04/27/05:

Uploaded Sailor Pages for David C. Chapman , Tom Goodson , Dave Tousseau and an old friend and fellow shipmate , Marvin A. Long.

Welcome Aboard Gents!

04/20/05:

Updated the Museum News & Events page.

Sadly, U.S.S. America has begun her final voyage. Sometime in the next week, she will be sunk off the East Coast in a survivability study for the Navy. One of the stories I have come across can be found here.

04/10/05:

"Eagle-3, you're lined up and on glide slope at 3/4 of a mile, call the ball..."
"Eagle-3, Intruder ball, 5.7..."
"Heads up, hook down..."
"A-6 in the groove...
"Short groove..."
"On the ramp!"

"OK 2 wire, full runout."
"Eagle-3 is aboard."


Uploaded Sailor Pages for Jeff Acup , Patrick John Driscoll , Dominic Finazzo , Paul J. Kilanski , Joel Lundt , Buzz Nau and Bobby Neal Jr. .

Welcome aboard Gents!

Man Overboard reported, starboard side! All hands muster!

Updated the Museum News & Events page.

03/02/05:

Uploaded Sailor Page for Larry Kunz , Gene P. Casterlin and Robert Parrott.

Welcome Aboard Gents!

02/17/05:Uploaded Sailor Pages for Jack Daugherty , Richard E. Huss , Michael Dylumph Long and , Charles Michael McCord

Welcome aboard Gents!

02/09/05:Uploaded the new issue of the "Hammer" to Petty Officer Rush's section of the Newsletters page.

02/03/05:Uploaded Sailor Pages for Lloyd Clark , Don Struchen and Jeff Wine.

Welcome aboard Gents!

Uploaded the recent issues of the "Hammer" to Petty Officer Rush's section of the Newsletters page.

01/31/05:Sadly, there has been an accident aboard USS Kitty Hawk, CV-63 in the arresting gear.

Apparently a Super Hornet had just engaged the 3 wire when it snapped. I know that some of you out the know what this means. For those of you who don't, this is very bad. I don't know the landing weight of a Super Hornet, but the regular F/A-18's we carried aboard Midway put out over 1 million foot pounds of kinetic energy when the hook hit the wire.

Right now there is not much information available, but two stories can be found here:

Navy News

WAVYTV.com

01/30/05: 1,400.

229 years ago, a revolt occured in the name of freedom. Many died. More than 1,400.

In the two centuries since then, the decendents of that same revolt have watered the tree of liberty with the blood of their own, not just for themselves, but for others.

Today, 1,400 Americans have given their lives to give the average Iraqi the right to vote, and the Iraqi's have reponded.

No matter your theology, political affiliation or personal opinion, the truth remains after today that American Forces have served their country honorably, and have done it for a just cause.

Iraqi citizens have embraced the gift given by those lives, and have turned out in unimaginable numbers to vote.

Tonight before you go to bed, remember that the men and women that are currently deployed did not ask for this, but they serve in your name and for your freedom.

Today, the blood of 1,400 Americans have watered the tree of liberty in a foreign land.

Today, that tree bore fruit...

GOD Bless the men and women of our Armed Forces and the mission they perform. May they all come home safely to us all.

01/23/05: Uploaded Sailor Page for Doug Rinehart. Welcome aboard Doug.

Also updated the Museum News & Events section with a link to a new page for those needing information about San Diego trip planning. If anyone has any feedback on the information, or their trip, please let me know.

01/01/05: Uploaded Sailor Page for Reid L. Gardiner, Rick W. Johnson, Caesar O. Quiroz and Joseph C. Spurny Jr.. Welcome aboard gents!

It's nice to bring aboard a few fellow ABE's and a Gear-Rat!

I also fixed the link to Leland Kenney's page. Sorry about that Leland.

I hope that you all had a safe and Happy New Year and look forward to 2005 being a great year for Midway, her Veterans and Volunteers.

12/23/04: After suffering a major system crash and finally getting everything operational again, an update has arrived! For those of you that remember such things, just act like we were Midway at sea: always gone and not to be heard from for long stretches!

Seriously, I apologize to all of you that thought we had dropped of the face of the Earth. My computer is starting to show it’s age and on top of that, I contracted something (the computer, not me…) that made it necessary to completely dump the system and start from scratch. All seems to be normal now again, so it’s time to get back to work!

For this update we have added Sailor Pages for Monte Bringle, Gary Bryant, Tom Foster, Stephen Hurling, Lowell Keer, Chet King, Doug King, Leland Kinney, Wayne Mance, David Olivares, Edward Peters, Scott Ptaszek, Steve Schock, David Thrall, Jeff Way and Rijhon Michael Wheeler. Sorry about the wait Gents. I appreciate your patience & Welcome Aboard!

With all of the issues that I have had recently, I would ask that all of you gents check the information I have posted for you and let me know if anything is incorrect. I did receive updates from some of you and tried to make the changes effective. The foregoing are all that I had in my box. If you submitted information and do not see your name here, I apologize for the error. Please resend your information and I will get it posted up ASAP.

Issued an Alert/Update in the Museum News section.

10/02/04: Uploaded Sailor Page for Ken Patterson. Welcome aboard Ken.

Also performed a little bit of house cleaning in the whole Sailor Pages section. Everything should now be properly formatted and look correct.

09/29/04: Uploaded Sailor Page for David B. Mustard. Welcome aboard David.

Uploaded the latest issue of the "Hammer" to Dan Rush's Newsletter section.

09/27/04: Updated More Links... with a link to Charlie Beggy's new MidwayMemories.com site.

Charlie was aboard during the late 40's and has some wonderful stories & photos available on his site.

09/26/04: Opened the Why We Go To Sea... section in the "Ships Photolab".

09/25/04: The Movie's page in the "Photolab" is now open! There are only two movies available at this time but that will change soon.

Uploaded the latest two issues of the "Hammer" to Dan Rush's Newsletter section.

And last but not least, uploaded a Sailor Page for Troy Prince, owner/operator of MidwaySailor.com

For those of you looking for a comprehensive history of the ship as well as another great U.S.S. Midway experience, look no further than here:


This site also features many photos and features not found here at RigTheBarricade.com

Welcome aboard Troy, and thanks for everything!

09/23/04: Uploaded Sailor Pages for Chester Morris & Bob Shoemaker. Welcome aboard Gents!

Updated Museum News & Events with some exciting news about a possible new addition to Midway's Airwing.

09/20/04: Finally, after quite a few late nights, nasty isp's and only a few computer crashes the new layout of the site is finished.

The 'Sailor Pages' sections have been revamped and are back in business. There does seem to be a small tweak I need to make on them, however I wanted to get everything back online so I will fix that sometime in the next few days.

The 'Photolab' section is still undergoing some renovations so only a few of the pages are available right now, but with the layout changed over it will just be a matter of uploading pictures everyday and getting them posted. Sorry, I only have a dialup connection and the sheer volume of goodies is quite large.

I estimate it will probably take about a week or so to get all of the pictures uploaded and caught up. A big THANKS goes out to Bill Purcell & Robert Anderson who have continued to submit goodies while I seemed to be off in limbo-land.

If you do encounter any broken links or anything that isn't working, please let me know.

07/23/04: The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, CVN-76, has finally arrived in her new homeport of San Diego!
Uploaded 2 new photos to the San Diego/Bill Purcell Collection while covering the arrival of the Reagan.

07/21/04: Uploaded 2 new photos to the San Diego/Bill Purcell Collection. Added a link to a news story in Museum News.
Work on the updating of the website continues at a grueling pace, but it should be finished soon.
Stay Tuned!

06/24/04: Uploaded photos for the Robert Anderson Collection in the San Diego Gallery. (Sorry about the wait bro...) Uploaded one photo to the Bill Purcell Gallery from yesterday's event aboard Midway. Finally got the Links & Museum page up and fixed.

06/21/04: More pics uploaded, Yee-Haa! Sorry about the delay in getting everything up folks, but with life on the outside as well as the limitations imposed by the dial-up connection that I have, have made this process a bit daunting. New pics have been posted in the San Diego directory under John McKie. More will follow. Keep on the lookout for pics from rander, they're coming soon...

06/18/04: Sorry folks, I'm running a bit behind but I finally posted up some more pics in the Bill Purcell Gallery. I think I also have all of the Sailor Pages back up. The forms are not set yet, but I should have those done shortly. If you had submitted your information but do not see it, I apologize. Not everything was salvagable. Once the forms are back up I can start putting more of you up there.

06/17/04: Finally started getting more pictures up! I put up the first page in my personal gallery for San Diego and should have more from Bill Purcell up late tonight. Over the next few days I wiil start putting up the photos from Robert Anderson & everyone else who has sent them into me. Sorry about the delay folks, but I promise that I will get these up as soon as possible. Welcome home to Buzz & Troy!

06/16/04: Well, once again, Tripod lowered the boom on us and erased the site. As you can see, we have finally decided not to go through this any longer and have aquired our own domain. Welcome to the new and improved RigTheBarricade.com. Going forward we should not encounter any of the issues that have previously plagued us. Now, on to the good stuff!

The S.D.A.C.M. is now OPEN!!! A small group of sailors that I served with along with half the wives and one mother made the road trip from Sacramento to San Diego. We had sailors who flew in from Florida, Georgia and Illinois as well as one that made the drive from central California and one still in the Navy aboard the USS Carnival Vinson. Do you know that she has a Starbuck's onboard?!? What has the Navy come to...

We spent all day Monday and Tuesday aboard ship and got to meet Troy Prince of Midwaysailor.com as well as Volunteers Robert Anderson, Bill Purcell, Bob Hartman and many more. The highlight was finally getting to meet CDR Pete Clayton. That man is incredible. What he and his staff have done with Midway is mind boggling. The ship almost appears ready to go to sea. If you do make it down to the museum, please take the time to find CDR Clayton as well as his staff of dedicated volunteers for their efforts. What you will get to enjoy could not have been possible without the dedication and hard work these people have put forth.

While not all of the ship is accessible at this time, a great deal of it is open to the public and is a lot of fun. On that subject, please do not go wandering off on your own through the ship. There is quite a bit of Midway that is locked off right now and for good reason. I was fortunate to be able to visit one of my old spaces, (Thanks Vic!) and I could understand why the area was locked off. While CDR Clayton and his Volunteer Navy have done a remarkable job, they are human. Many areas of the ship are still dangerous, equipment exposed, no lighting etc. It is for this reason that these areas are not open to the public. In time, they will be able to get the work done that is neccessary to be able to make these areas open. But catching us old salts running willy-nilly through closed off areas of the ship does nothing but disrespect the hard work that these people have put forth. If there is an area of the ship that you really would like to see that isn't open, just look for one of the faces that you will see in the photos section. If it is feasible and time permits, these guys would love to escort you into your area as long as Command authorizes it. Remember, 'Ask & ye might receive', don't & you find wind up in a bilge tank...

The site is not 100% put back together yet, but over the next few days I will be getting everything reloaded, this time for good. The Sailor Pages should be fully reloaded in the next few days as well as many of the pictures that were taken while we were in San Diego.