Well said! Too many people unfamiliar with the flow of Navy life miss that truth you wrote, “The crew has been held responsible for all of the challenges.”

40 years from now, she’ll still be “your ship.”

As much as some things that he did might have been not quite what one would desire, the entire San Antonio saga does help point out a.) why Hyman Rickover often felt he had to act the way he did, b.) that it is not always the norm for an organization to inherently believe that there is a proper engineering way, and an improper, and that it will only do it the proper way (because it both knows how to do it and can do no other).

They will say of you, “They were giants in those days.”

YN2, I can only say one thing – BZ –

I never served on a ship that had less than 22 years of service – I cruised on baling wire and duct tape.
Even when on the Decomm Insurv, when we had a faster full power run than the ship had on builder’s trials, it was still duct tape and baling wire.

You talk about sweat, and tired eyes, try 42 days at sea aboard a “Fletcher Class Destroyer”

Hey Marvin, is that what you used to keep your typewriter running?
Sorry, but I always did give the yeomen a hard time.(No offense meant).

LPD-22 was innovative in her construction plans at the old Northrop Grumman shipyard in Pascagoula. Parts of this “gator” were constructed in Texas and Northrop had the drawings plans provided from the design shop at Avondale shipyard, sent over to the sub-contractor near Houston Texas. As these structures started to arrive back to Pascaoula Northrop Grumman discovered that all sorts of problems were occurring during the assembly process. LPD-22 kept on proving to be another almost repeat of the LPD-17 problem child, with lots of rework, delays, costs increasing, etc. Finally Northrop Grumman discovered the problem: Avondale had not provided the latest correct ship drawings to the subcontracted shipyard in Texas ! And during assembly in Pascagoula, all sorts of mismatches were discovered and foundations had to be cut, reworked, etc. So, the final result is Northrop Grumman’s big mistake, has resulted in LPD-22 taking too much time, over budget, problem plagued and in general, not off to a great start. Let’s hope USS SAN DIEGO will end up having a long and useful life for the U.S. Navy despite the “mistake” made years ago by Avondale shipyard, which is mercifully being closed next year.