laststandonzombieisland

How about this great circa 1988 shot of an unidentified sailor in UDT shorts and a chocolate chip boonie firing from the hip at a target floating behind the wooden-decked Aggressive/Agile-class ocean minesweeper USS Esteem (MSO 438), “somewhere in the Persian Gulf.” The rifle seems to be an XM177.

The 172-foot Esteem, one of 93 members of her class, was built by the Martinolich Shipbuilding Co. of San Diego in the days after the U.S. Navy had an abrupt experience with sea mines off Korea in 1950 and she joined the fleet in 1955.

After lots of service in the Far East through the Vietnam era (earning six Vietnam Service Medals as well as the Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation), by 1987 she was sent to the Persian Gulf, based in Bahrain with a lot of her sisters to combat a rash of mines left bobbing around in the wake of the Iran-Iraq War, a page in the largely forgotten story of Navy MCM during that period.

Decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register on 30 September 1991 after 36 years of service, she was laid up at Bremerton until disposed of for sale in 2000 and scrapped soon after.