The USS Murtha lead out of port for sea trials...
Posted on 01/12/2011 9:44:24 AM PST by Libloather
The U.S. Navy's Name Game
Posted by Mark Thompson
Sunday January 9, 2011 at 8:30 pm
Prospective parents battling over the names of their unborn kids have nothing on the U.S. Navy, which is in the middle of a spat over the wisdom of naming a new ship for the late Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha. In fact, it has kicked off a bigger battle over just who, or what, should be honored with their names on the great gray hulls of the nation's warships. "It comes down to two points," says military historian James Caiella. "Who and what we are as Americans, and what symbols do we want to represent those ideals?"
**SNIP**
But Mabus' decision has unleashed a continuing torrent of opposition from many former sailors and Marines. They say that naming a vessel for Murtha rewards a lawmaker who called for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq in late 2005 during the war's toughest days, and one who was implicated in bribery and pork-barrel politics. On Friday, a former Murtha aide-turned-lobbyist was sentenced to 27 months in prison for evading limits on campaign donations; Murtha also was an "unindicted co-conspirator" in 1980's FBI-run Abscam sting.
And that isn't the worst of it, according to sailors and Marines: putting Murtha's name on an amphibious warship designed to carry 700 Marines is outrageous, they maintain, given Murtha's 2006 charge that Marines in the Iraqi city of Haditha "killed innocent civilians in cold blood." (One of the eight Marines charged in the case still faces trial; six have had their charges dismissed and one was acquitted.)
(Excerpt) Read more at swampland.blogs.time.com ...
Too wordy....?
Right up to the end, that p.o.s. refused to show any remorse for his heinous accusations. Murtha (D-Abscam) disgraced the Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy, and the United States. He’s dead. Time to take a shower and forget him. Why on earth would this guy get anything named after him other than a battleship-sized turd floating in my toilet?
The USS Murtha lead out of port for sea trials...
That’s the USS Bawney Fwank ...
oh HELL no.
The best word in that article is ‘late’
I suggest to honor the end of DADT, they call it the USS Raging Queen. It will go to man’s ports like Key West, and San Francisco.
Last I heard the idea was to refer to the ship as the USS Bloated Turd or USS X-Marine and whatever detachment made up the MEU to be nicknamed the “Cold Blooded Killers”.
Marines are used to getting stuck with the Murtha end of the stick. Much of the Corps’ sense of humor as evolved from that.
Semper Fi.
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