VFA-102 Diamondbacks 2013 Cruise Video

2013 is the year of the snake by the Asian zodiac calendar, and the VFA-102 Diamondbacks had an eventful year. We sailed from the Sea of Japan to the Gulf of Thailand to the Coral Sea and everywhere in between. We stopped in Darwin and Brisbane in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, helped out with the relief Operation Damayan in the Philippines and flew across the Pacific Ocean TWICE to get to NAS Fallon, NV and back to Japan. We trained against Malaysian MiG-29s and SU-30MKKs, Japanese F-15s and F-2s, Australian Hornets and Super Hornets, USAF F-15s, F-16s and F-22s. We dropped hundreds of tons of ordnance, supported three multi-national military training exercises, and provided relief effort and millions of pounds of clean water for the disaster-stricken population of the Philippines.

Along the way we made lifelong friends and witnessed beautiful vistas of biblical scale. It was a wild ride, and we're getting ready to do it all again (and more) in 2014.