by Todd Gilbert | Sep 18, 2016 | Crows Nest
If you’re in the Navy, if you’ve ever done a Sailor of the Quarter Board in your life, you know the rank of Chief Petty Officer was established on April 1, 1893. This means that there’s a nonzero possibility it was done as an April Fool’s...
by Todd Gilbert | Sep 13, 2016 | Crows Nest
9/11: The Day of Infamy, Revisited Fifteen Years Later We all remember the events that took place that day. A day forever immortalized in the public’s memory, the only day that every single American remembers specifically: 9/11. I remember almost nothing of 8th...
by Todd Gilbert | Sep 12, 2016 | Crows Nest
My only time spent in mainland Japan was in the lovely city of Sasebo. It was a lovely city, and it doesn’t deserve what us drunken sailors do to it. This particular night was brought to you by an independent steaming deployment in 2010. We had already been to...
by Todd Gilbert | Sep 1, 2016 | Crows Nest
The Three Chiefs Let’s get one thing out of the way: Chiefs are people. I’m not a Chief, just someone who’s dealt with Chiefs, so if you disagree with anything that follows, no big deal. Still, if you’re willing to take criticism onboard, this...
by Todd Gilbert | Aug 29, 2016 | Crows Nest
What It Means to be a First-class Petty Officer Being a First-class Petty Officer means a lot of things to a lot of people. To your junior guys, it means you’re a subject matter expert. It means you’re the barrier between the command and them. They rely on your...
by Todd Gilbert | Aug 25, 2016 | Crows Nest
Sea Story Sundays: The Day GMSN Brown Pooped Oh, liberty stories. Every sailor worth his salt has one. That one time a sailor got caught banging a hooker in the middle of Texas Street in Busan at 2 p.m. The time your shipmate got busted by NCIS trying to sell meth to...
by Todd Gilbert | Aug 21, 2016 | Crows Nest
Leaking classified material is a long, proud tradition in the Navy. When you’ve got incredibly disgruntled 20-somethings right next to nuclear reactors, the odds that one of them is going to try and sell invaluable military secrets to the Chinese approaches one...
by Todd Gilbert | Aug 15, 2016 | Crows Nest
Purple Heart Recipient John Harlan Willis: American Badass World War 2 is known among military enthusiasts as “that one time everybody became total badasses and fought the frickin’ Nazis.” A number of noteworthy names are recorded in the history books, but since this...
by Todd Gilbert | Aug 11, 2016 | Crows Nest
The term “deckplate leadership” gets thrown around a lot, even more so since the advent of CPO 365. There’s a big deal made out of being an enlisted leader, and for good reason. If you think it’s a bunch of crap, you haven’t worked for a bad chief. Knowing how to...
by Todd Gilbert | Aug 7, 2016 | Crows Nest
The Purple Heart. You’ve seen it on license plates, knew it was for troops injured in conflict. But did you know its history? Do you know the long, proud tradition of this great award? The History of the Purple Heart The tradition of the Purple Heart began with...
