Guam, Hawaii Lobby for Aircraft Carrier

AP ^ | June 8, 2005 | Audrey McAvoy

[Squantos]

USAF Already has a Carrier in Guam...we call in Anderson AFB....it has a great back nine....

[Squantos]

Thanks !

[HolgerDansk]

Lots of folks don't even know that Amerika Samoa exists. Great harbor, and Pago Pago International was built to recover B52s after the Grand Tour, so it's much larger than it needs to be for the once daily flight from Honolulu...

[Treader]

The good news is- the right folks do...and for the best reason.

[HolgerDansk]

Samoa is too far south.

It's about the same distance (~5000nm) from Pearl or Pago to Beijing. It's a far better harbor than Pearl, protected from typhoons as well as considerable protection from sub-launched cruise missiles -- the harbor is located inside a cinder cone, and takes a dogleg to get into. Also, unlike Pearl or Guam, it has no existing strategic assets, meaning that an aggressor would have to target 3 instead of 2 islands, spread across the Pacific.

[donozark]

I thought those snakes that came in via ship were terrorizing everyone on Guam? At least per TV-never a good source.

[donozark]

HAHAHA! Can you say FOUR!

[Pyro7480]

I am familiar with the layout of Pearl Harbor. I'm just saying from historical perspective, carriers did operate from there.

[Travis McGee]

The brown tree snake infestation on Guam was 99% media hype. In two years, I saw ONE (-1-) snake, at night on a sidewalk. And I was out at night all the time, in the boonies, everywhere. I saw ZERO snakes during daylight, anywhere, when kids would be out.

You might as well hype the "dreaded coyotes eating children in California" non-story as this stupid snake non-story.

[Travis McGee]

See my last about the snake non-story.

[The Grammarian]

My son has spent almost a year in Iraq with a Stryker and I know for a fact he would strongly disagree with your assessment.

Why I think they suck is partially a matter of expectations, and partially a matter of fact.

The expectation is that I want command of Abrams MBTs if I branch armor.

The facts are that Strykers are just not that great of a "medium" armor platform. They're 28% more maintenance intensive thanks to being wheeled vehicles as opposed to tracked vehicles.

They're not very heavily armored (hence why they added those cages). And they don't meet GEN Shinseki's original goal that they be easily deployable from a C-130--especially with their cages attached. Moreover, the Army still has a large number of M113 APCs that would serve and have served just as well; plus they're cheaper.

[The Grammarian]

Sorry, griping about a single line in the article about Strykers.

[Squantos]

Even brown snakes know to avoid snake eaters........:o)

But true...brown snake stories are to keep the riff raff off the island.

[magellan]

There was (I assume it is still there) a photo in the Andersen Air Force Base's base operations building of the ramp at Andersen during the peak of B-52 operations during Vietnam. I think I counted over 120 B-52s on the ramp. Today there are only about half that number of B-52's in operational service and another handful used for training.

[Travis McGee]

I didn't see that one, but I saw WW2 high altitude photos of Andersen showing 100s of Superfortresses in one shot. 100s. Each ramp was like a bouquet of flowers. These photos are in the MAC terminal, blown up on wall posters.

[GrandmaPatriot]

Our friends left Guam for Hawaii because of the brown tree snakes. They were in the flower business and just gave it up because of the infestation. Couldn't tend their flowers. I don't know why you didn't see any. Just lucky I guess.

According to this USGS site, it is not media hype.