hours working with dock masters, dive shop operators, ship chandlery owners and the like in sensitizing them, and “deputizing them” (small ‘d’), to be our eyes and ears where boaters congregate before going out upon our waters, great and small. As many an admiral has put in his or her mission statement, “our mission is to protect mankind from the sea, to protect the sea from mankind, and to prevent the sea from being an avenue of harm to the nation.”
The RBS Nexus
But isn’t our first priority recreational boating safety? How do we choose between, frankly, stacking vessel exam brochures at marinas and conducting an MDA mission? One would appear, on its face, to be much more important in this day and age, wouldn’t it?
The answer is we don’t have to choose. We can do both, at the same time. As RDML Vojvodich (then CAPT Vojvodich) so aptly put it years ago, “MDA really ‘bleeds over’ into just about everything we do and provide. Having that community interface allows the maritime clientele to become familiar with and comfortable about asking us questions and revealing nuances that they see on a daily basis… the effort is as personal as it gets and the potential impact appears limitless.”
In short, whenever you are conducting vessel exams at a marina, teaching a PE class to the boating public, conducting a PA exercise at a harborfest, making a program visit to a boating showroom and the like, you can conduct an MDA observation – and report it as part of our multi-mission capabilities built into the 7030 mission reporting form.
Operation Focused Lens and Us – MDA on Steroids
A number of years ago, Operation Focused Lens (OFL) was started as a test-case of enhanced and expanded MDA data capture and subsequent anti-terrorism monitoring/response by active-duty in the Port of Los Angeles. Having a successful shake-down cruise under its keel, OFL has been implemented in D1 (D1SR specifically in our case) and MDA will never be the same.
Story continued on next page.
Immediate Past District Commodore's Message
MDA on Steroids – Operation Focused Lens and Us – And the RBS “Nexus”
6 OVER THE BOW - Winter 2015
Shipmates,
We hardly need reminding of the fact that assassins are plotting, even as you read this, to injure, maim, or kill US citizens on US soil. Those targeted aren’t volunteer soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and guardsmen in our all-volunteer armed forces. These are mothers, office workers and school children.
Active-duty asks many tasks of us and only one is explicitly anti-terrorism – the Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) mission. For many, this is old news as we have expended literally thousands of