EAA Reacts to Defense Authorization Bill Language

[HarvardIV]

EAA warbirds rep. told me today that congress didn't dream up the Defense Authorization Bill. This puppy is a product of the military folks at the Pentagon.

[Rob Mears]

Hmmm, another wonderful byproduct of the Patriot Act maybe?

[SaxMan]

What's astounding about all this is if the NHC was as zealous about protecting historically significant ships as they were about taking everyone's airplanes away, we'd still have some pretty historic ships still with us.

The most blatant case-in-point in recent history is the USS Cabot debacle in 2001. Here was the sole surviving CVL from World War II, the only aircraft carrier from that era with its original flight deck still intact, yet the NHC sat idly by and let the ship get scrapped in Brownsville, Texas.

Right now the very first supercarrier, the USS Forrestal, is sitting in mothballs. Has it been chosen to become a museum? No, it's slated to be sunk and become an artificial reef! Where's the NHC? They must be too busy chasing people trying to salvage wrecked and abandoned airplanes.

You can go back over the last 50 years and see ships that should not have been scrapped -- the carrier Enterprise, battleship Washington, destroyer Nicholas (15 battle stars, and accompanied the Missouri into Tokyo bay) and the Heerman (the sole surviving destroyer from the Battle off Samar)...all fell to the cutters torch, just to name a few.

It would be nice to see the NHC devote the same kind of energy and enthusiasm in saving their own ships rather than trying to take planes away that are in private hands.

[Owen Miller]

As an aside.....the two stupidest things the USN ever did was
to cut up Enterprise (CV-6) and nuke Saratoga (CV-3).

Owen