USS New York
Here is one that got past me. (like that’s an event!) This was sent to me by my friend in Florida, Dick.
The USS New York is the fifth in a new class of warship, the LPD class, AMPHIBIOUS TRANSPORT DOCK, designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.
This ship is special, it was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.
Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship’s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, “those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence” recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there”
Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the “hair on my neck stood up.” “It had a big meaning to it for all of us,” he said. “They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. We’re going to be back.”
New York Gov. George Pataki asked the Navy to commemorate the disaster by reviving the name New York for a ship whose role would include fighting terrorism. That required an exception to Navy policy of assigning state names only to nuclear submarines, as they had been to battleships in earlier era.
Then-Navy Secretary Gordon England, in announcing the decision, said the New York would “project American power to the far corners of the Earth and support the cause of freedom well into the 21st century.” Its motto is “Never Forget,” a slogan among New Yorkers since Sept. 11.
The photograph below is of the USS San Antonio, the namesake of the LPD class surface ships.
More information is available on the original story on the USS New York at the ABC News website. (there was a link here, but it is gone from the ABC site now)
