USN CVN-82 & 83

[Brett327]

people fought to get a modern ship named Enterprise?

Who did that, exactly? Pretty sure it wasn’t anyone in my security dept.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Call me a romantic if you like, but I think senior folks who share your attitude is exactly why our ships aren’t better named. The ship’s name, like the flag, could represent an ideal to unite around, and would do so for decades. Not as a stand-alone motivation for sailors, but as a reinforcing part of characteristics and values working together to illuminate the best parts of American culture. Seen in that light, “Slick Willy” just doesn’t cut it. It’s a missed opportunity.

Indeed! Robert Heinlein would most assuredly agree!

"I was so full of it all that I couldn’t talk about it, so I studied the lists. Whew, what a lot of ships! They
were posted by types, too many to locate otherwise. I started reading off the troop carriers, the only
ones that matter to an M. I.
There was theMennerheim! Any chance of seeing Carmen? Probably not, but I could send a dispatch
and find out.
Big ships — the newValley Forge and the newYpres, Merathon, El Alamein,Iwo, Gallipoli, Leyte,
Marne, Tours, Gettysburg, Hastings, Alamo, Waterloo — all places where mud feet had made their
names to shine.
Little ships, the ones named for foot sloggers:Horatius, Alvin York, Swamp Fox, theRog herself, bless
her heart,Colonel Bowie, Devereux, Vercingetorix, Sandino, Aubrey Cousens, Kamehameha, Audie
Murphy, Xenophon, Aguinaldo ...."

 

[sevenhelmet]

Who did that, exactly? Pretty sure it wasn’t anyone in my security dept.

Good question. I heard about a grassroots campaign for CVN-80 anecdotally, so it may be an urban military legend, but you can't argue that the "big E" isn’t an important ship name in our history. Someone made an argument that was deemed sufficient to so name CVN-80- that they are not from @Brett327 's security department is really immaterial.

 

[Griz882]

How does that relative apathy around names explain why people fought to get a modern ship named Enterprise?

I strongly agree here…these names matter even if one doesn’t realize it at the time. The following is a quite famous quote concerning the Marines in WWI. It’s a beautiful piece of writing and, my apologies to John Thomason, I have modified it for this discussion.

There is nothing particularly glorious about sweaty fellows, laden with killing tools, going along to fight. And yet-such a thing represents a great deal more than 5000 individuals mustered aboard a carrier. All that is behind those people is aboard that ship too: the old battles, long forgotten, that secured our nation -- Brandywine and Trenton and Yorktown, Sackett’s Harbor and Lake Erie, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Antietam, the clash of iron clads; scores of skirmishes, far off, such as the sailors and airmen of a carrier have nearly every year in which a man can be killed as dead as ever a chap at Midway; traditions of things endured and things accomplished, such as honored warships hand down forever; and the faith of men and the love of women; and that abstract thing called patriotism, which I never heard combat soldiers mention -- all this passes into the forward zone, to the point of contact, where war is grit with horrors. Common men endure these horrors and overcome them, along with the insistent yearnings of the belly and the reasonable promptings of fear; and in this, I think, is glory.”

 

[Flash]

Maybe the USS Braxton Bragg. That's name's become available.

 

[ChuckMK23]

@Brett327 you seem dismissive of the military virtue of glory.

 

[sevenhelmet]

@Brett327 you seem dismissive of the military virtue of glory.

You’re just asking for it now, Chuck…

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

BRP Sierra Madre

A testament to American shipbuilding, the BRP Sierra Madre was launched on 27 October 1944 and is still active today, 80 years later.
An amazing legacy for an LST. LST-821, then USS Harnett County, then RVNS My Tho, then BRP Dumagat. then BRP Sierra Madre.

 

[ChuckMK23]

A testament to American shipbuilding, the BRP Sierra Madre was launched on 27 October 1944 and is still active today, 80 years later.
An amazing legacy for an LST. LST-821, then USS Harnett County, then RVNS My Tho, then BRP Dumagat. then BRP Sierra Madre.

Did my initial DLQ's in the H-46 on an LST - day and night - at HC-3 as a CAT I (EDIT It was a late night and I had my NATOPS check the very next day. Not ideal. True story, my check pilot was a part time aspiring actor, who left the Navy at MSR to pursue acting full time)

 

[Brett327]

Good question. I heard about a grassroots campaign for CVN-80 anecdotally, so it may be an urban military legend, but you can't argue that the "big E" isn’t an important ship name in our history. Someone made an argument that was deemed sufficient to so name CVN-80- that they are not from @Brett327 's security department is really immaterial.

Sure, but I thought you were arguing that the "grassroots push" came from the deckplates, which would stretch credulity.

 

[JTS11]

True story, my check pilot was a part time aspiring actor, who left the Navy at MSR to pursue acting full time)

Chuck, just say it. You got your check ride from a gay porn star. It's OK. 😄

 

[sevenhelmet]

Sure, but I thought you were arguing that the "grassroots push" came from the deckplates, which would stretch credulity.

I never said that, but hey- stretching credulity is the only way to know how far it extends.

Whatever. I’m not capable of changing ship naming conventions with even an argument that passes muster with @Brett327 (assuming that’s even possible).

I’ll just refer to ships by their numbers from now on. On the rare occasion I refer to them at all.

 

[MIDNJAC]

Not disagreeing with you but despite flowery claims to the contrary in the Marines that is effectively the dynamic in any aviation squadron, on a carrier or otherwise.

I suppose it’s a bit magnified on a CVN since as you say that’s literally the entire reason the ship exists, but let’s face it, 99% of the effort on an Amphib outside workups is supporting/enabling flight ops

Yep, I'd buy that as well for sure

 

[MIDNJAC]

Doesn't seem so far-fetched anymore. Idiocracy is real.

Oh god, we just re-watched that. Except that it wasn't funny anymore, this time around

 

[MIDNJAC]

Good question. I heard about a grassroots campaign for CVN-80 anecdotally, so it may be an urban military legend, but you can't argue that the "big E" isn’t an important ship name in our history. Someone made an argument that was deemed sufficient to so name CVN-80- that they are not from @Brett327 's security department is really immaterial.

That did happen for the first flyable atmospheric STS orbiter. But I know you know that ya TPS nerd!