I’m frequently impressed by what my fellow sailors are doing as reflected in “All Hands”. My question is — why aren’t some of those remarkable achievements, some with obvious significant civic value, lauded in the press? For instance, the Navy’s Mobile Diving and Salvage Units have repeatedly been called upon to support aircraft recovery and engineering issues vital to America (such as summer 2007 Minneapolis I-35 collapse). While I recall some coverage of the I-35 story, I don’t think it was captured for the national media appropriately.

Also on the vein of publicity — and potentially to err in the direction of a rant — I still question the utter lack of publicity in the cases of Navy SEALs who have earned the Silver Star. While I believe that some of the living and currently serving SEALs who have earned the Silver Star have justifiable security concerns with publicity, I still see almost no mention in the press of the heroic actions of many of our fallen heroes. I’m not sure that the fact of naval presence on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan even begins to graze the popular conciousness.