[GATOR NAVY]

Well that didn't take too long to go all to crap...

Malaysian tug Vos Apollo prepares for defueling operations near the grounded USS Guardian on Jan. 24, 2013, while a U.S. Navy small boat approaches with a salvage team. The U.S. Navy contracted Vos Apollo to assist with removing fuel from the mine countermeasures ship, which ran aground on the Tubbataha Reef in the Sulu Sea on Jan. 17. No fuel has leaked since the grounding and all of the approximately 15,000 gallons onboard Guardian was safely transferred to Vos Apollo during two days of controlled defueling operations on Jan. 24 and Jan. 25. Geoffrey Trudell/U.S. Navy

[GeronL]

Wha an undignified way for a ship to end its service career

[KitJ]

Wow. Um. Go Army, beat Navy?

I can’t remember the last time the Army beached a Bradley worth several hundred million dollars and had to fly the crew to someplace else...

Just kidding, my brothers in arms. I heard the Philippine government is going to charge us for environmental damage.

Hmmm...allies.

[Buchal]

Does this seem a little strange? The boat is floating around on top of the reef, but cannot be dragged off? Is this a decision driven by some sort of environmentalist idiocy?

[PghBaldy]

http://www.guardian.navy.mil/

[agere_contra]

Ah right it’s a minesweeper. Hence the non-metallic hull.

[dead]

Info on the captain of this former ship:

http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/mcm5/Pages/bio1.aspx#.UQk3LmeviSo

[Stonewall Jackson]

The last US Navy ship lost to grounding was the USS La Moure County, LST-1194, when she ran at flank speed onto the rocks off Caleta Cifuncho Bay, Chile during a training exercise.

The impact shredded her bow, keel, screws, and rudders, causing extensive flooding and the dumping of some 40,000 gallons of fuel. Pulled off the rocks by a Chilean tug, she was towed up to a nearby naval base, where US salvage experts examined her and determined that she was too badly damage to repair. Stripped of all salvageable material, she was towed out to sea and sunk during a training exercise a few months later.

[teeman8r]

if only obama hadn’t stopped the waters from rising, this would never have happened.

teeman