| PENSACOLA, Fla., July 17, 2007 — Sailors re-enlist aboard ship every day, but Petty Officer 1st Class Kevin Armold, a supervisor at Naval Air Station Pensacola's Personnel Service Detachment, won’t be serving on board the ship he chose to take his oath. Armold raised his right hand to accept another term of service, July 6, while on board the former aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, which lays in more than 200 feet of water at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Maj. Shean Phelps, an aerospace medicine resident at Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, conducted the ceremony via underwater talking apparatus on Oriskany’s “smoking deck” at a depth of 85 feet. “As you start descending down toward the ship, you see this massive piece of steel sitting on the bottom just start appearing,” Armold said. “As we got down closer to it, we found the deck where they have a U.S. flag and a POW flag, and that’s where we actually performed (the re-enlistment). It was just amazing to actually see.” The top of Oriskany’s “island” structure is at a depth of about 68 feet. It’s a 106-foot dive to the ship’s bridge. The H2O Below, a local dive charter boat, took the group of 15 divers out to Oriskany. H2O Below divemaster Paul Sjordal shot still photography while Phelps discharged and then re-enlisted Armold with the traditional Navy re-enlistment articles. A planned submerged re-enlistment date of July 4 had to be postponed two days due to rough seas. The avid open-water certified scuba diver made the decision to re-enlist underwater on board Oriskany while watching a Discovery Channel special on the sinking of the ship, which was sunk May 17, 2006, approximately 23 miles off the coast of Pensacola. “I‘ve been on a carrier before,” Armold said, “but to see one that has the history that ship has ... it’s a tremendously impressive sight.” The contract and certificate was laminated for use under water and a grease pencil was used by Armold to sign his re-enlistment; an actual submission copy was signed with ink on land. Clint Rutherford of Escambia County Search and Rescue provided technical support for the project including the loan of the full-face communications apparatus. “We were actually able to speak and hear the oath while we were under water,” Armold said. Local dive shop MBT Divers Inc., of Pensacola was also |
