Jack of Harts

Today is Flag Day, the commemoration of the adoption of the flag of the United States of America on June 14, 1777, by the Second Continental Congress. They were standing up against a tyrannical government and needed a new flag of their own. So they passed a resolution of a new flag with thirteen stripes and thirteen stars on a blue field, one for each of the Colonies. One of the most famous versions of that is the Betsy Ross Flag, with the thirteen stars in a circle. We have a few more stars now, but the same number of stripes to remember the original thirteen States that risked everything to form the nation we live in now.

Kings Bay in Georgia erased decades of lax security and personnel procedures in the months following the sinking of USS Georgia with all hands. One operational method they used was never admitting when or how they spent time in dock, even when undergoing long term repairs or maintenance. As the months turned into years and then decades, historians know that Georgia retired or lost some of their ballistic missile submarines as maintenance became harder and more expensive. But they never admitted it. All boats remained on their fleet registers and were officially “on patrol” at all times. Even their funding and expenditures remained at a level required to operate their entire official fleet. They banned funerals and memorial stones for crewmembers who died in the line of duty. Social media presences remained active, and letters continued to go to family as usual. Pay accrued and was deposited into family accounts as usual until they officially died of old age or a random illness that had nothing to do with their duty on board a nuclear boat. Because all of Georgia’s boats continued to operate as the final deterrent to any foreign power that may have ill intent towards America. Everybody knew it was a lie at the time, but no one knew where the lie was, so they had to treat the lies as possibly true.

The ballistic missile submarine crews who made Kings Bay their home became more insular after one of their number followed Federal orders to fire on America before being immediately sunk. They had always been a bit squirrelly by the metrics of other sailors, but they withdrew further after that incident. They were angry at the friends who pulled the trigger, on both sides. They never wanted to see anything like that happen again, and so they set about making certain it never would. Their first action was to investigate all current crewmembers for potential foreign or Federal entanglements, and then unilaterally kicked dozens of men and women off the literal boat. They changed the screening procedures that investigated potential crewers for submarine duty, and improved their psychological and financial support structure. Georgia desperately wanted to keep them in Kings Bay and supported every effort to reform and rebuild. Against all odds, they succeeded.