While on a mission ordered by the Navy, and traveling a route directed by the Navy, you take a 160 men in a 7,000 ton sub traveling at 35 knots and collide head on with an uncharted underwater seamount at a depth of 525 feet and you still manage to surface the vessel and return to home port with the loss of only one life, then you bet your sweet ass, these guys are heroes.
You should be ashamed for having asked.
--Boot Hill
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""See if I got this straight ... these guys totaled a gaziilion dollar sub by running it into a mountain, and they're heroes?"
While on a mission ordered by the Navy, and traveling a route directed by the Navy, you take a 160 men in a 7,000 ton sub traveling at 35 knots and collide head on with an uncharted underwater seamount at a depth of 525 feet and you still manage to surface the vessel and return to home port with the loss of only one life, then you bet your sweet ass, these guys are heroes.
You should be ashamed for having asked.
--Boot Hill"
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HOO-YA!
PING...
Wow.
My brother is an LT on one of these, and it definitely is a proud moment for bubblehead families that the SanFran made it home. Regardless of blame or innocence on the CO, one sailor was lost and everyone made it home... Bittersweet and something to remember. All members of all service branches give part or all of themselves in service and deserve commendation for a job well done.
As a side note, is there any relevance to the major earthquakes/tsunami events 2 weeks prior, and could that have affected underwater land masses and locations in the area of the SanFran collision?