Sea Hero
11/29/2006 2:47:33 PM by Sandy Lindsey
Commander Steve Shinego, USN, is the commanding officer to commission the new 511-foot guided missile destroyer GRIDLEY but his relationship with the water goes much further back than this latest achievement.
Commander Steve Shinego, USN, has seen the awe-inspiring sight of what he estimated to be 10,000 porpoises frolicking in the waters of the eastern Pacific off the coast of Peru and Ecuador. He participated in the blockade of Iraq, running interdiction operations in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea to stop Iraq from smuggling oil out of their country. He once spent eight hours at the Suez Canal working with Egyptian electricians to fix the approved canal light that is required to make the canal crossing that he describes as “huge can with a light inside. “The light never did get fixed. Instead, dawn broke and he was able to continue his ship’s journey without the required night illumination.
So what does it take to really impress this guy? Coming back home as commanding officer to commission the new 511-foot guided missile destroyer GRIDLEY. Shinego grew up in Hallandale, FL just a handful of miles from the upcoming GRIDLEY commissioning site of Government Cut at the Port of Miami. The February 10th ceremony will be the first time a U.S. Navy vessel has been commissioned in Miami, Shinego reports.
“In March 2006, we contacted the local people who handle military-related activities in Miami and they were very responsive. We then worked with the Port Office, the County Commission and the mayors of Miami and Coral Gables. All were very helpful,” says Shinego, whose mission is to build a team to deliver the ship to the nation with a well-trained crew that will be able to do whatever this nation needs.
Shinego comes from a military family. His father is retired from the enlisted army; two of his three older brothers went to the U.S. Naval Academy while the third went to West Point. Shinego graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in engineering with honors. He was commissioned through the NROTC.
Shinego’s childhood was spent on South Florida waters. “When I was four and five years old, before I had to go to school, I was a deck hand on the lobster boat that my father ran with my uncle for five years,” he recalls. “I used to help them tend the traps and bait them. My father was a police detective in Dade County. Our family also used to tow a 20-foot boat down to the Keys. I started out on the ocean and haven’t stopped since.” The Shinego brothers were captains of their football teams and had a strong athletic and academic presence in the community. Their younger sister currently resides with her family in North Dade.
“We still like to call Miami home,” adds Shinego, which makes the upcoming GRIDLEY commissioning doubly sentimental. A wide-variety of local events will surround the official GRIDLEY commissioning ceremony, including a one-day tournament out of Bayside in Miami where local fishermen will take at least two sailors per boat fishing. Prizes will be awarded for the largest sailfish (released), kingfish, dolphin, wahoo and tuna. For more information on the entire series of GRIDLEY-related events, many of which are open to the public, visit gridley.navy.mil or go to wavelife.com/events.
This impressive 66-foot wide, 9,000-ton displacement ship has a crew of 300 men and women operate the ship’s technologically advanced radars and sensors, weapons, communications systems, navigation gear and two helicopters off the flight deck, as well as day-to-day activities such as chores, food, utilities and other services. Once the GRIDLEY departs from the Miami shoreline next February, it will be off to complete its stated mission to “control the seas, defeat terrorism, and use American might for good.”