This went out to all the Depts. DoD is just answering the mail. I also seriously doubt in the end there will be military infrastructure or capitol investment cuts. Clinton allowed too much of this and we are still catching up.
The article does say that the Navy would cut the John F. Kennedy if it had to cut a carrier. Actually I think she's long past her prime and should be replaced. I never flew off her but I've heard many stories about how difficult and expensive she has been to maintain.
I will never forget something that happened to me several years ago when I was in Mayport attending 2M school. (I got out of the Navy last year, going back to school now, hoping to go to law school when I graduate.)
I was staying in the barracks on TAD orders, after getting home late one night I encountered the SN who was living across the hall from me. He was absolutely reeking of JP-5, you could smell it on him from a hundred feet away.
He told me that there had a been a major fuel leak on the carrier and he had been assigned to clean it up.
What struck me about the situation was that they let him off the quarterdeck on the Kennedy while covered in JP-5 from head to toe. Kid was lucky someone didn't light up a smoke next to him, he'd probably have gone up like a roman candle.
I thought to myself, "What kind of jacked up command the Kennedy must be to allow a deck seaman off the boat soaking in jet fuel. Don't they have working showers?"
If I had been higher ranking (I was a third class then) I would have done everything I could to make sure that whoever let him off the boat like that ended up on report. As it was, I just told him that if he was smart, he'd go straight to his room and get in the shower.
Several weeks later the Kennedy went out to sea and failed their sea trials (as I understood, their boilers all quit working at the same time) and their CO, XO and Chief Engineer all lost their jobs. (And no doubt their careers ended pretty abruptly after that.)
I should note, I talked to a Chief I knew there about what had happened the next day and he told me soon after that pretty much every Seaman who lived off the ship who had been assigned to the clean up that night had also been allowed off the boat in much the same condition as the guy living across the hall from me. (He said that some of them had been stopped by various base security members who had related their conditions to their superiors.)
I did a tour as JFK navigator in 88/89 and took her through a PSA at the yard in Portsmouth. We had to manufacture new boiler skirts from scratch, as well as numerous parts for the SSTG's and other engineering systems. You should've seen the electrical switchboards..looked like old telephone operator stations.
All-in-all though a great ship. It is the only carrier that can use both bow catapults while recovering aircraft, as the angle is slightly wider and the port side JBD doesn't foul the landing area.
I did two cruises in VA-34 on her in the late 70's. Amassed about 400 traps and was the top tailhooker on the second cruise. Stateroom on the 02 level underneath WR 1 was great...cold and quiet. Life was good in those days.
What did you fly? East coast or "left" coast?
Warm regards form another tailhooker.
"This went out to all the Depts. DoD is just answering the mail. I also seriously doubt in the end there will be military infrastructure or capitol investment cuts. Clinton allowed too much of this and we are still catching up."
WRT infrastructure, there is a Base Reduction And Closure due in May. It will be bloody.