POINT MUGU : Some Can’t Take Heat at Navy Base Ceremony

By military standards, the atmosphere at Friday’s ceremony marking the change of command at Point Mugu Navy base was relaxed, with flags waving, a band playing fanfares and speakers cracking jokes. But some sailors still couldn’t take the heat.

By the end of the hourlong outdoor ceremony, nine sailors suffering from the intense heat had drifted out of formation to collapse under the shade of a nearby tree, where emergency workers supplied water and packs of dry ice.

Chief Petty Officer Tim Johnson said officers warn newer recruits to take precautions when they are assigned to stand in formation in the beating sun.

“We try to tell them to eat the night before and drink fluids,” Johnson said. “Some of them don’t listen.”

But most of the 700 Navy men and women standing in formation braved the heat, maintaining their positions throughout the ceremony transferring command of the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station from Capt. Paul J. Valovich to Capt. Selwyn S. Laughter.

Valovich, 50, will take up his new assignment next week as deputy program director of the Military Satellite Command Joint Program Office in Los Angeles.

During Friday’s ceremony, Rear Adm. William E. Newman, who heads the Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center that encompasses the Point Mugu weapons station and three other bases, presented Valovich with a Legion of Merit to honor his work at Point Mugu.

Newman said after the ceremony that the pink-ribboned medal is the highest honor an officer of Valovich’s rank can receive. “You’ve got to be in a position of extreme responsibility and not screw up” to get the medal, he said.