Why did the chicken cross the road?

Here is more scuttlebutt from JIM SANTOS (4896-A/LIFE-1996) and we’ll start off with some Navy humor. Here is the answer to that age-old question: “Why did the chicken cross the road?” as seen and interpreted by various Naval departments. While it may seem funny at first and it should, if you were ever in the service (in any branch) you will see this is all too true.

The answers from various Navy bureaus and commands:

Naval Education and Training Command (NAVEDTRA) states that the purpose is to familiarize the chicken with road-crossing procedures. Road-crossing should be performed only between the hours of sunset and sunrise. Solo chickens must have at least three miles of visibility and a safety observer.

Bureau of Naval Personnel (BUPERS) says - due to the needs of the Navy, the chicken was involuntarily assigned to the other side of the road. This will be a three-year unaccompanied tour and we promise to give the chicken a good deal assignment afterwards. Every chicken will be required to do one road crossing during its career and this will not affect its opportunities for future promotion.

Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) - this will need confirmation; we need to repeat it using varied chicken breeds, road types and weather conditions to confirm whether it can actually happen within the parameters specified for chickens and the remote possibility that they might cross thruways designated by some as ‘roads’.

Commander-in-Chief USNavy Forces Europe (CINCUSNAVEUR) The purpose is not important. What is important is that the chicken remained under the OPCON of COMSIXTHFLEET and did not CHOP to the theater on the other side of the road. Without Chopping, the chicken was able to achieve a seamless road crossing with near perfect, real time in-transit visibility.

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIRSYSCOM) - the chicken was instructed to hold short of the road. This road incursion incident was reported in a Hazardous Chicken Road Crossing Report (HCRCR). Please re-emphasize that chickens are required to read back all hold short instructions. Finding - Chicken Error.

Space & Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWARSYSCOM) The ‘stovepipe’ chicken of today will be replaced with a multi-function, supported, affordable, integrated and interoperable world-class chicken to warriors and supporting elements, enabling them to dominate the roads of today and tomorrow as we move ‘Forward from the Sea’. Comptroller holds and corporate taxes however, will require delay fielding for two years, unless Congressional plus-ups are approved.

Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) - what chicken?

Okay, this doesn’t have much to do with anything, but we thought you’d find it amusing. We did. After all, when I was in the USAF and wanting to be a fighter pilot, they had already closed Air Cadets because they had so many left over from WW II and Korea. Now, they pay pilots something like $150,000 bonus just to stay in. As we said - sometimes there is no sense to what the military does.

The Value of Alaska (part I)

Russia offered to sell Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7,200,000 but Congress could not make up its mind. Eventually, Secretary of State Seward negotiated and bought this area for the USA. He was ridiculed and the purchase was called an extravagant mistake. Alaska quickly became known as ‘Seweard’s Ice Box’ or ‘Seward’s Folly’.

Not many realized the importance of this area. Even as late as 1920 the public pictured Alaska as a roaring wilderness, covered with snow, populated by Eskimos, a few old sourdoughs and Dangerous Dan McGrew. Nome was at the end of the world, and the Aleutian Islands seemed as remote as Mars.

The U. S. Navy was somewhat better informed. Its early sailing ships had visited Alaska’s icy waters and explored the Bering Sea. But by 1920 the Aleutian Chain, a U.S. possession for over sixty years, was still unrecognized as a strategic bastion of the North American Continent. Militarily, Alaska and her outer islands remained neglected. With the exception of a few radio and radio direction finder stations set up for weather observation and navigational information, the Navy, as late as the middle 1930’s, had not established any posts in the Aleutians.

The Japanese conquest of Manchuria however and the increasingly warlike attitude of Tokyo brought home the importance of Alaska & Aleutian Islands. Late in 1937 in conjunction with a plan for bases at Sitka & Kodiak, Unalaska Island was investigated by the Navy.

The sole naval activity on Unalaska at that date was a radio and weather station located at Dutch Harbor. Although 100 square miles of land had been pegged for a naval reservation, the site had not been exploited. Similarly underdeveloped was a coaling station on the Anaknak side.

Fleet maneuvers were scheduled for northern Pacific waters early in 1938. This gave several units an opportunity to reconnoiter the Unalaska coast to determine the best harbor sites for a naval base. As part of the fleet problem, the necessary reconnaissance was carried out by Submarine Squadron Six, acting with a unit of the Air Scouting Force. HOLLAND tended these exploring submarines

April 1939, Submarine Squadron Six completed its mission. The submariners recommended Akutan Harbor and Anderson Bay as best suited for the basing of submarines. Dutch Harbor and Iliuliuk Bay are named as second choices. Other harbors in the area were reported as too hazardous for consistent navigation - ice and treacherous when hit by the vicious Williwaws which stormed across the northern islands. The submarine patrols also disclosed the need for accurate charts of the area. Existing charts were deficient, and the waters would have to be carefully surveyed before any large naval force could safely operate in the Aleutians.

Part 2 in KTB 152