Technically that's USS George H.W. Bush, CVN-77, as in the newest and last Nimitz-class aircraft carrier to be constructed for the United States Navy.
The Bush is scheduled to make its debut and be formally commissioned next month.
I love Navy ships. When I was a kid and my dad was serving on the USS (Dwight D.) Eisenhower AKA The Ike, they used to do these father-son cruises, where boys of a minimum age were allowed to go on the sailing version of camping trips with their dads. We'd get assigned a rack (bunk), and we essentially got to hang out with our dads on their ships, while the ships sailed in circles 50 miles or whatever distance from the coast. It was a harmless PR stunt. And it was a blast.
And when I worked as a machinist in college every few months our facility, the late, great NARF/NADEP, would assign a few of us to catapult duty and we'd spend a few days doing maintenance on the catapults used to launch jets from the short runways of aircraft carriers.
Ah, the good old days. The good old, greasy, smelly, metal-shaving-covered, hydraulic-fluid-drenched days!
Anyway, I'm drifting.
What I'm really curious about is whether sending a military ship named The Bush to cruise the world is good PR right now. Like it or not the military is governed by politics. And politics is governed somewhat by image, Public Relations.
Not trying to be funny. But if people are willing to throw boots at the man named Bush, some wannabe terrorist might consider it a trophy to attack a $6 billion ship named Bush when he hears it'll be docking in his country the next day. And no, I don't think they'd make the distinction that the ship is named after the 41st President of the United States and not the current, outgoing president.
I'm not wishing it to happen or anything. I hope the ship and the sailors who serve on it go unharmed. I hope no one throws so much as a sandal at The Bush.
But given the current climate, you can't blame me for being curious.
