Back from the Horizon

Skipper, XO, CMC, Easyriders, family and friends: it’s good to be home. Skipper, XO, and CMC, thank you for your guidance, mentorship, and leadership as we’ve gone over the horizon. To the officers and chiefs, your selfless assistance and advice made everything possible and relatively easy. To the sailors, your help in getting our post PMI rebuild aircraft ready to go prior to both underways was necessary and critical, as was your support and camaraderie to the det in general.

We couldn’t have done it without you. To the spouses, children, family and friends present: I and we can’t thank you enough. The sacrifices you make while we are gone are the true sacrifices; your lives are the ones partly on hold, and you will never be compensated as fairly as you should be for them. The country thanks you, and I am honored to have been entrusted with your spouse, parent, son or daughter.

The group you see before you is but the latest iteration of Detachment TWO. The deployment cycle for USS MICHAEL MURPHY has been different and prolonged compared to a typical deployment cycle. It has not been a race, it’s been a marathon, and so we have paced ourselves. Some of the individuals here have been with us since the holidays in the buildup to this deployment.

Others, including myself, joined the team during out ‘workup’ period of SUSTEX last fall. Still others before you have been with the detachment since the beginning two years ago, enduring normal workups and a five month deployment prior to SUSTEX. Some people here were part of that original group and have either moved on elsewhere in the squadron or PCSed.

A large portion of this group will continue with this detachment and deploy again until MICHAEL MURPHY goes into the yards later next year. I want to thank all of the current and former members of Detachment TWO for your amazing efforts, commitments to the organization and mission, and investment in your fellow sailors. Without the Scalleykat family culture that we have developed from the grass roots, we simply would not have been successful over this prolonged period of time.

After this detachment returned home from deployment last June, the process was set in motion to begin turnover and planning for this past SUSTEX and deployment almost immediately. While several of the maintenance professionals remained with the detachment, the pilots and aircrew almost completely turned over. While maintenance began work on preparing new aircraft for SUSTEX, the pilot and aircrew went to Air Wing Fallon with CVW-2 for integrated training for a month, and left far more tactically proficient with three valid hellfire shots under our belts. After getting home in late September, we reintegrated with maintenance and embarked on SUSTEX in early October, traveling to the West Coast for training and certification exercises with the Car Vinson Strike Group, with some liberty in Port Hueneme along the way. This was a great opportunity for us to train to function as a detachment team, integrate ourselves with the ship, and fight as one with the entire strike group, flying 150 hours over a month and a half.

Upon returning home just in time for Thanksgiving and the holidays, we were surprised with several inspections to be completed prior to deployment during the holiday leave, while switching both of our aircraft and having to rebuild one of them. The team performed flawlessly, homeguard bent over backwards to help us, and everything came together in the end. It was amazing how everyone took care of themselves and their areas and prepared for deployment.

We got underway and joined the Carl Vinson carrier strike group, conducting exercises and training as we crossed the Pacific. We spent three months defending American interests in the Western Pacific, from the South China Sea defending against excessive maritime claims, to the wide expanses of Micronesia, protecting several island nations from being exploited by illegal fishing fleets. We flew another 400 hours, conducted two major phase inspections, qualified X EAWS and X ESWS.

We also enjoyed some down time—twice in Guam; Manila, Phillippines, and additional quick stops in Pohnpei and Kwajalein. We’ve come home stronger, more proficient in our craft, and have made our people more experienced and our aircraft better than how we found them. We come home having trained the sailors of USS MICHAEL MURPHY in the capabilities of the MH-60R and Naval Aviation, and ourselves with a deepened appreciation for what the surface community brings to the fight. We come home proud in what we’ve accomplished for the country, for the Navy, and for the Easyriders.

Finally, to the Scallykatz: being your OIC has been the highest professional honor of my life. You as maintenance professionals, pilots, and aircrew rose to every challenge and made it look easy. Thank you for your hard work, your positive attitudes andn enthusiasm, and your belief in something larger than yourselves. I couldn’t be prouder of everything we few, we happy few, we band of brothers, have done together. Welcome home to your friends and family. You’ve earned it. And Scalleykatz, if you’ll indulge me one more time…Ready…BREAK!

These are the good days.

A big thank you to my friend Amber Scameheorn for taking our homecoming pictures! Can’t wait to return the favor.