Uss New York

A friend just sent me this - I don%26#39;t remember reading about this before: (oh, and I put USS New York in the title and TA told me I couldn%26#39;t have all caps in the title - ?)

With a year to go before it even touches the water, the Navy%26#39;s amphibious

assault ship USS New York has

already made history. It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the

World Trade Center.

USS New York is about 45 percent complete and should be ready for launch in

mid-2007. Katrina disrupted construction when it pounded the Gulf Coast

last summer, but the 684-foot vessel escaped serious damage, and workers

were back at the yard near New Orleans two weeks after the storm.

%26gt;It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that

%26gt;include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360

%26gt;sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters

%26gt;and assault craft.

';It would be fitting if the first mission this ship would go on is to make

sure that bin Laden is taken out, his terrorist organization is taken out,';

said Glenn Clement,

a paint foreman. ';He came in through the back door and knocked our towers

down and (the New York) is coming right through the front door, and we

want them to know that.';

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amide,

La., to cast the ship%26#39;s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on

Sept. 9, 2003, ';those big rough steelworkers treated it with total

reverence,'; recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wending, who was there. ';It was a

spiritual moment for everybody there.';

Junior Chafers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center

steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the ';hair on my neck

stood up.';

';It had a big meaning to it for all of us,'; he said. ';They knocked us down.

They can%26#39;t keep us down. We%26#39;re going to be

back.';

The ship%26#39;s motto? - %26#39;Never Forget%26#39;

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%26gt;Thomas L. Anderson

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Uss New York

wow very moving, I remember watching them load the twisted steel onto barges off the West Side Highway down near Battery Park in January after 9/11. It was chilling the way it all creaked and groaned as the cranes lifted it in the cold gray light of winter.