Author Topic: Legendary aircraft carrier USS Saratoga to sail off to scrapyard in 1-cent deal  (Read 366 times)

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Offline flowers

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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/05/09/uss-saratoga-destined-for-dismantling-after-one-cent-deal-with-texas-firm/

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The USS Saratoga — the legendary aircraft carrier that played a key role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam and Gulf wars and made Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi back down — is destined for dismantling after the Navy paid one penny to a Texas firm to recycle the 81,101-ton behemoth.

The once-mighty vessel is the second of three conventionally-powered carriers to set to sail to the scrapyard, following another one-cent deal involving the USS Forrestal in October. ESCO Marine, of Brownsville, will pay to tow, dismantle and recycle the ship, which was decommissioned in 1994 after more than 38 years of service. Efforts to spare the ship failed, as they did with the Forrestal last year.

“[It is] emotional in that we who served on ‘Sara’ feel that our ‘surrogate mother’ is passing from our lives,” Sammy King, secretary of the USS Saratoga Association, told FoxNews.com in an email. “We owe her a lot. We went aboard as ‘snot-nosed kids’ and left as ‘men.’ Some of us are very sad and some are very angry at the decision to scrap her.”


Offline NavyCanDo

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I served on the Saratoga from 1977 to 1981. During my last year the ship was modernized at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard under SLEP (Service Life Extension Program) so she could Fly F14s that were replacing our F4 Tomcats.  If I remember right they said SLEP would extend the life for another 20 years. They barely made it to 10.    She was decommissioned in  1994, and stricken from the Navy List.  Back then they said it was destined for scrap, and I’m surprised that took this long. In fact I thought it was already done.
That year I spent in Phily was the main reason I did not re-up.  Painting bomb magazines and  Standing fire watch for yard-bird welders for 12 months can make you hate what you do real fast.   
A nation that turns away from prayer will ultimately find itself in desperate need of it. :Jonathan Cahn