Sailors Open Sea Scout Eyes

POLARIS POINT, GUAM

04.25.2018

Story by Petty Officer 1st Class Richard Doolin 

USS Frank Cable (AS 40)

POLARIS POINT, Guam (April 25, 2018) – The submarine tender USS Frank Cable (AS 40) welcomed 15 Sea Scouts aboard for a ship’s tour, April 25. For most of the boys and girls, ranging in age from 14 to 21, it was their first time on a Navy ship.

“This is their first time even seeing the U.S. Navy in action. It’s definitely cool and exciting,” said Jacob Lalumandier, 14, founder of the Sea Scout Ship Guahan. Sea Scout units are called ships.

Lalumandier, an Eagle Scout, founded Sea Scout Ship Guahan because he was looking for new challenges. He learned about Sea Scouts online.

The Sea Scouts program, said Lalumandier, “emphasizes getting on the water, learning leadership, and it’s actually for older scouts, from 14 to 21. And it seemed a lot more, almost high adventure. And they worked closely with the Navy and Coast Guard. It was just a perfect fit.”

During their tour of the ship, the scouts were shown a repair locker, a machinery room, the firearms training simulator, the barbershop, the post office, the mess decks, the medical department, and the ship’s bridge.

At the firearms training simulator hands shot up when the scouts were asked if they'd like to shoot laser pistols. Of all the stops on the tour, they stayed here the longest.

The scouts were shown the medical department by Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Edgar Garcia. “I think it was great that the Sea Scouts were here. It’s great that we’re able to show the local Guam community what Frank Cable has to offer. It’s not every day that they get to come and see what we have on the sub tender,” said Garcia.

And on the ship's bridge the scouts met Third Officer Ken Cordasco, a Military Sealift Command (MSC) civilian mariner, who was standing an eight-hour watch.

"Well, as an Eagle Scout I always enjoy passing on what I’ve learned to young aspiring mariners, or whatever it is that they’re trying to do. Very motivating to witness them learning about the ship; they seemed
very excited, and I was happy to help in whatever limited way that I could," said Cordasco.

Frank Cable is unusual in that its crew is a mixture of U.S. Navy Sailors and MSC civilian mariners. Cordasco told the scouts about MSC, a service that runs the replenishment and military transport ships of the Navy.

"They had a couple of good questions,” said Cordasco. “They had the questions that I would have expected them to have, like, actually, quite literally ‘who are you and what are you doing here?’ 'Cause when you come on a U.S. Navy ship you don’t quite expect to see so many civilians, you know, sort of weird looking, they’re khakis but they’re not Navy khakis. ‘What is MSC?’ Where do you come from? How do you get there?’ Questions that I asked when I was learning how to be a mariner. Those are questions I know how to answer, so that was actually very good."

At tour's end the scouts were given distinguished visitor packets as souvenirs, and were bid farewell by the Sailors.

The young visitors impressed the lead tour guide, Chief Machinist Mate Brady Brunvand. "Yes, they asked a lot of questions, and that just sparked their interest towards what we do for a living, and what we do for this ship and the country," said Brunvand.

Frank Cable, forward deployed to Guam, repairs, rearms and reprovisions deployed U.S. Naval Forces in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.

For more information on Frank Cable, find us on Facebook at USS Frank Cable (AS 40), or http://www.csp.navy.mil/frankcable

For further questions, please contact USS Frank Cable Public Affairs Office
[phone] x6418 or [e-mail]

• Date Taken: 04.25.2018
• Date Posted: 04.30.2018 00:51
• Story ID: 274970
• Location: POLARIS POINT, GU