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USS Thach

The sea claims its victory over land,
darkening as it deepens, and
overpowering man’s attempts
to tame it.

Back story
A couple of months ago I received a call from Flight Lieutenant John Ellis of the British RAF. He was the assigned media operative for CTF 152, the coalition task force, currently under British command, responsible for the maritime security of vast swathes of water between Iraq’s oil fields and Yemen’s Straits of Aden. He wanted me to interview Commodore Peter Hudson, the man heading the coalition forces. He was a nice guy, very interesting, and we ran the interview in August in our sister publication, Gulf Financial Insider. That call however was the beginning of a journey that saw me helicoptered out to the USS Thach where I would spend a couple of very warm days seeing first hand exactly what the coalition forces did, and how their actions at sea related to the tactical vision that Commodore Hudson and described.

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A game of nerves
I was nervous as I waited for the car to arrive. It was slowly dawning on me exactly what I was about to do. It had seemed a simple enough request and, once approved, a simple enough assignment. But sat at home, re-reading everything I could about the Thach, I began to worry about the reality I was about to live.

The USS Thach is Perry class frigate which means it is just 453 feet (138m) long and 45 feet (not quite 14m) wide. Below the water line the keel sinks a paltry 22 feet (nearly 7m), and above the water line there are just two decks. In other words: not very big at all. And yet, into such a relatively confined space, 224 souls live and work, often for months at a time, alongside more mechanical and electrical equipment than I have ever seen in a single place. Conditions then, are tight.

To put this all in context, picture if you will, my ‘stateroom’ and home for the two nights I was aboard. Imagine a box, seven feet by ten, the ceiling thinly hovering about ten feet up: at one end there are racks (navy slang for bed) upon which we sleep, and at the other storage; there is a computer and TV by the bed, and a sink in the corner. This is an officer’s room, and it sleeps three. There is enough viable floor space for two chairs, but unless all three officers are asleep in their racks, there is really only enough space for two of them at a time. The enlisted men live below deck and have even less space to call their own.

So yes, I was nervous waiting for the car to come. It would be taking me to another world, one that I had no experience of whatsoever: a secret, hidden world, filled with big men wielding bigger guns, on a mission to take over the world. Except it wasn’t like that at all: there were guns of course - and one them is huge - but they are generally mounted on deck - the small arms being safely locked away in the armoury, or on the bridge (“in case of emergencies”), and one guy in particular - a guy who would later show his softer side looking at a photo of his wife, in a blue dress he had bought in Hong Kong... - was enormous: a man mountain made of steel and bricks, but some of them were small, tiny in fact, and young, very young.

The average age across the entire US Navy is 22 and of all the things I saw on board, these boyish faces, smiling and laughing their way through a man’s world, will be what stays with me the longest. At first it felt all wrong, as if they should still be in school, but the more I heard them speak about their lives, the more I realised that this is the right life for them: that they are being afforded opportunities unobtainable in the civilian world, that the navy life is their best shot at university education, at learning skills that will set them up for life in careers as diverse as engineering, electronics and information technology.

And Commodore Hudson had already explained CTF 152’s mission to me: “to form alliances of co-operation that reduce the places where those interested in pursuing [illegal] activity can operate.” He explained that whilst he was not really concerned with small scale smuggling: “the cigarette runner looking to make a little extra;” those involved with people or drug smuggling, piracy and, “engaging in anything that furthers international terrorism,” were a threat to the overall maritime security of the region and therefore the main targets of the coalition force. My trip aboard the USS Thach was to see first hand how these words were translated into action.

Star Struck
The helicopter ride was uneventful, in many ways less exciting than a flight over London I was given for my birthday a few years ago. It was a bigger bird of course - six of us were headed to the Thach, and two in front ensuring that we got there - so it tipped less and felt slower. And anyway, as I would hear on many occasions in the coming days, “boring is good, exciting means that something has gone wrong.”

The view however, was incredible: below the thudding blades, Bahrain stretched out from its coastline in glistening white against the deep azure. It is easy to become blasé about all the land reclamation we hear about, but when you see it from the air, in a diesel stinking hot box, dressed in a life jacket, cranial helmet, goggles and ear guards - the scale of it is incredible; the work goes on and on, apparently forever, until the sea claims its victory over land, darkening as it deepens, and overpowering man’s attempts to tame it.

We landed suddenly, and without warning, far sooner than we had been told to expect. The USS Thach was not too far away they had said, but when I asked exactly where in the Gulf we were, the question was answered quickly and vaguely, as if they didn’t want me to know: “somewhere off Qatar, not too far from Iran.” And this is thing about being at sea: unless you know exactly where you are, you cannot know where you are at all. The sea looks the same in every direction - flat and shimmering, like bluely tinted foil - and there are (obviously) no landmarks to guide you. Without sophisticated GPS devices, endless maps and charts, and the ever faithful compass you are lost, wherever you happen to be.

Lost that is, apart from the stars. That night, in darkness I have only ever seen once before, in the desert of Jordan’s Wadi Rum, I understood for the first time how navigation by the stars was in any way possible. They were as bright a thousand million torches, and closer at sea than they appear on land: the constellations I knew, leaping as if from a huge blackboard and dancing before my eyes. Before GPS, before even the compass, there were the stars, and it really is enough. With knowledge, with experience, these twinkling lights will guide you across oceans, and around the world, and at that moment, feeling both tiny and invigorated by the scale of the universe, it was easier to... something... God.

All at sea
Waiting for us at the back of the hangar - a cramped, hot place, lined with tools, and parts and, strangely, a guitar amp - Commander David Haas, Lieutenant Commander Bruce Stanley and First Lieutenant Johannes Schonberg waited for us, wondering why it was taking so long for us to leave the hee-lo, as all on board insisted on calling the helicopter. Throughout my time onboard, these three, but especially Haas and Schonberg would be my guides, answer all my questions, and show me time and time again where the bridge was, where my rack was, and where I should go to eat.

Commander Haas is navy to the core - they all are, but with Haas, he looked exactly like the Navy Man of my imagination. Not tall, he has a Tom Cruise smile, the deep tan of a life lived outdoors, and sunglasses that suggest that he could stare down the sun. He has been in service for 18 years and, “doesn’t have a clue about what he will do” when he retires. His options are varied, in part because of the wealth of experience he has attained in the navy, but due also to the pension provision 20 years of naval service affords all its personnel. “50 per cent pay, free medical and dental - for life,” he beams at me. And with that to fall back on if all else fails, you can afford to be picky as to what your next career might be.

We were talking in his office, midway between the bridge above, and the combat room next door. His office and quarters, whilst bigger than my state room, was filled with stuff : the inevitable books, files, folders and computer; the reality and detritus of any senior position - “my connection to the outside world,” he says of the computer, before dismissing the thought by explaining the reality of their, “128K line, shared between 200 men and all the ship’s communications.”

He is sat at his desk upon which two phones ring intermittently, momentarily distracting him from the flow of our conversation. Each time he is apologetic, courteous, and picks up immediately where he left off. We talk about what it is that I want to achieve and what I can expect to see whilst on board, detailing various real and training exercises that will take place in the next couple of days. At no point does he tell me anything that I cannot do: places I cannot go, or people that I cannot speak to. “The ship’s yours,” he says, “make yourself at home.”

He then takes me on a tour of the ship, leading me through all the doors and hatches you have to go through - and seal again afterwards, with huge levers and twisting dials: a real life MouseTrap - to get anywhere at all. Along the way, I was introduced to anyone that we encountered and whilst he seemed to know all their first names, I struggled to remember any of them despite their surnames being embroidered on their ‘utilities.’ It took about an hour to tour the ship and at each new area - the spaces divided by heavy steel - he would explain, more or less, what happened there. I learnt that the ship is powered by twin turbo engines, “the same ones that power a DC-10 aeroplane,” and that these could be rotated whilst moving, “to give negative thrust” and “stop the ship in about a length and a half.” Pretty impressive stuff, especially when you consider how many car lengths it takes to stop your car, and that your car doesn’t weigh more than 4000 tonnes.

I saw the galley, a tiny, hot place where 1000+ meals are produced each day; the ‘desal’[ination] plants that produce over 13000 gallons of fresh water from some of the saltiest seawater on earth; the four diesel generators that power the ship's three AC units, all its lights, its communication and tracking tools and everything else that 224 men need to stay alive. The ship’s power also provides all the power needed to start the two helicopters attached to the ship and all of their surveillance equipment. Throughout, Haas explained to me in laymen’s terms what everything did and, more often than not, declaring something particularly impressive as “pretty cool.”

I liked Haas. His demeanour was that of an untroubled leader. Later, after expressing my surprise at his laid back approach he would explain that, “the screamers, I think, are like that because they are not comfortable with what they are doing and use authority as a bludgeon instead of precision tool.”

We had come full circle and entered the combat room; the nerve centre and heart of the ship. Think of any submarine movie: the dark space lit only by red light, the radar and sonar bleeping, their operators hunched over their screen waiting for the worst to happen. The combat room is exactly like they show it in the movies. It is dark and cool in there, the air conditioning cranked up to eleven: “to protect the machines, not the sailors.”

A statement of intent
Inside, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, I caught my first glimpse of how Commodore Hudson’s words were put into action. Here, on the screens of at least eight different stations, little blips of light in the dark signalled the existence of an entire eco-system of commercial and military maritime activity: here the oil and gas fields of Qatar, there the pipelines that carry their valuable cargo to shore, and the thousands of ships that ply their trade on the calm waters of the Gulf. And of course, some of these blips might represent those that wish to upset this comparative calm, or exploit others for ill gotten gain. The USS Thach’s role is to find those that wish to disrupt the status quo. And stop them.

“Think of this ship as a set of eyes and ears for the coalition,” Haas says on my second day. “We are fast enough, and have enough range, to investigate any reports of suspicious activity.” They also have the hee-los, two enormous eyes in the sky, crammed full of electronics, all designed to give a visual impression of the sea way beyond the horizon.

Jake, a thin, gangly looking man in his mid to late twenties, tells me about the FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) that can “spot, and help identify, any vessel that it comes across, even at night.” With a range of about 150 miles, it is this capability that most strongly serves 152’s mission; by taking a real time, visual snapshot of all at sea at different points throughout the day and night, it is possible to map visually who is doing what, where. With that information, combined with radar, radio and all the other electronic bells and whistles, it is much easier to prioritise areas in which the coalition should focus their attention.

On the first night I was aboard, the hee-los went up as planned. I watched them stutter into the air as the blades wrestled with gravity, eventually overcoming it in an erratic flurry of movement. They were gone about three hours and I tracked their progress from the combat room. They encountered all the usual suspects: the fishing dhows bobbing uncontrollably, illuminated by little more than a few dim bulbs; the oil tankers carrying what is still the elixir of modern life; the container ships crawling heavily toward Dubai, or from it, and then they spotted something else entirely. It was a warship, and not one of ours. The call went up, “is that Iranian?” The question, perhaps remembering my presence in the room, went unanswered, but it led me to suspect that we were closer to Iranian waters than they had previously admitted.

How do solve a problem like...
The Iranian question is a tricky one. Many on board the Thach agree with Commodore Hudson who said of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, “whilst they may report to Tehran, they have freedom to carry out operations on their own;” in essence, a law unto themselves. Others even went as far as suggesting that one day, a day they hoped to see, it would be, “cool if a US, or coalition ship, could make an official visit to an Iranian port.” And further, that they believed, “the Iranian navy to be a professional navy, just like the US,” with, “little interest in disrupting the general maritime security; the status quo that sees everyone making a ton of money at sea.” Haas was more guarded in his reply to the Iran question: “most of the time, they are not even on our radar, they keep themselves to themselves and don’t bother anyone.” Asked whether he would have allowed his sailors to be taken, as the British navy somehow did in 2007, by the IRG he simply says, “no.” And that is the end of the conversation.

I witness how he deals with perceived threats to the Thach's security in an exercise that night. The exercise was designed to teach the crew in how to stop an incoming vessel that goes beyond the (known only to the Thach) ‘no sail zone’ that surrounds the ship. As with everything they do, the exercise is as much about thinking as it is about doing. First the threat must be evaluated: is a collision likely, and if so, where will it occur? Then every attempt is made to contact the vessel’s pilot to alert him of the imminent danger, both of collision and of the likely consequences of failing to alter his course. As Schonberg told me, “it is not unknown for civilian pilots to fall asleep at the wheel; we try very hard to wake them up!”

If none of that works, the horn is sounded, spotlights shone, flares fired and then, eventually, warning shots will be fired; with matters swiftly escalating from there.

It was an entertaining show: the flares hanging in the air as if suspended from wire, the green and red tracer fire bouncing off the waves like some errant firework and the BOOM, BOOM, BOOM of the 50 calibre cannon, fired from beneath the flimsy cammo netting that provides the gunners with their only shade during the searing daytime watches. But it is more serious than just an entertaining spectacle. All of them are.

Practice makes perfect
Smoking a cigarette, one stifling dawn, a 12 year submariner described how the drills he hated most were the, “endless fire drills.” But how, when a fire caught in perhaps the worst place on earth: “200 metres down,” his sub’s tight knit crew reacted instinctively to deal with it. “The fire was under control in 30 seconds from the alarm being sounded; some of the men showed up in their underwear.”

I can quite believe it. My time on board the USS Thach has changed the way I think about the armed forces. I will freely admit that before going on board I had a prejudice toward the military, especially those that served beneath the flag of the United States. I just could not equate the military industrial machine - I read about in the British, ‘liberal’ press - with real people, and believed, as I have already said, that their agenda must, by their very nature, be nefarious. But aboard the Thach I saw young men, highly trained all, working as a single unit for the protection of the ship. This in turn ensured the success of their mission and that of CTF 152’s.

Late on my second day, tired and dehydrated, the enlisted sailors, some of them as young as 18, donned hard hats and life jackets and stood on deck for hours in the sun as the ship performed a Replenishment At Sea (RAS). They did not complain about the heat or the sun, did not question why they had to stand in 120 degrees - on a hot metal box, in seas that touch 90oF - holding on to a rope that never tugged or pulled. Instead, they followed orders, not only because they would be punished for insubordination, but because they appreciated that non-compliance harms everyone.

Haas told me afterward that his men “would do anything he asked them to," a statement he quickly qualifies; “It can be quite scary when I think about it, the responsibility that sits with me. But then, similar responsibility sits with all the men, in a way.” He goes on to explain his ‘snowball extrapolation’ technique; a routine he goes through whenever someone starts grumbling. “Let’s say that someone doesn’t clean down the kitchen properly, and everyone gets sick. The ship cannot function, and we cannot complete our mission.”

Or that those guys on the RAS - and I am speculating here - drop their rope to find some shade; what if the ship strikes some drift wood, the ship jumps and dislodges the fuel pipe which swings back against the supply ship and breaks? The Thach has no fuel, and no means to secure any; the supply ship is damaged meaning it must return to port instead of fuelling other ships. In this scenario, it is not just their mission that fails, but potentially the missions of a dozen other ships in the region.

Access denied
At this point, I am aware that this article may sound a little too positive; that it is exactly what the navy might want me to say. And perhaps it is, but it is also a true reflection of my time on board the USS Thach. It was a positive experience that has changed my perceptions of what the Navy is, but more importantly what it is not. It is not some faceless behemoth hell bent on instilling its ideologies onto the rest of the world. Or rather, if it is, then it so only at the macro level, higher up than Haas and his men. Up there, and I am certain that those elevated to such lofty positions would vehemently disagree, as with anything else, things do become faceless and the military industrial machine rolls on, apparently unaccountable to anyone.

Which brings me to the only real negative about the whole experience: on the morning of the second day I supposed to get very wet indeed. But, at the very last minute, I was not allowed.

The RHIB (Rigid Hulled Inflatable Boat) is about 15 feet long; it has an outboard motor and room for about seven or eight men. (The USS Thach is unusual in that it has an all male crew. About 15 per cent of the US Navy is female but the Thach, being an old ship was never designed to house women and, “would cost too much to retro-fit to accommodate them”.) The Thach has just one aboard but Haas, “would desperately love to have another,” and it is the means by which the ship carries out its missions for CTF 152.

Every morning, based on ‘intel’ compiled from the hee-lo’s mission last night and the never ending swish-swoosh of the radar, the combat room identifies groups of craft, otherwise unidentifiable to all the ship’s clever electronics. Usually dhows, no larger than the ones you see endlessly moored in the bays of Bahrain, these small craft represent the salt of this aquatic earth. Dhows are used to fish with, to transport small quantities of cargo and as pleasure craft, but sometimes, they are used as the hidden-in-plain-view vessels of those wishing to take advantage of the relative calm of the Persian Gulf. The RHIB’s job is to go and have a closer look.

Nervous again - this is where it could all go seriously wrong - I followed Schonberg to the armoury to be fitted with a flak jacket and helmet. This was serious, and they were taking no chances. I followed him up ladders again, through hatches, sealing doors behind me, to wait for the order to board. Talking to the boarding crew - should it come to that- the tension was palpable. Their orders are to communicate, to offer food, water and medical help. But if it is going to go wrong, it will go wrong in an instant. The sailors, tooled up all, and the Bahraini interpreter, seemed oblivious as to, but at the same time cautious of, what was about to happen.

I was scared, but at the same time, trusted absolutely those who would be around me. Thinking about it now, I cannot say exactly why. I suppose it was because my initial fears about the assignment had been unfounded, that I had found everyone, to a man, to be helpful and courteous: willing to answer all my stupid questions. If those fears and come to naught, then these fears too, would dissolve like ice in the gin and tonic I had surely earned by being here.

Then the order came, and I was not to go with them. I unzipped my flak jacket, unclasped my helmet and walked dejectedly to the bridge. This was the one thing I had wanted to see. This was where I would see firsthand that the US forces in the Gulf were not what I had always suspected them to be: the big taking it out on the small. But it was not to be. Someone somewhere had decided that it was not safe, or it was too much to ask of a military force: if we do it for one, we will have to do it for all....

David apologised to me. “This is what you came to see, and you haven’t. Not what I had in mind at all.”

I watched the approach through the binoculars from the bridge and I can report: no one rattled or pointed any guns and anyone; no one on the dhows ever looked scared or ill at ease. I cannot tell you what was said, but the fishermen that the RHIB approached, if at first reluctant to speak, by the time the RHIB pulled away, were smiling, taking deep pulls from the bottles of water they had been given. Later I was told that one of the dhows had given corroborative statement into some piracy already under investigation by the task force.

Since returning to Bahrain, I have learnt that the reason I was not allowed aboard the RHIB is down to concern for my safety. Had there been another RHIB I would have been allowed on the first. The concern was that, in the event of anything going wrong, they would not have been able to get me out.

End game
My time on the Thach has altered some of perceptions and prejudices about not just the military, but equally, of the kinds of people that sign up for its service. This is a good thing. It is all too easy - and all too common - for the international fleet’s work in the Gulf to be dismissed if not derided. ‘It just about the oil;’ ‘they are building a new world order: oppressing and ignoring the people that were gifted the resources that Uncle Sam needs.’ These are common refrains all, and may, in the final analysis have some truth about them. But my time aboard the Thach has been humbling - how wrong can I be, and for how long? The 224 men that I met are human beings, are just, to a greater or lesser extent, like you and me. One guy told me, “I hate this job and there is no way that I’m signing up for more.” When was the last time you said to your wife, or your buddies - your mum or your dad: exactly the same thing? These are people who happen to wear a uniform. At this level of one man aboard one ship, in part of one fleet, in the grand scheme of much bigger things, each opinion counts and is about as far removed this all-too-easy-stereotype as I have ever come cross.

To borrow a phrase - and invert it: Shocked and awed.

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With thanks to the 224 souls that hosted me, those in particular that guided me, and to everyone else that helped to make it so.