[KurtsM5]

I'm ex Navy-crypto ET2, served in Reagan's Navy. 1981-1986, aboard USS Shreveport LPD-12, she looked like the LaSalle pictured early in this thread but was flag configured, had an extra deck topside. We set a record Suez Canal transit in 1984, many years later anothe CO tried to break our record and wrecked the hell out of her. Had to get towed to Israel to repair the props and shafts. THAT's funny! I went ashore in Beirut as part of the bomb investigation team. Hezbollah blew up the Embassy Annex(They blew up the Embassy Marine barracks the year before, 1983.)

EDIT---Cool story, when we were sitting off Beirut, our SPS-40 air search radar antenna motor died. While waiting for a replacement to be flown in from Israel, the JFK task force sent the USS Semmes DDG-18 over to babysit us. Decades later I was working at an FM station tower, and it turned out the transmitter engineer was on the Semmes then. Small world stuff. Here's me up the mast swapping the motor out.