gonna be sick, what a fraking disgrace

Navy to name LPD 26 for Rep. John Murtha

By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Apr 13, 2010 17:46:22 EDT

The Navy’s 10th San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock will be named for Rep. John Murtha, the long-serving Pennsylvania Democrat who chaired the powerful House appropriations defense subcommittee before he died in February.

According to a Navy memorandum obtained by Navy Times, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus notified Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead that he had selected “John P. Murtha” for the previously unnamed LPD 26. It’s the latest example of the Navy breaking a convention for naming its warships; the previous ships in the San Antonio class have been named for American cities.

Capt. Beci Brenton, a spokeswoman for Mabus, who is traveling on the West Coast, said she had no comment on the memo.

The choice of Murtha as the namesake for an LPD 17 appeared to reflect both his support in Congress for more of the gators and his service in the Marine Corps, which included time in Vietnam. San Antonio-class ships can carry about 700 Marines, their equipment and vehicles.

But Murtha might also prove to be a controversial pick: He was accused of ethics violations several times over the course of his career and he caused outrage among Marines in 2005 when he accused troops of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines of “killing innocent people” in a shooting in Haditha, Iraq.

The John P. Murtha is not just the latest Navy warship to break with its class naming convention, it’s also the latest amphibious ship to do so. In 2008, Mabus’ predecessor, Donald Winter, named the amphibious assault ship LHA 6 the “America,” bucking the tradition of naming big-deck gators for Marine battles, such as “Makin Island” and “Bataan.”

Mabus’ decision does keep with a Navy tradition of naming warships for friendly politicians. The fast attack submarines Glenard P. Lipscomb and John Warner, the ballistic missile sub Henry M. Jackson, and the carriers Carl Vinson and John C. Stennis all were named for political friends of the Navy in their eras. Like Murtha, some of those figures were controversial — Georgia Rep. Carl Vinson, and Mississippi Sen. John Stennis, both Democrats, supported racial segregation in the South, opposed civil rights legislation and signed the 1956 “Southern Manifesto.”


http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/04/navy..._gator_041310w/ :angry:

Yeah I'm afraid there's politics when it comes to naming US Navy ships now. Won't be long before every Dem Douchbag will want a ship named after them and be buried in Arlington.

Basically.

I'm not sure what relevance this has to Shipbucket? maybe post stuff like this in off-topic :)

I think you can save the pissy us-vs-them sidenote; it's wrong when a ship is named after Murtha or Stennis and it's wrong when a ship is named after Warner or Nitze.

At least with Murtha's Marine service I can understand. Defense News was going on about how he was the best Democratic friend the Marines ever had.

You can bet your life there will NEVER be a RN ship named John Nott.

I can not wait for the USS Obamma or Clinton.....LOL, but then look at the Bush.

Ships should not be named after politicians except in extreme circumstances. (USS George Washington is acceptable. This... is not.)

Oh, what the hell......Statesmen even? Particularly ones who prevailed in times of conflict; and for that reason I wouldn't object to an HMS Thatcher, Churchill etc. And Bismark has that special ring to it.

Who knows the Gilbert and Sullivan song, re Smith of the Admiralty?

wartroll633sqd, the USS George H. W. Bush is named after Bush 41, who also happened to be a US Navy Torpedo Bomber pilot during World War II, not his controversial son.

And I don't forsee ships being named after Obama or Clinton, or the younger Bush. Then again, we are naming a ship after the only US President never to have elected, either as President OR Vice President.

That's true enough, but I would prefer for any decisions such as that to be "age-vetted". Meaning, if an average citizen thirty years on can tell you what they are famous for doing, then that's fine. But if I went out on Main Street and asked ten people who Carl Vinson was... I'd count myself lucky if I got one right answer.

I thought he was SecNav at some point. Then again, if I asked you who USS Franklin was named for, would anyone get it? and that's named after one of the most famous American Statesmen of all time...

Yeah, that's just my point.

As to USS Franklin - which one? There were five, and the carrier was named after the first four, while the first four were named after the statesman.

The first four.