POTUS Day

It has been a while since the last up date. The only good excuse I have is that where we are moored, the ship has cell service. So with that being said I have been able to call a few people every night and give them an update as to my status..

Anyhow I think I left off right before the President showed up and stayed the night on the ship. An interesting day with the secret service running around securing the ship. HMX-1, the presidential helicopter service doing practice approaches and other craziness such as the Whitehouse Communications Agency setting up all of their gear. When the Boss goes some place, he has a lot of players working for him. We, up ships company folks have been having fun BSing with the Secret Service. They are pretty good at keeping secrets hence their title. We are even trying to mooch some memorabilia from them in the form of patches coins etc. Always a struggle.

Well the boss eventually showed up, I was in the SAC where I was able to watch his arrival on both the ships closed circuit television feed and the news feed from CNN. Pretty interesting. As GW came aboard the ship and actually entered the skin of the ship a couple of us peered into the passage way to try and catch a glimpse. We were in luck for after a couple of minute wait, he walked right by, stopped waved and said “hello guys”. There were only 3 of us in the P-way so that means he was talking to us three.

The night proved to be pretty interesting as well with all of GW’s security elements roaming the ship. Big crew, don’t screw with the boss or your ass might just turn into worm food. These guys don’t joke around. Like I mentioned before Chris Broussard, a buddy of mine would have had a hay day shooting the breeze with all of the different bubbas talking about the pieces they carry.

Well GW spent the night aboard the mighty IWO JIMA so it is kind of cool to say that yep I stayed in the White House on the Mississippi. The new epicenter of the most powerful nation on the planet.

From what I am told GW is an early riser and he spent his early morning on the mess decks chatting with the enlisted kids. Good for him and there was not much fan fare either. He just went down there and started gripping and grinning and answering questions and talking pics with the kids.

Before you knew it he was gone, off the ship in his white toped black hawk, out doing the nations business. Maybe we will get lucky and he will return again to the mighty IWO.