The mayor of Piti, a small village in Guam, and students from local schools participating in a summer school program, visited the submarine tender USS Frank Cable (AS 40) for a ship tour, June 19.

Mayor Jesse Alig and students came aboard to observe ship's operations, and get a hands-on, U.S. Navy Sailor experience.

"One of the reasons that I wanted to do this was that none of the kids have ever been on a ship before and it's a good experience for them to know what you guys do for us," said Alig, who visited Frank Cable in the late 90s.

They toured areas around the ship such as the machine shop, medical and dental spaces, bridge, mess decks and ship store. One student expressed how she felt about the tour.

"It was fun and cool and awesome," said Zania Castro, a student in Piti's summer program.

Castro said she enjoyed the tool demonstration in the machine shop, and also the cookies from the mess decks.

At the end of the tour, the children were able to practice hose-handling with members of the Damage Control Training Team and duty fire marshals, Sailors who train often for shipboard fire-fighting.

"Working with kids makes the job feel new and exciting. Where we take hose-handling training to be mundane and boring, a child looks at it with excitement and something that seems fun," said Hull Maintenance Technician 1st Class Patrick Shearer, of Frank Cable Fleet Indoctrination Training Team. "They want to hold the hose. [They] want to play in the water. They want to be firefighters. Just talking to them about being a firefighter is fun. We had a great time working with the kids today because to them, we are the cool guys. We are the ones who have the fun job of being a firefighter and it makes the job feel more rewarding and fresh when you see it through their eyes."

Alig said he was glad he could come back to Frank Cable and bring the children along.

"It's always heartwarming to know that [Sailors] are prepared for anything; prepared for battle," said Alig. "It's one of the reasons why I am a proud American and I want children to know that they should be proud Americans too."

Frank Cable, forward deployed to Guam, repairs, rearms and reprovisions deployed U.S. naval forces in the Indo-Pacific region.

For more information on Frank Cable, find us on Facebook at USS Frank Cable (AS 40), or http://www.csp.navy.mil/frankcable.

For further questions, please contact USS Frank Cable Public Affairs Office at (671) 343-2545 x6418 or media@AS40.navy.mil.

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For more news from USS Frank Cable (AS 40), visit www.navy.mil/.