Was it your thread pulled?
Yes it was. It was a rumor that was passed to me from one of my family, as we have someone in the Navy in training in Florida. Digging around, the SUA site was the only one that had some relevant detail, while still calling it problematic. I too appended [Awaiting Confirmation] instead of their "Breaking" appellation, hoping that the FReeper crew would dig out the truth. They did.
Earlier Saturday I got a note from machogirl with the story of the Master Chief's death from Friday morning. Seems that was the initiation of that story, but there have been numerous other stories of random firings of small weapons at our ships along that choke-point. I also believe there are standing orders for non-essential personnel to stay out of exposed areas during select areas of the transit, for crew safety. All it would take is one idiot jihadi to try to create a problem, and as we already know this admin won't give us the truth up front.
Thanks, All.