The Secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter announced Jan. 8 that the next Virginia-class attack submarine will be named in honor of recently retired U.S Sen. John Warner of Virginia. Warner retired Jan. 3, 2009 after 30 years of service in the U.S. Senate.This will be the SSN 785 (expected delivery April 2015), breaking the string of 11 Virginia-class boats named after states; it wasn't until the 23rd Los Angeles-class boat that they screwed up the convention, while the 5th Ohio-class submarine had a naming anomaly; the Sturgeon-class had 31 fish-named boats until they brought in the politicians. My thoughts on the concept of screwing around with submarine naming within classes are well known. While I know that Sen. Warner served our country with honor, wouldn't a destroyer, which are named after people anyway, have been more appropriate? On the other hand, sometimes you can get humorous nicknames for boats named after people, like the "Bouncing Billy" Bates.
"Senator Warner has served his country for over 63 years and has been an unwavering advocate of the men and women of our nation's armed forces. It gives me great pleasure to be able to honor him in this manner and I thank him for his support and mentorship," said Winter.
What do you think? Should we just give up and go with my suggestion from last April? Or is this worth a fight?
