(NOTE: This was originally written on March 23, 1999)

Forwarded w/o attribution.  I have received this from an impeccable source with contacts in high places  Fro me it is scarry how these skirmishes and battles are going to be micro managed and spun

Most have seen the ‘Unauthorized” account, leaked by a Navy SEAL and subsequently posted for all the world to see.
Then we saw the exculpatory ‘corrected’ version skillfully crafted by the Obama propaganda machine.
Here is the final word, posted by Buddy Wellborn, CDR, USN (Ret.),  USNA Class of 1959, also well connected with the players, who (at last) gives us the name of Bainbridge’s skipper.
Here’s the real deal from a  Galveston  County boy in response to the political think tank crap that has been circulating around the Net in regard to the decision making process of the President during the Somali pirate incident.

Your “Real” story is not exactly the way I heard it, and probably has a few political twists thrown in to stir the pot.  Rather than me trying to correct it, I’ll just tell you what I found out from my contacts at NSWC Norfolk and at SOCOM Tampa.

First though, let me orient you to familiarize you with the “terrain.”

In Africa from  Djibouti at the southern end of the Red Sea eastward through the Gulf of Aden to round CapeGuardafui at the easternmost tip of Africa (also known as “The Horn of Africa”) is about a 600 nm transit before you stand out into the  Indian Ocean .  That transit is comparable in distance to that from the mouth of theMississippi at  New Orleans to the tip of  Florida at  Key West– except that 600 nm over there is infested with  Somalia pirates.

Ships turning southward at the Horn of Africa transit the SLOC (Sea Lane of Commerce) along the east coast of Somalia because of the prevailing southerly currents there.  It’s about 1,500 nm on to Mombassa, which is just south of the equator in Kenya .  Comparably, that’s about the transit distance from  Portland  Maine down the east coast of the  US to  Miami  Florida .  In other words, the ocean area being patrolled by our naval forces off the coast of  Somalia is comparable to that in the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River east to  Miami then up the eastern seaboard to Maine .

Second, let me globally orient you from our Naval Operating Base in Norfolk, VA, east across the Atlantic to North Africa, thence across the Med to Suez in Egypt, thence southward down the Red Sea to Djibouti at the Gulf of Aden, thence eastward to round Cape Guardafui at the easternmost tip of Africa, and thence southerly some 300 miles down the east cost of Somali out into the high seas of the Indian Ocean to the position of MV ALABAMA is a little more than 7,000 nm, and plus-nine time-zones ahead of EST.

Hold that thought, in that, a C-17 transport averaging a little better than 400 kts (SOG) takes the best part of 18 hours to make that trip.  In the evening darkness late Thursday night, a team of Navy SEALs from NSWC (Naval Surface Warfare Center) Norfolk parachuted from such a C-17 into the black waters (no refraction of light) of the Indian Ocean– close-aboard to our 40,000 ton amphibious assault ship, USS BOXER (LHD 4), the flagship of our ESG (Expeditionary Strike Group) in the AOR (Area Of Responsibility, the Gulf of Aden).  They not only parachuted in with all of their “equipment,” they had their own inflatable boats, RHIB’s (Rigid Hull, Inflatable Boats) with them for over-water transport.  They went into BOXER’s landing dock, debarked, and staged for the rescue– Thursday night.
And, let me comment on time-late:  In that the SEAL’s quick response– departing ready-alert in less than 4 hours from Norfolk– supposedly surprised POTUS’s staff, whereas President Obama was miffed not to get his “cops” there before the Navy.  He reportedly questioned his staff, “Will ‘my’ FBI people get there before the Navy does?”  It took the FBI almost 12 hours to put together a team and get them packed-up– for an “at sea” rescue.  The FBI was trying to tell him that they are not practiced to do this– Navy SEALs are.  But, BHO wanted the FBI there “to help,” that is, carry out the Attorney General’s (his) orders to negotiate the release of Captain Phillips peacefully– because apparently he doesn’t trust GW’s military to carry out his “political guidance.”
The flight of the FBI’s passenger jet took a little less than 14 hours at 500-some knots to get to  Djibouti .  BOXER’S helos picked them up and transported them out to the ship.  The Navy SEALs were already there, staged, and ready to act by the time POTUS’s FBI arrived on board later that evening.  Notably, the first request by the OSC (On Scene Commander) that early Friday morning to take them out and save Captain Phillips was denied, to wit:  “No, wait until ‘my’ FBI people get there.”
Third, please consider a candid assessment of ability that finds that the FBI snipers had never practiced shooting from a rolling, pitching, yawing, surging, swaying, heaving platform– and, target– such as a ship and a lifeboat on the high seas.  Navies have been doing since Admiral Nelson who had trained “Marines” to shoot muskets from the ship’s rigging– ironically, he was killed at sea in HMS VICTORY at the Battle of Trafalgar by a French Marine rifleman that shot him from the rigging of the French ship that they were grappling alongside.
Notably, when I was first training at USNA in 1955, the Navy was doing it with a SATU, Small Arms Training Unit, based at our Little Creek amphib base.  Now, Navy SEAL’s, in particular SEAL Team SIX (The “DevGru”) based at NSWC ( Naval Surface  Warfare  Center ) at Little Creek do that training now, and hone their skills professionally– daily.  Shooting small arms from a ship is more of an accomplished “Art Form” than it is a practiced skill.  When you are “in the bubble” and “in tune” with the harmonic motion you find, through practice, that you are “able to put three .308 slugs inside the head of a quarter at 100 meters, in day or night– or, behind a camouflaged net or a thin enclosure, such as a superstructure bulkhead.  Yes, we have the monocular scopes that can “see” heat– and, draw a bead on it.  SEALs are absolutely expert at it– with the movie clips to prove it.
Okay, now try to imagine patrolling among the boats fishing everyday out on the Grand Banks off our New England coast, and then responding to a distress call from down around the waters between  Florida and theBahamas.  Three points for you to consider here:  (1) Time-Distance-Speed relationships for ships on the high seas, for instance, at a 25-knot SOA (Speed Of Advance) it takes 24 hours to make good 600 nm– BAINBRIDGE did.  (2) Fishermen work on the high seas, and (3) The best place to hide as a “fisherman” pirate is among other fishermen
Early Wednesday morning, 4/8/2009, MV  ALABAMA is at sea in the IO about 300 miles off the (east) coast ofSomalia en route to Mombassa  Kenya .  Pirates in small boat start harassing her, and threatening her with weapons.  MV  ALABAMA ’s captain sent out the distress call by radio, and ordered his Engineer to shut down the engines as well as the ship-service electrical generators– in our lingo, “Go dark and cold.”  He informed his crew by radio what was happening, and ordered them to go to an out-of-the-way compartment and lock themselves in it– from the inside.  He would stay in the pilot house to “negotiate” with the pirates.
The pirates boarded, captured the Captain, and ordered him to start the engines.  He said he would order his Engineer to do so, and he called down to Engine Control on the internal communication system, but got no answer.  The lead pirate ordered two of his four men to go down and find him and get the engines started.
Inside a ship without any lights is like the definition of dark.  The advantage goes to the people who work and live there.  They jumped the two pirates in a dark passageway.  Both pirates lost their weapons, but one managed to scramble and get away.  The other they tied up, put tape over his mouth and a knife at his throat.
Other members of the crew opened the drain cocks on the pirates boat and cast it adrift.  It foundered and sunk.  The scrambling pirate made it back to the pilot house and told of his demise.  The pirates took the Captain at gun point, and told him to launch one of his rescue boats (not a life boat, per se).  As he was lowering the boat for them, the crew appeared with the other pirate to negotiate a trade.  The crew let their hostage go to soon, and the pirates kept the captain.  But, he purposefully had lowered the boat so it would jam.
With the rescue boat jammed, the pirates jumped over to a lifeboat and released it as the captain jumped in the water.  They fired at him, made him stop, and grabbed him out of the water.  Now, as night falls in the vastness of the  Indian Ocean , we have the classic “Mexican” standoff, to wit:  A life-boat that is just that, a life-boat adrift without any means of propulsion except oars and paddles; and, a huge (by comparison) Motor Vessel Container Ship adrift with a crew that is not going to leave their captain behind.  The pirates are enclosed under its shelter-covering, holding the captain as their hostage.  The crew is hunkered down in their ship waiting for the “posse” to arrive.
After receiving MV  ALABAMA ‘S distress call, USS BAINBRIDGE (DDG 96) was dispatched by the ESG commander to respond to  ALABAMA ’s distress call.  At best sustainable speed, she arrived on scene the day after– that is, in the dark of that early Thursday morning.  As BAINBRIDGE quietly and slowly, at darkened-ship without any lights to give her away, arrived on scene, please consider a recorded interview with the Chief Engineer of MV ALABAMA describing BAINBRIDGE’s arrival.  He said it was something else “… to see the Navy slide in there like a greyhound!”  He then said as she slipped in closer he could see the “Stars and Stripes” flying from her masthead.  He got choked up saying it was the “…proudest moment of my life.”

Phew!  Let that sink in.
Earlier in the day, one of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Patrol Aircraft, a fixed wing P3C, flew over to recon the scene.  They dropped a buoy with a radio to the pirates so that the Navy’s interpreter could talk with the pirates.  When BAINBRIDGE arrived, the pirates thought the radio to be a beaconing device, and threw it overboard.  They wanted a satellite telephone so that they could call home for help.  Remember now, they are fishermen, not “Rocket Scientists,” in that, they don’t know that we can intercept the phone transmission also.
MV  ALABAMA   provided them with a satellite phone.  They called home back to “somebody” in Eyl  Somalia (so that we now know where you live) to come out and get them.  The “somebody” in Eyl said they would be out right away with other hostages, like 54 of them from other countries, and that they would be coming out in two of their pirated ships.  Right– and, the tooth fairy will let you have sex with her.  Yea, in paradise.  The “somebody” in Eyl just chalked up four more expendables as overhead for “the cost of operation.”  Next page.
Anyway, ESG will continue to “watch” Eyl for any ships standing out.
The Navy SEAL team, SEAL TEAM SIX, from NSWC briefed the OSC (Commander Castellano, CO BAINBRIDGE) on how they could rescue the captain from the life boat with swimmers– “Combat Swimmers,” per se.  That plan was denied by POTUS because it put the captain in danger– and, involved killing the pirates.
The FBI negotiators arrived on scene, and talked the pirates into sending their wounded man over for treatment Saturday morning.  Later that afternoon, the SEAL’s sent over their RHIB with food and water to recon the life boat but the pirates shot at it.  They could have taken them out then (from being fired upon) but were denied again being told that the captain was not in “imminent danger.”  The FBI negotiators calmed the situation by informing the pirates of threatening weather as they could see storm clouds closing from the horizon, and offered to tow the life boat.  The pir ates agreed, and BAINBRIDGE took them under tow in their wake at 30 meters– exactly 30 meters, which is exactly the distance the SEALs practice their shooting skills.
With the lifeboat under tow, riding comfortably bow-down on BAINBRIDGE’s wake-wave (”rooster tail”), had a 17-second period of harmonic motion, and at the end of every half-period (8.5 seconds) was steady on.  The light-enhanced (infra-red heat) monocular scopes on the SEAL’s .308 caliber Mark 11 Mod 0 H&K suppressor-fitted sniper rifles easily imaged their target very clearly.  Pirates in a life boat at 30-meters could be compared to fish in a barrel.  All that was necessary was to take out the plexiglass window so that it would not deflect the trajectory of the high velocity .308 round.  So, a sniper (one of four) with a wad-cutter round (a flaxen sabot) would take out the window a split second before the kill-shot– no change in sight-picture, just the window blowing out, clean.

Now, here’s the part BHO’s “whiz kids” knew as well as the Navy hierarchy, including CO BAINBRIDGE and CO SEAL TEAM SIX.  It’s the law in Article 19 of Appendix L in the “Convention of the High Seas” that the Commanding Officer of a US Ship on the high seas is obligated to respond to distress signals from any flagged ship (US or otherwise), and protect the life and property thereof when deemed to be in IMMINENT DANGER.  So, in the final analysis, it would be Captain Castellano call as to “Imminent Danger,” and that he alone was obligated (duty bound) to act accordingly.
Got the picture?
After medically attending to the wounded pirated, and feeding him, come first light (from the east) on Easter Sunday morning and the pirates saw they were being towed further out to sea (instead of westward toward land), the wounded pirate demanded to be returned to the lifeboat.  There would BE NO more negotiations– and, the four Navy SEAL snipers “in the bubble” went “Unlock.”  The pirate holding Captain Philips raised the gun to his head, and IMMINENT DANGER was so observed and noted in the Log as CO BAINBRIDGE gave the classic order: WEAPONS RELEASED!   I can hear the echo in my earpiece now, “On my count (from 8.5 seconds), 3, 2, 1, !”  POP, BANG!  Out went the window, followed by three simultaneous shots.  The scoreboard flashed: “GAME OVER, GAME OVER– NAVY 3, PIRATES 0!”

Hey, I am truly amazed and encouraged!
I am reminded of Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg address:
” … that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ..”
Perhaps it is not too late to turn recent trends around.
Sometimes things have to get pretty bad before enough people are alarmed enough to pay attention and respond.

============

WEAPONS OF CHOICE
WorldNetDaily
Court: 2nd Amendment trumps local gun limits
Described as ‘protection against government degenerating into tyranny’
Posted: April 22, 2009
11:50 pm Eastern

By Bob Unruh

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California has ruled that the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms is “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition” and long has been regarded as the “true palladium of liberty,” so it therefore must be applied against state and local government weapon restrictions as well as federal gun limits.

The ruling came in a decade-old dispute over a private operation’s request to hold a gun show at a county fairground, even though the county prohibited gun possession at its facilities.

The new ruling from the usually liberal 9th Circuit said Alameda County in California was allowed to ban guns at its facilities, but in general the 2nd Amendment provision for Americans to keep and bear arms applies not to just federal gun limits but local rules as well.

“This could be big, folks,” wrote Kurt Hofmann at the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner.

(Story continues below)

“In Nordyke v. King … we may very well be seeing the beginning of the end of that very unsatisfactory set of circumstances, wherein state and local governments need not so much as pay lip service to the 2nd Amendment,” he continued. “In the 9th Circuit, in fact, that end has indeed arrived.

“This development is very significant, because the 9th is the largest, and thus one of the most important, federal circuit courts. It is also considered the most ‘liberal,’ and thus perhaps the most resistant to protecting the right to keep and bear arms,” he continued.

Hofmann cited a concurring opinion by Judge Ronald M. Gould, who wrote that nothing less than the security of the nation – a defense against both external and internal threats – rests on the provision.

“The right to bear arms is a bulwark against external invasion. We should not be overconfident that oceans on our east and west coasts alone can preserve security,” Gould wrote. “We recently saw in the case of the terrorist attack on Mumbai that terrorists may enter a country covertly by ocean routes, landing in small craft and then assembling to wreak havoc. That we have a lawfully armed populace adds a measure of security for all of us and makes it less likely that a band of terrorists could make headway in an attack on any community before more professional forces arrived. Second, the right to bear arms is a protection against the possibility that even our own government could degenerate into tyranny, and though this may seem unlikely, this possibility should be guarded against with individual diligence.”

The court opinion this week said, “We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear arms is ‘deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition.’

“Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators and lawmakers living during the first one hundred years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature of the right. It has long been regarded as the ‘true palladium of liberty.’ Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later,” the court continued.

“The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental, that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception of ordered liberty that we have inherited. We are therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and applies it against the states and local governments,” the opinion said.

The court previously had ruled exactly the opposite way, but it said the U.S. Supreme Court’s Heller decision, which confirmed that the 2nd Amendment right is personal as well as collective, prompted the reversal.

At Poligazette, a commentator noted it is a major victory for the pro-gun position.

And another Gun Rights Examiner writer, David Codrea, said, “This is big – especially coming from the 9th Circuit, notorious for its hostility to gun rights. Look for an appeal. And then look to see if the Supreme Court agrees to hear it.”

Technically the county cannot appeal, since its policy to restrict guns on county property was upheld. But the plaintiffs, Russell and Sallie Nordyke, could appeal on behalf of their gun show operation.

The 2nd Amendment states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

“This necessary ‘right of the people’ existed before the Second Amendment as ‘one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen,’” the ruling said. “Heller identified several reasons why the militia was considered ‘necessary to the security of a free state.’ First, ‘it is useful in repelling invasions and suppressing insurrections. Second, it renders large standing armies unnecessary . . . . Third, when the able-bodied men of a nation are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist tyranny.”

The decision appears to run counter to the general direction sought by the administration of President Obama three months into his tenure.

He’s already advocated for a treaty that would require a federal license for hunters to reload their ammunition, has expressed a desire to ban “assault” weapons, has seen a plan to require handgun owners to submit to mental health evaluations and sparked a rush on ammunition purchases with his history of anti-gun positions.