Published Quarterly by the USS Tullibee SSN 597 Association Bill Keel Association Commander, 815-715-9966, [email protected] 25 February 2018 Commander’s Corner We have a new Please access the website. Tell us how we can make it Hi shipmates! better. Remember, this is webpage and there your page! First order of business is an are some exciting apology! I have been remiss in The chatter is picking up on my duties of getting the changes! our Facebook page about the newsletter to you. Some of 2019 reunion. Where are we you are aware that there have Shipmate George Houk has having it? Well, I will send a been several events in my life worked very hard to create a questionnaire out via Survey over the past many months new webpage for us. The new Monkey to ask for your input. that have caused me address is www.usstullibee.org. At the last reunion distractions. However, I am It can be accessed using the (Portsmouth) we had talked back on the job! We have had old address of about Las Vegas, and a good a couple of shipmates that www.usstullibee.com, number of shipmates mentioned have recently gone on Eternal www.usstullibee.org, or going to Branson, Missouri, Patrol, and their spouses have www.ssn597.org. Please go to again. That was voiced by mentioned how important the the website and register on it. those who went to Branson in Tullibee reunions were to their It is still a work in process, 2015, as well as by many who husbands and to them. The but let’s start using it! did not. Branson was a great idea of the reunions is to reunion and there is a ton of afford shipmates and families A new feature of the webpage stuff to do. And, it is a great the chance to reunite or to is that you can now use PayPal place to bring the family! We make new friendships. A to join the USS Tullibee SSN have had many children and recent correspondence made 597 Association or to order grandchildren attend reunions. that point really hit home! I’ll memorabilia! We have had What a great way to pass on do a much better job in the many requests for PayPal and our legacy! future. now it is here! If you are not a member, Ship’s Store Let’s Spread please consider joining. Tullibee items are available in the Word! our ship’s store. I get a lot of emails from people claiming to Every time we have a reunion, be Tullibee and they sell we hear from shipmates after “Tullibee” items. Remember, the fact who were upset they they usually are not associated did not know about the reunion with the USS Tullibee SSN and wished they could have 597 and their sales go to their attended. Almost all of us private enterprises. That’s have shipmates in our contact good, and private enterprises lists. Why not forward a copy make America run. But when of this newsletter to every you buy from the Tullibee Tullibee shipmate you know? Association, you are supporting If they are already on the Memberships the mission of the Association, mailing list, they’ll appreciate Membership Dues for the and we need your support! you for making sure they have USS Tullibee SSN 597 received it! If they are not on the mailing list, it will give Association are as them the opportunity to be follows: included. Even if you cannot, or choose not to attend a YEARLY DUES: reunion, let’s give our shipmates the chance to get $10 per year and together with old crew renewable December 31 members, get meet new of each year. friends, and swap a few We have the following stories! LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP items available: DUES ARE AVAILABLE USS TULLIBEE -Golf shirts, with gold or silver Dolphins SSN 597 The rates are as follows ASSOCIATION and are based upon the -Ball caps, with gold or silver member's age at time of Dolphins payment of lifetime dues: Are you a member of the Age 65 and Over: -Tullibee coffee mugs USS Tullibee SSN 597 $50.00; Association? Being a -Tullibee T-shirts Age 60-64: $75.00; member is not essential in Age 50-59: $100.00; -Zippo lighters with the boat’s order to get newsletters, Age 49 and under: crest attend reunions, or enjoy on one side and the T2 $150.00. the camaraderie of emblem shipmates, but it does on the other -------- Pride Runs Deep ------- help to maintain funds to -Tullibee patches, with the ensure reunions and boat’s perpetuate the memory of Crest the SSN 597 and those associated with her. -T2 patches about the people you are in charge background and support and the Navy News of.” tools to face them,” she said. She said she’s found out over the Her brother and grandfather both First female student at years that she can meet most served in the Navy, but it wasn’t challenges as long as she puts in something that interested Chalkley JU to earn submarine the hard work that’s required. until her junior year of high school. officer post Before then she was the type of Like when she joined the NROTC student whose goals frequently By: Joe Daraskevich, The Florida Times- unit in her freshman year at JU changed. Union via AP February 4 and found out how hard it was to meet the physical requirements. A friend on the track team told her JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Misha Chalkley played soccer and ran she was planning to apply to the Chalkley doesn’t think about the track and cross country at U.S. Military Academy, and a fact that when she graduates from Jacksonville’s Stanton College whole new goal came to Chalkley’s Jacksonville University in April she Preparatory School, but that was mind. will be the first woman from the nothing compared to joining the school’s Naval Reserve Officer NROTC, she said. She researched the different Training Corps to earn a post as a military branches and settled on submarine warfare officer. “I never realized I was so bad at the Navy. Then a family trip to the push-ups until I had two minutes U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, She thinks about her future and to do as many as I could,” Chalkley Md., confirmed that decision. the people she will lead within the said. close submarine community, but It crushed her when she wasn’t she doesn’t think about her gender But she found out that once she got accepted as a midshipman, but she at all. the technique down, it was easy to refocused her goals and soon improve. She said she knows some found the leadership she was The submarine pipeline is a new things will be even more difficult in looking for in the NROTC program challenge that will take her full her Navy career, but they will only at JU. dedication to complete, she said, make her a better leader and a “Everyone in the unit wants you to and it’s hard enough for both men stronger person. and women without worrying succeed,” Chalkley said. about being different. That career is getting closer every She went from a freshman who day. Men were the only ones allowed to struggled to do enough push-ups serve on Navy submarines for A year of nuclear training will start to the commanding officer of the years until female officers joined once she’s commissioned this battalion in her senior year. them in 2011. Another major spring. The 22-year-old said she chose to change came in 2016 when enlisted The first six months will be intense major in math and physics because women joined the crew of the USS she knew that would be her best Michigan in Bangor, Wash. instruction at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command near shot at getting into the nuclear More and more women are signing Charleston, S.C. From there, she program. Working in the surface up to join men in the traditionally will complete six more months of fleet would not have been a male culture of submariners, hands-on training at a Navy shore- disappointment, she said, but the including at Southeast Georgia’s based reactor training facility in underwater world of combat was Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base either New York or Charleston. clearly her top choice. where they are integrating the USS Chalkley said she’s spent time on Florida. After the first year, she will spend three months in New London, submarines during two separate Only 14 women from NROTC units Conn., to complete the submarine training occasions, and everyone seems to have each other’s back. were awarded positions in the officer basic course. When she submarine warfare program this passes that, it will finally be time “Since the submarines are a year. The ones who make it all the for her to lead others when she’s voluntary force, you know that way through will join just over 70 assigned as a division officer. everyone is there because they female officers who are serving in want to be,” Chalkley said. the submarine force, according to Chalkley will manage trained the Navy. enlisted submariners while she Despite Chalkley downplaying her continues her own qualification role as the first woman from the “I like that it’s really close-knit,” program until she earns her gold NROTC program at JU to join the Chalkley said of the submarine dolphin pin, a designation in the submarine force, she really is community.