[C320-list] Japan

[Paul Rickman]

Adam, what do you do in the Navy? (I mean besides go sailing) 
GET YOUR LIBERTY PLAN READY.

Kitty Hawk sailors chafe  under liberty rules
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff  writer
Posted : Tuesday Dec 18, 2007 17:48:15  EST

SAN  DIEGO - So you've got liberty in  Japan? First, fill out this form.
Then, get your chief's OK. And if you want to drink, don't forget your
Liberty buddy. And remember to phone in each day, even on your weekend   off.


Those are just some of the rules for sailors stationed in Japan  aboard the
carrier Kitty Hawk, at least until  the ship hands over its berth next
summer to the George Washington before its  eventual decommissioning.


Kitty Hawk sailors are living with some of the strictest liberty rules in
the Navy, even when their ship is at its  home port in Yokosuka with other
forward-deployed Naval  Forces commands.


Every Kitty  Hawk sailor E-6 and below, and anyone planning to drink off
base,  must have an authorized liberty buddy and a detailed individual
liberty plan  that requires approval from his superior. Any change to that plan must
be reported and approved by the first khaki in the command chain. The liberty restrictions - often tightened after a spate of off-duty and alcohol-related incidents involving sailors - don't always end there, according to sailors an fleet spokeswomen.

Several incidents occurred the week after Kitty Hawk returned from
Deployment Nov. 27. In response, the command tightened the policy by
requiring departmental chiefs or officers to reach by phone or physically see each of their sailors E-6 and below every evening - even on weekends and regardless of marital status - to make sure they were following approved liberty  plans.

The restrictions infuriated some sailors.

"Kitty  Hawk has entered a new phase of stupidity with its liberty plan
requirements. 100 percent contact of every sailor by a khaki every night!"
an unidentified sailor wrote in an e-mail to Navy Times. "The good are being
punished with the bad."


Another Kitty  Hawk sailor, in a posting on a blog, lamented the newest
restrictions.

"It's just sickening the way we are treated. The biggest sting of all is
watching the 16-year-old dependents of  other sailors walk the base freely
by themselves."

And it's not necessarily any better for sailors on the other Japan-based
ships.

One petty officer first class aboard the destroyer Mustin, in an e-mail to
Navy Times relayed by another sailor, wrote about an impromptu date with his wife to a local restaurant, thanks to a  helpful friend's offer to baby-sit their son. But before they could sit down to dinner and drinks that night, he had to go back to the ship to fill out a  liberty plan and get his command's OK.

Considering his age and rank, "[I] should not have to ask for approval to
consume a drink in public with my  wife."

But Navy officials say the liberty rules are needed to ensure good
relations with the local community at their  home ports or other foreign liberty ports.


Alarmed by some high-profile crimes and allegations involving sailors,
officials rewrote liberty rules in 2003,  setting new off-duty and liberty
restrictions for junior sailors, and  instituted a system of color-coded
liberty passes for sailors with U.S. Naval  Forces-Japan.

"Relationships with our friends and partners can be negatively impacted by
the poor conduct in foreign ports,"  Cmdr. Dawn Cutler, a 7th Fleet
spokeswoman, said by telephone  Wednesday.

An off-duty incident that gets little attention in the U.S. often   becomes
a firestorm of controversy in Japan, officials  said.

Kitty  Hawk's recent spot checks were temporary, "since most  liberty
incidents in the past have occurred in the first few days after a   return
from deployment," she said.

The carrier did throttle back to require spot checks on 20 percent of
sailors E-6 and below, Cmdr. Jensin  Sommer, a spokeswoman for Task Force 70 aboard Kitty  Hawk, said Friday via e-mail. Sommer said that is a normal fleet requirement, noting that spot checks are at each ship commander's
discretion.

"These spot checks are a way to re-emphasize the point that if you want to
deviate or make a change to your  original plan, it is OK to do so, as long
as you contact the first khaki in  your chain of command and inform him/her of the change," Sommer said. "This allows the sailor the flexibility to make a change to enjoy his/her liberty."

While officials laud the "flexibility" such rules provide, sailors call
them restrictive and little more than  baby-sitting.

"In my 21 years of service in the Navy and 10 years served under 7th fleet,
[I've] never seen [it] this bad," an unidentified Kitty Hawk chief petty
officer wrote on a blog. "Hopefully, the  future is more promising with the
GW."

Some sailors said tight restrictions have hurt morale.

"The ships are so paranoid about people messing up because if they do, the
ship has to formally address the incident,  why it happened, why they didn't
prevent it and what they'll do to ensure it  doesn't happen again," one
sailor assigned to a Yokosuka warship wrote to Navy  Times.

The recent crackdown in Kitty Hawk's liberty came about the same time as
the publicized arrest of a petty officer  second class, who allegedly punched a Japanese woman Dec. 2 in Yokosuka and is assigned to 7th Fleet command ship Blue Ridge, according to articles in Stars  and Stripes.

The sailor who wrote the e-mail said the Blue Ridge doesn't require its
sailors to  submit individual liberty  plans.




----- Original Message ----
From: "esquirecatering at rcn.com" <esquirecatering at rcn.com>
To: C320-List <c320-list at catalina320.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 3, 2008 3:28:59 PM
Subject: Re: [C320-list] Japan

Is there anyone on the list in Japan? The Navy might be sending me there in the middle of the month and I would love to go sailing.

Adam