CVN 77 – Daddy Bush }

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[h1]Aircraft carrier named for former President Bush[/h1]

from http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/12/09/bush.aircraftcarrier.ap/index.html

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2002/US/12/09/bush.aircraftcarrier.ap/bush.ceremon…
Bush, center, looks over a model of the aircraft carrier that will bear his name.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Navy named a new aircraft carrier Monday for former President Bush.

The current president’s father, who created the international coalition that defeated Iraq and liberated Kuwait in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, said at a Pentagon ceremony he was “overwhelmed by this and very grateful.”

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said he didn’t know what, if any, role President Bush had in securing the honor for his father. “I know that he’s honored that his father was honored,” Fleischer said.

The former president and Navy Secretary Gordon England said it was England’s decision to name the carrier.

“This ship will provide a worldwide, deployable symbol of our nation’s resolve and the character of President George Herbert Walker Bush,” England said.

The former president was a Navy torpedo bomber pilot during World War II and at 18 became the youngest decorated bomber pilot in that war. He flew 58 combat missions and was shot down in September 1944 near Chichi Jima.

“I don’t believe in the hero stuff,” Bush said. “How’d I get to be a hero? They knocked my plane out of the sky.”

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2002/US/12/09/bush.aircraftcarrier.ap/story.cvn77…
Artist’s rendering of the U.S.S. George H. W. Bush

The USS George H.W. Bush is under construction at Northrop Grumman’s Newport News shipyard in Virginia. Completion of the massive nuclear-powered vessel is scheduled for 2009.

The ship will be the last of 10 Nimitz-class carriers, which cost about $4.5 billion each. The ninth, scheduled to be commissioned in May, is the USS Ronald Reagan.

When finished, the carrier will be 1,092 feet long, weigh 97,000 tons and have 4.5 acres of deck space for about 75 aircraft. Nimitz-class ships have crews of about 6,000.

Another Nimitz-class carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is currently in the Persian Gulf, where its planes are helping patrol the southern flight-interdiction zone over Iraq.

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rabie :9