Posted on 01/22/2004 9:18:14 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
One drove from Missouri, one works here; both say sinking is a fitting end.
Want to see it? Call 884-4000 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for information.
Jim Wicker drove more than 1,020 miles from his home in Missouri to come to Corpus Christi and see the aircraft carrier that took him on three tours of duty in Vietnam from 1970 to 1973.
During summer nights, Wicker said, he would crawl off the bow of the USS Oriskany's flight deck and nestle into a net to sleep in the cool breeze.
"It would just get hotter and hotter in Vietnam," Wicker said. "I'd be out there with the breeze and the sound of the waves."
Wicker, 53, hadn't seen the Oriskany since 1975, until Wednesday when it was towed down the ship channel by its own anchor chain.
The 888-foot aircraft carrier slipped under the Harbor Bridge at about 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, headed for Texas Docks & Rail. Contractors will spend the next six months removing solvents and asbestos from the Oriskany so it can be made into an artificial reef.
Five states are competing for the right to sink the Oriskany off their shores, including Texas. If the state Parks & Wildlife Department gets the ship, it will be sunk offshore of Corpus Christi. A U.S. Maritime Administration official said the agency would decide on a place in early February.
Wicker boarded the Lexington Museum on the Bay to see the Oriskany plow through the turquoise water one last time. On the Lexington, Wicker met Bill Noonan, a 62-year-old retired sailor who served on the Oriskany in 1963 and in 1976, when the ship was decommissioned. He now works as a senior administrative assistant at the Corpus Christi Police Department.
"I told my boss that I had to get the day off," Noonan said.
He admitted that seeing the ship brings back memories.
"It makes the heart go pitter-patter," Noonan said.
Noonan was a public affairs officer for 21 years in the Navy, and he was aboard the ship in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy came aboard.
While stepping through an oval-shaped USS Lexington doorway that was too short for most grown men, Wicker remembered the Oriskany being filled with sailors when he was on board.
"They'd call general quarters and you had to be at your battle stations," Wicker said. "In three minutes all the doors locked, so streams of people were scurrying through."
No museum or scrap pile
Wicker and Noonan agree that sinking the Oriskany is an appropriate end. For years after it was decommissioned, sailors who had been aboard the ship tried to make it into a museum. The ship was sold to a scrap metal company that abandoned the project because taking out all the asbestos was too expensive, Lee Puglia, past president of the Oriskany Reunion Association said in December.
Now the Navy is paying a Brownsville company and a Florida company $2.19 million to prepare the ship to be sunk.
Visitors welcome
During the ship's stay in Corpus Christi, the public will not be allowed to board the Oriskany for safety reasons, said Steven Childers, operations manager at Texas Docks & Rail. However, people will be allowed to see the ship and take pictures once the Oriskany is settled-in next week, Childers said.After the Oriskany ducked under the Harbor Bridge and slipped out of view, Wicker and Noonan walked down into the Lexington. While talking with some people, Wicker heard some mournful music.
One of the museum exhibits had a television screen that was playing video of a lone sailor playing taps on his bugle.
"Save that for when they sink it," Wicker said.
Contact Matthew Sturdevant _at 886-3778 or sturdevantm@caller.com
Sad to see her go, but my gracious, she's had a stay of execution for a long time. The Chicago was razorblades long ago. Sic transit gloria and all that.
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