Presidents marvel at ship

NORFOLK -- President George W. Bush yesterday commissioned a new aircraft carrier named for his father, former President George H.W. Bush, before a crowd of 18,000 in a ceremony that was part Navy tradition and part family reunion.

The younger Bush, 10 days from the end of his presidency, joined his father at the Norfolk Naval Base to usher the $6.3 billion carrier George H.W. Bush into the Atlantic Fleet. "I ask that God protect this ship and bring her only victory and peace," the president said.

In fact, the carrier will not be ready for the Navy until March. The commissioning was held before the carrier was finished -- a first for the Navy -- allowing the younger Bush to officiate as president at the ceremony.

Another piece of unfinished business is where the carrier will be based: The Navy is considering shifting it from Norfolk to Mayport, Fla., citing a need to split up the carrier fleet for security reasons. Virginia officials, reluctant to lose a floating city of 5,000 people, oppose the move on the grounds that it's political rather than strategic, and unnecessarily costly.

But that issue went unmentioned at a colorful ceremony marked by the Bushes' reminiscences and Navy traditions dating more than 200 years.

President Bush arrived on the carrier's 4.5-acre flight deck aboard a Marine helicopter, following his father's arrival in a motorcade. The president enjoyed a standing ovation from the invitation-only crowd, which included thousands of sailors and their families as well as workers at Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding, which built the carrier. The shipyard, the nation's only builder of carriers, already is at work on the next carrier, the Gerald R. Ford.

The president and the former president shared the platform on the hangar deck with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, and Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, as well as Barbara Bush and the elder Bush's daughter, Dorothy Bush Koch, the ship's sponsor.

In the audience were about three dozen veterans who served with the elder Bush in World War II aboard the aircraft carrier San Jacinto, including 86-year-old former aviator Lou Grab. Grab, who reunited with Bush at the carrier on Thursday, told The Associated Press that Bush "was very smart. He went to all those private schools. I was just a plodder."

The senior Bush flew 58 combat missions against the Japanese in a Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bomber, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for finishing a bombing run on Sept. 2, 1944, after his plane sustained a crippling strike from antiaircraft fire. The plane crashed into the sea, and Bush was nearly captured before being rescued by a U.S. submarine. Two other crewmen in the plane were killed.

Another aviator was among the San Jacinto's surviving crew members and their families on the pier. "There's only three of us left, including George," John Raquepau, 85, said of the carrier's torpedo aviators. "I wouldn't miss this for anything," he told the AP.

The elder Bush, who is 84, made his way to the podium yesterday with the help of a cane. He contrasted the new, 1,092-foot carrier with the 660-foot San Jacinto, and his old Avenger with the F/A-18 Super Hornets that will be launched from the carrier bearing his name. His appearance marked the first time a carrier's namesake had attended its commissioning. Former President Ronald Reagan was too ill to attend the ceremony for the carrier named for him.

The president called the elder Bush "the best father anyone could ask for" and said he taught his children that "integrity and honor are worth more than any title or treasure." He and other speakers offered stories of the elder Bush as a young aviator, collecting shells on remote Pacific atolls for his future wife while she knitted socks for him in her dorm room.

Gates called the elder Bush tough but "a man of feeling, especially where men and women in uniform are concerned." After a gun turret explosion on the Norfolk-based battleship Iowa killed 47 sailors in 1989, Bush rushed through a memorial speech so noticeably that critics accused him of just going through the motions, Gates said. But in fact Bush had been so affected by the deaths that he had to deliver the speech quickly or he never would have made it to the end, Gates said.

When most of the speeches were over, the elder Bush set the ceremonial first watch on the carrier. Dorothy Bush gave the traditional command to "man our ship and bring it to life." Hundreds of crew members clad in their full dress blues raced onto the ship and manned the rails of the flight deck as a Navy band played "Anchors Aweigh." The carrier's alarms, horns and sirens erupted into a cacophony as the crowd cheered. Four Super Hornets flew in formation over the carrier, followed by an old Avenger.

Next, the carrier will undergo sea trials, then return to the shipyard for fine-tuning, a Navy spokesman said. The Bush probably will deploy for the first time in 2010.
Contact Bill Geroux at (757) 498-2820 or .