Saying Goodbye Is Always Difficult

Recently, the longest-serving nuclear submarine USS Bremerton (SSN-698) went into reserve service after nearly 40 years of service. How times have changed since her launch in 1978 and commisioning in 1981, but we all deal with change.

In the early 80s, submarines did not have vertical launch tubes, used optical periscopes, utilized disk drives the size of dorm refrigerators, and the crew watched movies using a projector. The Los Angelos Class Submarine was state of the art, and the USS Bremerton was part of this breed of submarines.

In the early 80's, the Walkman cassette player was in everyday use; the first Mac came out, phone booths were used to place calls when you were on the road, and the speed limit through much of the United States was 55 miles per hour.

I want to wish the crew of the Bremerton the best of luck and based on crew size of approximately 130 sailors and crew turnover every three years, around 1,700 personnel were privileged to be part of the crew during the life of this vessel.

The Bremerton was approximately 360 feet in length and had a beam of around 32 feet. The majority of shipboard space was engineering, reactor, and weapons spaces with a small amount of space for living quarters. On most boats, junior sailors would share a rack with another sailor a process called hot racking.

So time passes us by, and much like the decommissioning of the Bremerton, many of us have joined WA to keep us from a similar fate of the Bremerton. Careers are generally not for life anymore.

Think about it, in the early 80s one of the first online services named Prodigy started, and it used dial-up connections for communication. We thought this was state of the art and it was for the blink of an eye.

A walk down memory lane perhaps but also a peek into the future and how things will change in the next forty years. How we adjust to change is key to whether or not we become the new dinosaur.

What are you doing to keep away from the technology bullwhip?

What was your favorite technology from the 1980s?

Being fifty plus going on fifteen can be interesting when you remember more about the 1980s than the 2010s.

Thanks for stopping by. Jay