Sticking to tradition
May 9th, 2012 | Carriers Congress Enterprise Gerald R. Ford Navy Navy secretary Ships Traditions | Posted by Charles Hoskinson
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus — under fire for some of his past ship-naming choices — is winning praise from even his toughest critics for the latest one: The USS Thomas Hudner, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer for which the Navy awarded a construction contract in February.
Medal of Honor recipient retired Capt. Thomas Hudner salutes while taps is played during the Centennial of Naval Aviation wreath laying ceremony at the United States Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C. Navy photo.
Hudner, 87, was a Navy aviator patrolling near the Chosin Reservoir in December 1950 when his wingman, Ensign Jesse Brown, was shot down in combat. Hudner crash-landed his plane near Brown’s and tried to save his fellow sailor, the first African-American naval aviator to fly in combat. Brown died, but Hudner earned the Medal of Honor for his efforts.
“Now THIS is how you name a warship,” wrote blogger CDR Salamander, one of those who have criticized Mabus’ past choices.
Naming the latest DDG after Hudner is one in a series of apparently safe choices by Mabus in recent months after a string of decisions that have been criticized as political in nature and at odds with the Navy’s conventions for naming ships. The most recent batch of DDG names previously released were all named after past heroes in keeping with tradition, including one in honor of Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta, whose case had been championed by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), one of Mabus’ key critics on this front. Even the name chosen for the last Zumwalt-class DDG, Lyndon B. Johnson, technically met the convention because the former president had both worn the uniform and received the Silver Star during World War II.
But the controversy already had gotten so bad that it’s put at risk the centuries-old prerogative of the Navy secretary to choose ship names. Congress — at the prodding of some conservatives — in December required the Defense Department to review the service’s ship-naming practices. A report is due by this summer.
Meanwhile, among the high-profile naming opportunities coming up is the next Ford-class aircraft carrier, which by convention would be named after a former president. But there are a lot of people lobbying to transfer the name from the soon-to-be decommissioned carrier Enterprise — which politically would be a safer choice than the USS Richard M. Nixon or the USS Bill Clinton.
Let’s see how Mabus navigates that minefield.
Public rationales for unanticipated shipbuilding costs
February 21st, 2012 | Carriers Gerald R. Ford Navy Newport News Shipbuilding Photos Ships Shipyard | Posted by Bill McMichael
A euphemism is “the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant,” according to Merriam-Webster. An example might be couching a near-$1 billion increase in the cost of the most expensive ship ever in the most innocuous terms possible.
My colleague Chris Cavas has a fine explainer story in the print version of this week’s Defense News on the soaring cost of CVN 78, the Gerald R. Ford. Chris notes that the Navy’s recently unveiled fiscal year 2013 budget request asks Congress for another $811 million atop a total price tag of more than $15 billion — the most expensive ship ever built.
A 945-ton superlift is lowered into place near the stern of PCU Gerald R. Ford, or CVN-78, on May 21, 2011, at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va. The superlift erected contained a diesel generator room, a pump room, an oily water waste pump room, 16 complete tanks and 18 partial tanks that was welded to the rest of the ship. It is one of 162 total superlifts that comprise the ship. // Photo courtesy of Newport News Shipbuilding, a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries.
Chris made sure to include the euphemism the Navy unwrapped to describe the rationale for the cost bump. The Navy is attributing the need for more money to “fact-of-life cost increases.”
I understand that the Ford is the first in a new class of ship and that the Navy was ordered to put nearly all of the technology improvements originally slated to be spread across the first three carriers of the Ford class into the first one, yada yada. It’s all a matter of scale, I suppose. But that’s some “fact of life.” $811 million would go a long toward, say, remodeling aging barracks for single sailors’ pockets. Put another way, it’s enough to pay for about a third of a new Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyer.
But from a writing standpoint, I just love that phrase! What’s next? “Lessons-in-life cost increases”? “Cost-of-doing-business cost increases”? If you were trying to spin this increase for Congress, how would you term it?