-2 Neptune “Truculent Turtle”

Dear Ed Hammond,

It has been over ten months since I sent you an email about the Truculent Turtle project.

With your generous help, we’re past the 80% point in our fundraising efforts and on the final homestretch.  Thanks to Vic Gulliver and others, we’ve sent out thousands of emails and letters to members of other squadrons and to various other maritime patrol organizations.  Although these efforts have helped, we’ve still about $9,000 short of our $50,000 goal.

As you may be aware most of today’s active duty and retired patrol aviators and aircrew are associated with the P-3 Orion (which has been in service since the mid ’60′s).  Accordingly as the most active and organized P-2 patrol squadron association, it is probably up to us “old timers” (the first squadron to fly the P-2 Neptune) to ensure that this famous airplane gets the sponsorship that it deserves.

The Decline of Naval Aviation

I hear the comments quite often about “what has happened to our old Navy?” The discussion comes up frequently when “old salts” gather. In my opinion, this article sums it quite well.

The information was shared by a shipmate. It is a lengthy read but shines light on the subject and the changes that have transpired over the years and why it might not be as much “fun” in today’s Navy.

The article was written by  Dr. John Lehman, former Secretary of the US Navy under President Reagan and the individual most identified with the maritime aspect of that president’s “peace through strength” philosophy, the 600-ship Navy.

Cdr. Lehman served in the Naval Reserves as a pilot during the time he was SecNav.

 

This article was reprinted from: Proceedings Magazine – September 2011 Vol. 137/9/1,303

Read the article here: The swaggering aviator

Navy Plans NW Meeting on Environment Policy

The US Navy is preparing to conduct nine open houses in California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska to take comments on its new environmental impact statement for testing and training operations offshore.

The Oregon meetings takes place March 19 in Tillamook and March 20 in Newport. The open houses will run from 5 to 8pm.

The Washington meetings will be in Oak Harbor, Quilene, Silverdale and Aberdeen on March 13, 14,15,16 ……. Read the Navy website for more listings and info for  the open houses.

The environmental statement is a lengthy, complex document. It includes a section describing things the Navy does to protect marine life, recreation and commercial activities in the region.

To read the statement and comment online, visit the Navy website.

“Training and Testing Using Sonar and Explosives” may be of interest to many of you. This topic is covered toward the end of the “Proposed Action” page of the study.

 

 

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats “Helper Monkeys”  prepared a 2011 annual report for our VP-69 site.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Ditching of a VP-661 P-2V

Eight P2′s of various model configs departed NAS-NARTU Anacostia in early February 1964. A very cold climate to a fairly warm climate at Los Alamitos, California. Just prior to departure I was reassigned from the CO’s crew to another crew by the CO in order to satisfy a Plane Captain shortage.

Read the rest of the story … P2V Ditching

Shift Colors Made Easy

Shift Colors is an informative Newsletter for Retirees,  and if you may have signed up to receive this publication when you retired.  You might also have wondered why you have not been receiving it in the mail lately.

In 2008 they made the choice to go online only with the publication. If you were like I was, and neglected to sign up for email notification or you do not check their web site regularly you have not seen it for a while.

They recently sent out another issue by mail reminding you, for the last time, to go online and sign up.

I intend to make it easy for you.  A click here and you can read it online at this site

A  click here and you can sign up for email notification.

You may want to put these links into your “favorites” for future reference.

Reunion Feed Back

Discussing “Reunion 2013″

The Feed Back Forms have given a few ideas to work on for the next reunion. We had a 38% return of the forms which is greater than the average return of surveys. The good news was that everybody enjoyed themselves.

An effort needs to be made to reach out to our Shipmates that were not aware of the reunions. Many folks that live in the Oak Harbor area had not heard about it until too late to respond.

Look over the following and comment on-line so others can have a chance to join in the conversation.

Reunion 2011 follow-up

Posted here is a NewsLetter / Summary of our reunion 2011.

There are links to two PDF files. The larger file is 23mb and recommended for those that have high speed access to the inter-net and the quick read file is 1.8mb and will load faster for general viewing.

I would suggest the larger file for printing out to save.

Quick read  Totem Pole 2011x

Large file    Totem Pole 2011