- by Alan Adaschik

In case you don’t know, I served my country as a Navy Fighter Pilot in the Nation’s oldest continually commissioned Fighter Squadron, The Red Rippers (VF-11). While in the service, I Flew the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom supersonic fighter off the deck of the USS Forrestal and have 230 carrier landings in my logbook. When I resigned my commission, in my letter of resignation I cited long deployments, low pay, and a lack of sufficient resources in the military as the reasons I wished to return to civilian life. My commanding officer endorsed my comments and further stated that the Navy could expect to lose more fine young officers like myself if the concerns raised in my letter of resignation were not addressed.

Today, I put the words Super Carrier in my web browser, clicked on http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/nimitz/, and learned that the aircraft carriers we have in service today are all Nimitz Class Nuclear Powered Aircraft Carriers. They are the largest warships ever built, weigh in at 102,000 tons, and have a complement of 6,000 souls on board.

Needless to say, I was much impressed. What a magnificent machines these carriers must be and as an American, I felt proud to be a citizen of a Nation capable of producing such wonders. But as I read further, my pride soon turned to concern and then to dismay.
The first Nimitz Class carrier was, of course the USS Nimitz and it was commissioned in 1975. This is all well and good, but then I read we now have nine Nimitz Class carriers on active duty and a tenth, the USS George W. H. Bush will enter the service in 2009. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that calculates out to ten super nuclear carriers produced at the rate of one every three and one-half years. My God, have we been at war these past 35 years and didn’t even know it? And if these statistics are not astounding enough for you, then perhaps you will be more impressed to learn that the USS George W.H. Bush is considered to be a transitional carrier to a new class of super carrier the first of which will have its keel laid in 2007. Perhaps we should name this new super/super carrier the USS Emperor of the World Bush.

EXCUSE ME! Has anyone stopped to ask the question, what do we need ten super carriers for? Wouldn’t two or three be enough? How many other nations of the world have operational aircraft carriers? In case you are interested, the answer to this question is zero. Didn’t any tell the Navy that the world only has seven seas? Are the terrorists building a super carrier? Who is paying for our super carriers? Could it be the industrial work force that America no longer has? Korea and Iran both have nuclear ambitions. Could it be that they want nuclear bombs to defend their nations against our super/super carriers? Do the Koreans and Iranians know something that the average American has no clue about? Is a super carrier a weapon of mass destruction?

The questions keep popping into my mind like confetti and I could go on and on in this regard. But let’s not belabor the point and let me close by saying that Americans will be paying the tab for the construction and deployment of these carriers with borrowed money at a time when many Americans can’t even afford to purchase health care for themselves. This is bad but what makes it beyond bad is that not only do these super carriers do nothing for the security of this nation, but once built and deployed, they do not even belong to us.