Stand by for LPD 21 mania
October 30th, 2009 | Morale Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing
The amphibious transport dock New York will be the belle of the media world in the week leading up to commissioning in Manhattan on Nov. 7 // MC1 Shawn Graham
Navy-types, get ready to be blasted with an information fire hose. The amphibious transport dock New York has pulled away from Naval Station Norfolk, Va., bound for its namesake city and a week’s worth of frenzied attention in the media capital of the world before its commissioning Nov. 7.
One of the hometown papers has a crew member blogging; another already has a reporter aboard; and then there’s the international press — here’s the report from one of Abu Dhabi’s correspondents in New York. “Fox ‘n Friends” will be broadcasting live from the deck of the New York on Thursday morning. And, yes, Navy Times is also one of the sharks circling in this feeding frenzy.
Just to set the record straight in advance: New York’s bow stem includes about 7.5 tons of steel recycled from the wreckage of the World Trade Center site. The ship displaces about 25,000 tons. It was not “built from the World Trade Center.” The ship’s enclosed masts are not meant to “symbolize” the Twin Towers. Scoop Deck knows you understand, but thanks to months’ worth of hankie-wringing e-mail forwards, these are distinctions that could be lost on much of the mainstream media and many of the new fans the Navy picks up next week.
One last bit of spoilsportery: Despite all the adulation elsewhere, at least one commentator this week has been willing to go on record that he thinks it was a mistake to use steel from the World Trade Center in the bow of a warship. In Tulane University’s Hullabaloo newspaper (motto: “We Put Out On Fridays”) sophomore A.J Balatico wrote this:
Making a part of the World Trade Center into a warship is like making a part of the [true] cross into a crossbow. There’s something wildly perverse about it. The significance of these symbols shouldn’t be compromised by any outside cause, like war and violence. Especially war and violence.
Nothing to be done about it now, but what about the plans for LPD 25, the Somerset, to include steel from a coal crane that happened to be nearby the site where United Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania? Should the Navy do it?
Comments
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Sean Says:
October 30th, 2009 at 2:36 pmA crane that happened to be nearby an empty field in PA? Well, ok, at least it (sort of) represents the people on that flight who fought back, rather than the innocents in NYC. Given the 343 firefighters that died, perhaps that steel could have gone into a few thousand new fire axes.
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Chaps Says:
October 30th, 2009 at 4:31 pmSomerset should include steel from the Tulane U Hullabaloo’s presses.
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Maggie Says:
October 31st, 2009 at 10:34 amGuess who is going to the commissioning?
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The Scoop Deck – Clearing out the grit Says:
April 27th, 2010 at 9:18 am[...] At the same time, the class includes two of the highest-profile U.S. warships of the modern era, New York and John P. Murtha, but for all their exposure in the mainstream world, the grown-up news media [...]