USS Jimmy Carter takes dive with namesake on board (Later resurfaces. No rabbits sighted)

Associated Press ^ | 08/12/05

[presidio9]

Former President Jimmy Carter today completed his first submarine dive since he left the Navy in 1953, but this time it was in a new nuclear vessel bearing his name.

The USS Jimmy Carter pulled into this Navy submarine base after a night of cruising below the waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the Georgia coast.

Carter was accompanied by his wife, Rosalynn, and a crew of 151. For Mrs. Carter, the boat's sponsor, it was her first submarine dive.

The submarine is the first named after a living ex-president. Carter was a submariner during his time in the Navy after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Carter called it "the finest ship in this Navy or in any Navy."

The USS Jimmy Carter is the most heavily armed submarine ever built, and is the last of the Seawolf class of attack subs that the Pentagon ordered during the Cold War's final years. It is 453 feet long, weighs 12,000 tons and carries 50 torpedoes. It cost $3.2 billion.

[Darkwolf377]

They should have left him down there.

[Names Ash Housewares]

Too bad its likely sub wont fire weapons into Iraq. That would be too sweet for ol Jimmy to see his namesake taking part in the war.

[Rodney King]

So, Rosalyn went down on Jimmy Carter?

[Darkwolf377]

The USS Jimmy Carter is the most heavily armed submarine ever built

And the most ironically named.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

The USS Jimmy Carter is the most heavily armed submarine ever built

How ironic

[Darkwolf377]

The first submarine that fires lounge chairs in the hopes that any enemy commander will sit and talk about it. And the missles don't detonate when they come in contact with any vessel from a communist country.

[presidio9]

I'd be interested to know how many other Seawolf class submarines are named after US Presidents. Or, for that matter, if there are ANY submarines named after Presidents.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Puke alert. Naming a submarine after Jimmy Carter makes me want to retch. I'd be happier if they named a ship USS Benedict Arnold. (Arnold did less damage to national security and the economy.)

[ASA Vet]

Feel sorry for the crew. All those tight circles to the left has to have made them all dizzy.

[garyhope]

As far as I'm concerned, it's a scandal and a shame that this boat is named after such a nasty, ungrateful, treasonous POS.

[Darkwolf377]

I'm surprised he didn't ask them to name it the Fidel Castro.

[yarddog]

I agree, who ever decided to name it after that commie loving disgrace should be tarred and feathered and ridden down Pennsylvania Ave. on a rail.

[garyhope]

Probably the first and only time.

[Kozak]

The USS Jimmy Carter is the most heavily armed submarine ever built

Maybe just maybe someday we will get to see the headline:

"Jimmy Carter Nukes Tehran"

Finally.

[scott says]

[presidio9]

ping

[prairiebreeze]

An appropriate vessel to bear the name of the worst president in US history.

[SilentServiceCPO]

I'd be interested to know how many other Seawolf class submarines are named after US Presidents. Or, for that matter, if there are ANY submarines named after Presidents

Not any more, there were quite a few at one time, almost all of the original "boomers" (41 for Freedom), but they are all decommissioned now.

[lunarbicep]