Captain Christopher Lindberg, Commanding Officer of the USS Bremerton SSN-698, in his personal effort to connect with USS Bremerton alumni residing around the world, wants to hear from you and your desire to attend the DECOM Ceremony on May 18th – VIRTUALLY.
Being the skipper of the longest serving fast attack submarine in the United States Navy, he more than understands the difficulties that the COVID restrictions have had on both public/alumni access to the ceremony and travel. He is ready to hear from you.
Send your messages up until May 16th
Please send an email letter stating
Your name, rank/rate and brief history of your service onboard Bremerton, and which City/State/Country you plan to be watching from.
Similar details of other shipmates who will be joining with you to help celebrate.
An unclassified anecdote from your experience on the boat that you are willing to share with the CAPT is welcome
Send your introduction to:
email: bremertonreunion.alumni@gmail.com
Subj: DECOM-LIVE
please address your letter to CAPT. Chris Lindberg
NOTE: The DECOM Ceremony is scheduled to be held at Keyport, WA, on May 18th, 2021 at 13:00 (PST). Estimated duration of the ceremony is approximately 1 hour.
NOTE: Due to the Navy’s continuation of its strict COVID regulations, the DECOM ceremony is not open to public or general alumni access.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Bremerton, WA area, the Naval Undersea Museum at Keyport is along Port Orchard Bay, 11 miles due north of the City of Bremerton.
Since most of the submarines being decommissioned, including USS Bremerton, are situated in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in a security zone known and the Controlled Industrialized Area (CIA), access to the public is off limits. Therefore, it is virtually certain, ceremonies will be held apart from the submarine. In regards to the actual ceremony’s location, it is highly probable that it will be held at Keyport where other boat’s have held their DECOM events.
The Naval Undersea Museum at Keyport (image source: navalunderseamuseum.org).
The latest word regarding the Bremerton is that the Navy will sponsor a Decommissioning ceremony. In the lives of some boats, there are two separate events, an Inactivation and a Decommissioning (DECOM).
DECOM will be the one and last official ceremonial event in Bremerton’s service to the United States. The timing is based on shipyard schedules and key elements of the work involved. In a recent article, it is estimated by CDR Chris Lindberg, 698’s Commanding Officer, that Spring of 2021 is the period that SSN 698 will Decommission.
Commissioned in March 1981, the good ol’ BadFish is looking to make an amazing 40 year run. 40 years! The first U.S. Navy submarine destined to achieve that milestone. Get ready to hoist your glasses with your shipmates, family and friends, that deserves a grande celebration – as bittersweet as it may be.
The BadFish Beat
A fresh buzz surrounds the USS Bremerton community with the mention CDR Lindberg’s target date. Many of the navy alumni, submariners who have called Bremerton their home, have often expressed that one of the best boats if not the best boat they have ever served on was the Bremerton, a fine testament to their shipmates and to the commanding officers they served under.
Last year, meeting up with the boat before she went into the CIA, affectionately known as “Deep Shipyard”, caught many 698 alumni off guard. The sudden change in operational orders of the boat, coming straight off a West-Pac to go into the yards for DECOM, was game only for the maniac efforts of the most nimble reunioners ready for rapid deployment.
Many who attended were connected through Facebook which made communication in the fast moving situation feasible. Even so, for this event that was almost conjured out of thin air, we final-mustered a group of over 100 BadFish supporters who were willing to divide into four groups over a 3-day period to take one last reminiscent walk across the well-traveled decks and ladders of the fast-attack submarine.
Get your non-Facebook using Shipmates to Act Now
PLEASE ENTER YOUR INFORMATION USING THE 698 ALUMNI SIGN UP, hit the tab on this website menu
Please also provide your:
rate/rank/dept
which years served on 698
mailing address (email and postal) and
phone number
Surviving family members are also welcomed to send their contact info
Please Note: EMAIL outside of Facebook, is preferred to keep costs down, but if you do not even have email, text messaging is low cost alternate. If you are actually still living in the stone age and has neither e-mail or text message ability, we’ll still do our duty to keep you informed the best we can using the postal service.
Now, we’ve got the Navy time-honored event on the horizon – DECOM. We expect to have room to maneuver our personal schedules to get into position; in the meantime, we hope the Navy will avoid doing any Crazy Ivans with their scheduling. The exact date for DECOM is TBA.
Some people were concerned that the ceremony itself will be a restricted affair in regards to security, location and audience size. At this time, it appears none of these factors will be an issue. (THIS IS OLD NEWS, please see latest posts)
This website was developed particularly for those who are not on social media but have access to the internet. So tell your Facebook-hating shipmates to get their info logged onto this website thru 698 ALUMNI SIGN UP
Stock illustration from Wikipedia, note the VLS Second-Flight mods which are not installed on First-Flight 688s like the American Classic.
SIGNIFICANT & OFTEN UNREPORTED DATES:
08 MAY 1976: KEEL LAID
22 JUL 1978 LAUNCHED
28 MAR 1981 COMMISSIONED
11 JUL 1981 DEPARTS GROTON
…
28 OCT 1981 Reports to Homeport PEARL HARBOR
…
18 AUG 1998 Reports to Homeport SAN DIEGO
16 SEP 2003 Reports to Homeport PEARL HARBOR
27 APR 2018 Arriving in BREMERTON to begin inactivation/DECOM process
For more information about the museum at Keyport, please click on this link NAVALUNDERSEAMUSEUM
