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thedrifter
05-17-07, 04:00 AM
ACU-5 gets kudos and coins from Navy secretary
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 16, 2007 22:22:22 EDT

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Sailors of Assault Craft Unit 5 were on the cusp of their weekend break last week when the call came in: Los Angeles County firefighters needed help to fight a growing wildfire on Catalina Island.

Firefighters had to get critical fire engines and tankers to the picturesque island, one of the southern Channel Islands and a popular destination for Southern Californians. That May 11 mission came as ACU-5’s skipper, operations officer and command master chief were overseas, on temporary duty, but the unit didn’t miss a step.

Starting about 3 p.m. May 11 and through the smoky night until the next morning, crews loaded five of its air-cushioned landing craft, or LCACs, and hauled firefighting vehicles, personnel equipment to Avalon, where the 100-acre fire on its outskirts was growing to become a 4,200-acre blaze that inched close to the seaside town.

Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter, during a short Wednesday visit to the unit’s beachfront compound at Camp Pendleton, praised their swift work.

“What you have shown is you demonstrated the full spectrum of support and the work the Navy provides the community here,” Winter told the unit assembled in a hangar.

“You’ve done us proud,” he added.

Earlier, Capt. Thomas S. Wetherald, commodore and commander of Naval Beach Group 1, relayed to Winter that firefighters told him that if the hovercraft had brought the equipment to Catalina four or five hours later than they did, “we probably would have lost Avalon.”

“We are a victim of our own success,” noted Capt. Geoffrey T. Pack, ACU-5’s commander, who was in Japan when his sailors got the mission from the beach group.

Catalina Island, a resort island that boasts quaint seaside towns and large conservation lands, is familiar ground for Winter, who worked and lived in the Los Angeles area during his early years in the defense research industry. “It’s a central part of the culture and community of Southern California,” he told sailors.

About 3,000 people live year-round on the island, but ferries and private boats bring thousands of visitors and part-time residents from nearby Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego on the mainland.

Crew members attribute the smoothness of the Catalina mission with an existing memorandum of understanding between the Navy and the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The agreement enables ACU-5 to train includes scenarios and missions hauling firefighting equipment for the department, said Chief Randall Hill, operations chief petty officer.

The LCACs carried more than 638 people and 118 pieces of firefighting equipment in 28 runs from the beach to Catalina and back, Hill said. Small, smooth seas helped ease the workload, a which went like clockwork.

Winter stepped onto one landing craft to meet Chief Gas Turbine System-Electrical Francisco Garcia and members of his LCAC crew, who included Gas System Technician-Mechanical 1st Class Garrett Fulton, GSM2 Michael Goddard and Nicholas Hackl, GSE3 Jose Torres-Lopez and Operation Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Zwisher.

“We had a real good mission. No problems,” Fulton told Winter, who then proceeded to present a coin to each of the crewmen.

Winter seemed impressed with the unit’s work but said he had seen little coverage in the national news about the sailors’ work. “That’s a helluva story. Good stuff,” he told the commanders.

Ellie