Leahy Class Silhouette from the CG period

USS Gridley  DDG 101 at 30 Knots on Sea Trials in August 2006

The new Gridley DDG 101 will be commissioned on February 10, 2007 at the Port of Miami. . .
 

. . . And you're invited!
Gridley will be at the Port of Miami for over a week and will take part in some of the Super Bowl activities.  We have planned for a reunion of former Gridley sailors from DD 380, DLG 21 and CG 21 for the last four days of their stay, February 7 - 10.  The Captain and crew are very enthused to have us former Gridley sailors share in the excitement of their commissioning.  Attendees will be invited to special events and have VIP seating at the commissioning ceremony itself.  There will also be plenty of time for jawboning old shipmates, telling sea stories and regaling the current crew about the "real" Navy back in the olden days.

There are receptions, ship's tours and we plan to have a dinner on Thursday night.  More events are in the planning stages but we do want to leave time for examining the wild life on the beach and the "clubbing" activities at night.  We are trying to find as many former Commanding Officers as we can and already have several lined up.

We cannot fully plan activities until we know what kind of group we will have.  We are not counting you until you send in the money so, Send it now!

All the information you need to attend is or will be e-mailed to you shortly.  You can find all of that info here also.  The contact address for registering to attend the reunion portion of the event will be gridleyreunion@sbcglobal.net    That address is monitored by Bob Hallead and Marv Flanders.
 
 

John F. Kerry, the junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts was the Democratic nominee for the Presidency in 2004.  Ensign (and later LTJG Kerry) reported aboard GRIDLEY straight out of the Fleet Training Center, San Diego on 8 June 1967.  This boot Ensign headed up First Division.  His biographical materials never mention this period even though he was aboard GRIDLEY much longer than he was in Vietnam.  When questioned about that, Kerry told Douglas Brinkley that "nothing much of note happened during his tour aboard the vessel."  So much for us!  For a further review of some of the inconsistencies in the Brinkley book, see the Kerry Page.

Another important addition is the photo of GRIDLEY being broken up in Texas.  See it here!

See if this matches your recollection of shipboard life!
Great pictures of GRIDLEY underway, with sound effects!  Click here!
A little Naval Lore from Jim Hampton
Some Engineering pictures from Robert Linley MM1
More Engineer pictures from Robert Miller BT2
See the wardroom gang circa 1968
Kevin Reilly's pictures from the early 80's
Brent Curtis sends us an incredible tale of GRIDLEY during the 69-71 period.
John Sporleder's, and others,  recollections of the suicide on GRIDLEY's first cruise
See our salute to Petty Officer William J. Duggan, to our knowledge, GRIDLEY's only combat casualty.  Click here.
Some great anecdotes from Dave Brioch from GRIDLEY's first cruise.  Some of the other plank owners might want to make some comments. (Last item on the page)
In 1967 GRIDLEY made a stop in Wellington, New Zealand.  Now, 34 years later, a lovely young woman and her daughter are looking for their father and grandfather.  Don't get nervous, thanks to their GRIDLEY uncles, he knows who he is.  Get the story here!
Subic Bay means different things to GRIDLEY sailors from different era's.  I (Phil Carter) have been back to the Philippines many times since getting out of the Navy but never back to Olongapo.  David Springer sent me a slide show which I have put out on the Yahoo message board in the files section  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ussgridley/files/ .

You can download it and run it on your computer.  It is a self-executing file so you don't need any special software.  I read recently that what was a booming economy has fallen on hard times but I am sure we all wish them well.  The file is 1.5 meg so those of you without broadband should be prepared.  It is worth it though!

Stop the press!  Check out http://www.subicbaypi.com/ .  The "girls of Olongapo" section brings back a few memories.  Some guys did not throw out all their pictures!

Read how GRIDLEY missed the Bi-centennial on July 4, 1976


Photo by Ray Haas, MissleEx 1976
We have set up an e-mail group where members can post messages that go to everyone in the group.  It used to be called e-groups but now it has been purchased by Yahoo.  Here is how it works - you go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ussgridley and click on the link to subscribe.  Fill out all of the required information and follow the instructions.  One of the moderators will approve your membership and then you will get confirmation of that.  We are doing this to keep the list closed to those who were truly crew members.

If you are already registered, you will have to get a new yahoo password the first time you get on the site.  

Once you are a member of the list, you can send a message to ussgridley@yahoogroups.com and it will go out to all of the other members.  Please note that you must subscribe, we are not  enrolling current members automatically.  After you are enrolled, you can change your profile so that you receive each message, periodic summaries or only read your messages when you go to the site. 
There is a polling function on the site that has some questions about a possible reunion.  Anyone with suggested questions for the group can send them to me. 
 

Financial supporters of the GRIDLEY site
Too many to list now!  
Technical Support - This web site is done in Microsoft Front Page and looks best in Internet Explorer 6.0.  However, it also looks good in the AOL browser and Opera . 

Any graphic on the site can be copied and saved by right clicking on the graphic and saving the file.  That way, if we change some pictures, you will have a permanent file of pictures that have been posted.

By nature, a site like this is highly graphical.  If any of you are using really slow modem speeds it may be painful to wait for the page to load.  let me know if it gets too bad and I will endeavor to put less pictures on each page.