National Security: You've Heard Of Navy SEALS...

Navy may deploy anti terrorism dolphins

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO - Dozens of dolphins and sea lions trained to detect and apprehend waterborne attackers could be sent to patrol a military base in Washington state, the Navy said Monday…The base is home to submarines, ships and laboratories and is potentially vulnerable to attack by terrorist swimmers and scuba divers...

(A spokesman for the Navy’s “Marine Mammal Program”) said that because of their astonishing sonar abilities, dolphins are excellent at patrolling for swimmers and divers. When a Navy dolphin detects a person in the water, it drops a beacon. This tells a human interception team where to find the suspicious swimmer…

(Scene: The secret headquarters of the US Navy’s Marine Mammal Program. Commanding officer Captain Rehab is carefully monitoring a computer screen showing the current locations of deployed marine mammalian personnel. The bulkhead door swings open and a young ensign walks in, bearing a folder.)

Ensign: Chief Petty Officer Flipper just completed his mission, sir. We debriefed him as soon as he returned to base, thought you’d like to see his report.

Captain: Thank you, Ensign. Let’s see what he’s come up with. (studies report) Hmm. Very interesting. According to CPO Flipper, “HA-HAHAHAHAHAHA! CHIKIDA-CHIKIDA-CHIKIDA-CHIKIDA-CHIKIDA! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Ensign: I’m sorry, sir, but I still can’t make head nor tail of these dolphin intelligence reports.

Captain: It takes a little getting used to, son, but it’s well worth it. (taps report) This stuff can be an anti-terrorist intelligence gold mine, if you know how to read it.

Ensign: Yes sir. What does CPO Flipper’s report actually mean?

Captain: Well, the part I just read to you means “I like fish…I like to eat fish…I like to eat fish very much…Can I have another fish?”

Ensign:(puzzled) What’s the tactical significance of that information, sir?

Captain: Tremendous! If he’s able to focus on fish and getting more fish, he feels secure. That means that his patrol area’s probably secure.

Ensign: How about this part here? CPO Flipper seemed very excited when he was telling us that.

Captain: Where? Oh, yes, here. He says he thought he saw a shark…he says he doesn’t like sharks…sharks are bad…he says he wanted to head-butt the shark to death…but when he swam over to get closer he saw that it was actually Lieutenant Shamu…he likes Lieutenant Shamu…he loves Lieutenant Shamu. (Captain frowns.) Hmm. This next part’s a bit disturbing…

Ensign: What’s that, sir?

Captain: He says that he doesn’t like President Bush’s “troop surge”…he says that calling it a “surge” is really just a cynical public relations ploy when in fact what Bush is doing is escalation…he doesn’t understand why Bush is Commander-In-Chief…he says he doesn’t like Bush…he says Bush is incompetent…he says he doesn’t like Bush or sharks…and here he says he wants another fish…

Ensign: Should I put him on report, sir?

Captain: No, it’s important to let them get these things off their chests from time to time…they can’t help it, they’re very intelligent. But we’d better start keeping an eye on morale. Have you got a movie scheduled for them tonight?

Ensign: Yes, sir. At twenty-hundred hours, we’ll project it over the main socialization pool.

Captain: “Finding Nemo” again, I suppose?

Ensign: Yes, sir. I know the marine mammalian personnel love it, sir, but couldn’t we have another movie some night, sir? The human personnel are complaining, they’ve seen “Finding Nemo” eighty-seven times, sir—

Captain: Best to stick with what these creatures like, ensign. You remember what a disaster it was that night we tried to show them “Jaws.”

Ensign: Yes, sir. It took us four days to clean out the pool…

Captain: Exactly. And make sure we’ve got plenty of fish on hand during the show. We’ve got to keep them happy, son. We need these dolphins. Our armed forces are over-extended and we haven’t got enough human personnel to fight the war on terror.

Ensign: Yeah, but yesterday CPO Flipper called in an air strike on a Japanese fishing boat because it was trawling tuna nets—

Captain: Well, to them, that’s terrorism. CPO Flipper exceeded his authority that time, but I’m not going to hold that against him. Everyone loves the king of the sea.

Ensign: Yes, sir.