Army Using Extreme Sports to Help War Veterans

Secured with elastic cords to a railroad bridge more than 200 feet over a gorge south of Mount St. Helens, Portillo's mission was to dive over the edge. She pretended to throw up, getting a nervous laugh out of the troops behind her. Then, keeping her own anxiety in check, she bungee-jumped into the lush green below.

Dozens of soldiers in the 2nd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment and the 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team took the plunge that day last fall. Most had been recently deployed in Iraq. Few had bungee-jumped before.

As he stood at the edge, Sgt. Steve Damron felt a mix of trepidation and adrenaline that he likened to patrols through Baghdad. ''It's a chance to calm our brothers down,'' he said, ''to push that adrenaline out.''

That's the idea...[Link]

Coast Guard, NOAA, Army divers pull tons of trash off reefs

A fishing trip of sorts has resulted in a huge catch for agencies working to preserve coral reefs.
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On a three-week mission to Maro Reef, Kure and Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the U.S. Coast Guard, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Army 7th Engineer Dive Team pulled more than 32 metric tons of debris off coral reefs.

The debris, primarily fishing nets, was brought back to Honolulu yesterday and put on display this morning at the Coast Guard station on Sand Island.

"It was a great effort by all the people involved," said Coast Guard Cmdr. Jeffrey Randall, commanding officer of the Walnut.

Randall said NOAA mapped the sites to be cleared, Army divers bagged the trash and the 225-foot Walnut provided the heavy crane for lifting the debris and deck space for containers in which the debris was stored...[Link]

Yemen diver group flies for Moroni

A Yemeni diver group from the Special Forces headed early on Thursday for the Comorian capital, Moroni.

The group will participate in the search and rescue operations for remaining passengers of the Yemeni airliner crashed off the Comorian coasts...[Link]

Navy Officer Receives Medal Underwater

Most medal presentations are very formal affairs, but a Royal Navy diver experienced a completely different type of ceremony when he received his reward for his loyal service underwater!

Acting Petty Officer Andy Coulson of Southern Diving Unit 2 (SDU2) was in the middle of a two-week exercise in Gibraltar when he was given an impromptu medal presentation at the bottom of a military outdoor swimming pool.

Officer in Charge SDU2, Lieutenant Simon Leightley, dived to the bottom of the pool to read PO Coulson's citation and to formally present his Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.

PO Coulson said:

"I was not expecting it. I mentioned it in passing several weeks ago that I thought it would be good to receive my medal underwater rather than on the parade ground, but I didn’t expect anyone to act on it! I had totally forgotten that I mentioned it...[Link]

Bayou-bred diver works under the sea

Grand Caillou native David Francis served in the U.S. Navy for 24 years, 20 of those as a diver.

But he said he has loved the water all of his life.

He was a fan of the late Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the French ecologist, explorer and filmmaker. His uncles were shrimpers, and his father an offshore tugboat captain.

“I grew up playing in the water. The Navy decided to pay me to do it,” Francis said. “I couldn’t ask for a better career.”

The 43-year-old retired in May. His retirement ceremony is set for Friday in Pensacola, Fla. His career spanned more than two decades and earned him a Navy Commendation Medal, awarded for his service in Guam where he supervised 100 people and 20 deployment missions. He was stationed there from 2006 to February of this year.

But don’t look for Francis to seek out a front-porch rocking chair just yet. He plans to become a water-survival instructor for the Navy...[]

Into the Deep

It's every pool kid's dream - a 40-foot by 75-foot heated swimming pool. All it's missing is a diving board. However the 40-foot depth, the fitting for an aquatic crane and the plans for an airlock at the bottom reveal a purpose more utilitarian than recreational.

But that doesn't mean it's not fun.

On Jan. 15, the first class from the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center splashed into the breathless work of training. For the instructors, the new facility was a welcome addition. With the floors adjustable to different depths, airlock chambers and machinery attachments the the pool has smashed open new avenues for training.

Equally important, the new facility should break up the training logjam. The dive school has nearly tripled in size, recently. Previously, only one 12-foot-deep pool was available for the dive school, the Navy Experimental Dive Unit, special warfare developers and any of the various Army, Air Force and Marine Corps dive classes going through.

"I want to stress this is the Joint Diver Aquatic Training Facility," said Cdr. Timothy Richardt, NDSTC commander.

"We put through Army divers. We train Air Force pararescue combat divers, we train Marine Corps combat divers. We train Coast Guard divers," Richardt said. "We train all different facets of Navy diver: the Navy deep sea diver, Navy explosive ordinance diver, the Navy Seabee underwater construction diver, we put through both the basic divers and the advanced, first class divers. We also train the Navy scuba divers."...[NewsHerald.com]