Just a few eggs - sure; put them in one impossible to defend basket real close together.
Local Congressmen have confirmed that a proposed plan to move an aircraft carrier to Mayport, Fla. is not detailed in the upcoming defense budget .Stupid local politics without vision or historical perspective - much less a military mindset.
Congressman J. Randy Forbes (VA-04) and Congressman Scott Rigell (VA-02) announced that the US Navy is canceling plans to move the carrier currently homeported at Norfolk Naval Station. Both Forbes and Rigell applaud the move to keep carriers in Hampton Roads .
"For more than four years, I have worked with my Hampton Roads colleagues to fight the Navy's attempt to move a nuclear aircraft carrier to Florida, a decision that was made without providing lawmakers any compelling national security rationale.
No "... compelling national security rationale.." ? Really? Well - I'm just a retired CDR; what the frack do I know. Wait ... who is that?
The admiral in charge of the Atlantic fleet said Tuesday that moving a carrier to Mayport Naval Station makes sense, although he didn't know what decision will be made later this year.Petty local politics in the worst traditions of our nation.
According to a report in the Navy Times, Adm. James Harvey Jr., the commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, said Norfolk being the only home port for carriers on the East Coast could lead to disaster.
"When you look at it from my perspective, the strategic imperative for having another home port capable of a [nuclear-powered aircraft carrier] is not idle talk," Harvey said at the Surface Navy Association's annual meeting outside Washington.
The four-star admiral had been asked about the possibility of a nuclear carrier coming to Mayport by a crew member from the Norfolk-based carrier Theodore Roosevelt.
Harvey said concerns about ships getting stuck either at the base at Norfolk or trying to get in were real. He recalled a waterfront tour last summer that included the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, which spans the mouth of the channel used by the Navy warships.
"Thirty bad minutes at that tunnel, and we've got half the Navy's carrier fleet, plus all of its East Coast repair and construction [facilities], bottled up for who knows how long," Navy Times reports him as saying.
