It wasn't bad and I wasn't CVN that's actually a nuke powered carrier. But I was in Jimmy's Peanuts Navy my entire enlistment. We never got to the point the condition of the AMERICA under Bush sr nor the KENNEDY from Clinton-Bush jr. We never had to miss a deployment. Actually speaking from being in during that time the military was turning around toward the end of Carters term. Morale was being addressed seriously as well as retention.
The Navy in the early 70's made some changes that did it harm. One was doing away with the traditional uniform the cracker jack. When I left it was again Uniform of the Day. The traditional Bosuns whistle could be heard from each ship as well. Retention bonunes of $15K were common along with next rank and shore duty for re-ups.
When I went in the Navy in 76 people were going AWOL for 30 days and taking General Discharges. That had about stopped in late 1980. Reagan did a fine job restoring the military.
With that being said what happened to it in less than 4 years? What happened to the Navy the Gipper built? Yes we had a war but we had a crisis under Carter as well. Two carriers one from each coast were pulled from rotations three were already on station in the Iran area when the hostage crisis broke out. In less than a month 5 were on station manned and ready. That was Carters Navy BTW.
A conventional carrier goes on a six month deployment and needs 3 months yard work. I would say that is true for nukes as well. The idea a nuke can deploy for extended periods minus yards is a myth. The reactor may take it but the Auxillary equipment will not hold up to it. So at the end of each 6 month deployment a ship see's a three month yard down time for maintenance. That allows you to do repairs and replace equipment in a safe enviroment to do so. In many cases holes have to be cut several decks down to replace equipment. You do not do that sitting at a pier at an NOB or at sea. Every 5 years a conventional sees a 1 year down time including drydock for hull maintenance.
What happened? AMERICA sits in Philly with the Navy calling it unfit for even a museum due to detiorated hull condition. Did you see the KENNEDY threads? These are our two newest conventionals anybody besides me think it odd that two other carriers nearly 10 years older than them are in realitivly good shape these being the same class ships?
IMO KENNEDY was going to be a fleet reduction it wasn't meant to be kept up as it is promised to Boston. The war came along and General Frank want's a carrier there in March of this year. The Rosie was due to be rotated and the Navy was caught unready. Looking at the schedule the others I take it were either in the yards or commited elsewhere. So they call a ship out that nobody has tried to keep battle ready and seriously underfunded then tried to make the Captain a ScapeGoat for that as well. The crew didn't care because the Pentagon didn't care about them or the ship. It's now a reserve ship and the Pentagon isn't saying as much. That means it is manned mostly by reserves and not an active duty crew there's a huge difference. If you live there 4 years you keep it up. If you live there 2 weeks a year let the other crew fix it. Bush had nearly a year to address the KENNEDY issue.
Overdeployment is overdeployment and if we are to take the Pentagon and Bush at their word this is going to be an extended war. Would it not be wise then to get some ships recomissioned to active service and a troop build up? The nukes aren't gonna hold up to this any better than conventional are. Yet we hear nothing being said to address this problem. If we continue at our present deployment rates our nuke fleet will suffer if it hasn't already.
I know that the cut backs STARTED under G.H.W.Bush, but some of the cutbacks were FORCED by the Democrats in Congress. The SAME EXPLETIVE DELETED CONGRESS that Broke G.Bush's arm to force a tax raise (they refused to discuss the budget until he backed down on the "No New Taxes" promise, and they were holding the FY 1990 budget as hostage. We had started the Desert Shield build-up, and the same Congress that had a LARGE number of traitorous Democrats that voted against supporting the troops and authorizing Bush to use force to evict Saddam from Kuwait .. the same Congress was going to not have a budget in place, and this would have cut the legs out of the military buildup in the Gulf. So Bush had to renege (he shouldn't have, and should have taken his case to the American people ... but he didn't want to risk the troops already present in the Gulf...) The Same Congress pushed onto G.H.W.Bush the bigger cuts than what Bush wanted.
Go ahead and Blame Bush if you want. You will find very few military, active, reserve or retired - who will agree with you. Most of us know that Bush (41) made mistakes .. . but we know he loved and respected the military, and wouldn't deliberately do anything that would hurt readiness or morale.
You, on the other hand, remind me of a Chief who refused to vote for Bush (41) and voted for Clinton. "Bush lied to me" said the Chief. But in '96, the Chief still voted for Clinton ("What about all the lies Clinton told", I asked. "Lies, what lies" he replied???) This guy, while serving in the military honorably, did not understand the difference between honor and dishonor, did not understand the difference between mistakes that Bush made vs. those that Clinton did DELIBERATELY. Even Reagan made some goofs (Beirut, 1983) ... but you could tell that he bled inwardly for his mistakes, and he resolved to try to avoid them in the future, and he never had a callous disregard for the military ... unlike Clinton.
So my question is... Why are you so upset about Bush?? Do you think he deliberately set about cutbacks that he forced on Congress, or are you just unhappy that he didn't fight Congress more to keep cutbacks from happening.
I have been "active" in the Reserve these past years, plus work as a Civil Servant at a Naval Shipyard ... so I have "my finger on the pulse" and I can tell you - the military have lots of love and respect for Reagan, Bush(41) and Bush(43) - and nothing but contempt for Clinton.
Mike
Now, Have anything to say about that? My unit hemo'd soldiers worse than an arterial cut. People jumped ship like rats. And under Clinton, officers that had nothing better to do than getting their command killed got promoted faster than those that were worth following. Mostly kiss ups and psychofants. And it wasn't just my unit that experienced this. But since I am out now, I can say something about it. We were threatened if anyone blew a whistle about it. Never heard about that? Doesn't surprise me one bit. It was under the, "You can't speak disparaging words against the bent one, traitor, sleazebag in the Ovary office, Chicken in Charge." bullcrap they handed us.