Houthi fighters appear eager to seize any moral victory, however small and symbolic.
Sana, May 26 - The Ansar Allah movement in Yemen burst again into festive yelling and firing guns into the air today, upon learning that the US vessels had suffered another loss: an F/A-18E Super Hornet miniature from the scale-model of the USS Harry Truman in the living quarters of Naval Strike Group EIGHT commander Rear Admiral Sean Bailey's son Thomas. The incident followed one last month in which the actual Nimitz-class carrier Truman (CVN-75) lost a Super Hornet to the sea while carrying out evasive maneuvers to avoid Ansar Allah missile fire off the Yemeni coast.
Observers described palpable Houthi jubilation when the news of the lost model Super Hornet reached them. Seven people in four costal villages and the port city of Hodeida dies as a result of bullets hitting them after the Islamist fighters shot hundreds of rounds into the air in celebration; thirty more suffered injuries.
Chants of "More more, to the ocean floor!" and "Out at sea and in a room - make those Yankees go kaboom!" resounded across Houthi-held areas of Yemen Monday. The fact that the milestone falls far short of causing any real damage to US naval assets has had little visible impact on the festivities; Houthi fighters appear eager to seize any moral victory, however small and symbolic, in the face of punishing US strikes that have killed hundreds of the group's members and substantially degraded its missile arsenal while also hitting strategic economic facilities that will make sustaining the organization's piracy, maritime harassment, and ballistic missile strikes a much more difficult prospect.
Thomas, for his part, remains confident that he will find the missing jet. "I probably kicked it under my bed or something," he surmised. "Haven't cleaned in here for months, not since spring break. Now that I'm back from college for the summer, maybe I'll get to it, so finding the Super Hornet is going to be a priority before I do any vacuuming or whatever."
A defiant Admiral Bailey vowed to persevere. "You... you have got to be ki- are you actually seriously asking me about this?" he challenged a reporter. "Deck chief! Place this clown in the brig and - no, take him to sick bay and put him through a full psychiatric evaluation. Who is he? How did he get on board, anyway?"
Sources in the ship's brig disclosed that the lighting and ventilation could be better, and that they take away recording devices and laptops when placing people in it.
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