The Truth Behind the Aircraft Carriers in Port Photo

The truth behind the aircraft carriers photo

Posted at 3:45 PM on February 25, 2013 by Bob Collins
Filed under: Politics

Here's a picture that's picking up steam around the Internet today. A picture of five aircraft carriers in port in Norfolk, Virginia. The chances are pretty good it's going to show up in your Facebook feed soon.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/news_cut/archive/2013/02/the_truth_behind_the_aircraft.shtml - .USyWVcYpw8o.facebook

The accompanying message is only partially correct:

What is wrong with this picture?
The picture is of the five nuclear carriers.
Just like Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
This picture was taken the other day in Norfolk. The Obama Administration ordered 5 nuclear carriers into harbor for "routine" (?) inspections. Heads of the Navy were flabbergasted by the directive.

NORFOLK, VA. (February 8, 2013). The first time since WWII that five (*) aircraft carriers were docked together. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), USS Enterprise (CVN 65), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) are all in port at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., the world's largest naval station.

Sources stated that this breached a long standing military protocol in the Navy meant to avoid massive enemy strike on major US forces. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Ryan J. Courtade/Released)

What's the real story? Welcome to the sequester.

First, the picture was actually taken in mid-December, not this month. Second, none was ordered into port for "routine maintenance."

- The USS Enterprise was retired from the Navy in January. It's being dismantled.

- The USS Eisenhower deployed on Thursday and is on its way to the Middle East to relieve the USS Stennis, which will return to its home port on the West Coast. The Eisenhower was in port for two months to get its flight deck resurfaced.

- The USS Harry Truman was to depart on a mission to the Central Command in early February, but Navy officials asked the secretary of defense to cancel that mission, which presumably was to the Persian Gulf where the U.S. has had two aircraft carriers. Now it will have one -- the Eisenhower.

- The USS Bush was not ordered into port for "routine inspections." It had been undergoing tests of its ability to have aircraft, which it does not presently have. Its cruise was canceled because of the sequester.

- The USS Lincoln also was not ordered into port for routine maintenance. It was in port for a two-year refueling mission, which the Navy has now canceled because of the sequester cuts.

The Truman's situation is particularly interesting. WTVR TV in Richmonddescribed what happens to people when a deployment is canceled. Families depend on deployment money to pay bills. Many move home for family support. They are already gone. Single sailors with children already sent their kids to caretakers. Many sailors moved out of apartments or homes, have cars in storage and already set up mortgage and phones and bills. This will be a tough adjustment. Since they are now cancelled, only delayed indefinitely, they could have to leave suddenly if the budget impasse is solved. The Navy is asking for community help for these 5,000 sailors, giving leniency on bills. Living arrangements, help with temporary storage, temporary transportation...many of them do not have local family or a support system.

But back to the photo: It originally was paired with a U.S. Navy story about sailors coming home for Christmas:

Home for Christmas: 9 Flattops at Norfolk naval base, December 20, 2012.

With the returns from deployment of the carrier DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER on Dec. 19, and the amphibious ships IWO JIMA and NEW YORK on Dec. 20, the piers at Norfolk's naval base are about as full up as they'll ever be.

Five aircraft carriers, four big-deck amphibious assault ships, a full cast of "small boy" surface warships, along with nuclear submarines and support ships, are crowding the base, giving a comfortably snug feeling to the waterfront. Similar scenes -- although not with the gathering of flattops seen here -- are taking place at other fleet concentration areas like San Diego and Pearl Harbor.

The Navy makes a point of trying to gives its shipboard crews a chance to spend Christmas with their families, and for a few days the percentage of ships underway drops to the lowest point it will be all year. But many of these ships will be gone in two weeks as the pace of operations picks up again.

In a decade or so, scenes such as this at Norfolk could become quite rare, as the fleet is in the midst of a gradual shift from the Atlantic to Pacific. Within a few years, about sixty percent of the U.S. Navy's ships will be homeported at a Pacific base - virtually a mirror image of the Cold War emphasis on the Atlantic.

The Navy also says the story about this being the first time so many carriers were moored together since Pearl Harbor is untrue.

Not surprisingly, the story was changed, the picture was attached, and the Internet did its thing.

Comments:

For those that are wondering, there are 2 more flat-topped military ships in the background. These aren't aircraft carriers, technically - they're amphibious assault ships. "Amphibious assault ships are the centerpieces of US amphibious warfare and fulfill the same power projection role as aircraft carriers except that their striking force comprises land forces instead of aircraft. They deliver, command, coordinate, and fully support all elements of a 2200-strong marine amphibious unit in an amphibious assault using both air and amphibious vehicles."

Posted by Tyler | 

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I do remember seeing this around the beginning of the year as a "Wow, this is cool!" thing rather than something to be freaked out about. Sad that the internet lens of distortion took effect.

Posted by Ryan V. | 

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STILL a violation of law, regardless.

Posted by gma215 | 

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Which law? I assume you're referring to the law requiring the Navy to maintain 11 aircraft carriers. It now has 10 but Congress granted the Navy a waiver until the USS Ford comes online.

Posted by Bob Collins | 

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"The Internet did its thing"???

There is a culture of fabrication on the right that is not an "internet" thing. It's a traditional Southern Democrat (now doing business as the Republican Party) thing: feeding outrageous lies into the news cycle for political gain.

The people who did this knew exactly what the truth was, and deliberately altered it so as to inflame the GOP's hyper-paranoid base.

Posted by Mark Gisleson | 

Tired Fallen Angel

'Pastafarian' from EHT

‘Pastafarian' refuses to take spaghetti strainer off his head for license photo, South Brunswick cops say

http://www.nj.com/middlesex/index.ssf/2013/02/pastafarian_refuses_to_take_sp.html

By Anthony G. Attrino/NJ.com 

on February 20, 2013 at 10:27 AM, updated February 20, 2013 at 12:03 PM

SOUTH BRUNSWICK – Motor vehicle workers in Dayton called police on a man who insisted on wearing a pasta strainer on his head during the taking of his driver’s license photo, according to a police report.

South Brunswick police officers responded to the MVC facility on Route 130 on a call that a man renewing his driver's license refused to remove the strainer on his head, according to a police report. The incident occurred about noon on Saturday, Feb. 2.

The man, Aaron Williams, 25, who gave an Egg Harbor Township address, told motor vehicle workers the strainer was a religious head covering and he had a right to wear it in his driver’s license photo.

Williams said he practices Pastafarianism.

Pastafarianism, or the Church of the Flying Spaghettic Monster, is a movement opposing teaching in schools of intelligent design and creationism.

Reached by phone on Wednesday, Williams said he is serious about the movement.

“I take it as seriously as anybody else when it comes to religious beliefs,” he said.

According to a police report, an motor vehicle employee told Williams head coverings can’t be worn in license photos unless it’s for religious reasons.

Williams then pulled out his cell phone and began taking video of the worker – another violation of motor vehicle policy, according to the report.

Police advised Williams that the pasta strainer was not approved by the MVC and he would have to apply to the state to wear it in his license photo.

Williams reluctantly agreed to have his picture taken without the strainer, according to police.

He also agreed to delete the video he had taken of the motor vehicle worker, according to the report.

Asked why he’d left his home in Atlantic County to have his photo taken at the South Brunswick motor vehicle office, Williams said: “I like it. It’s a nice, new office.”

In Austria, self-described Pastafarian Niko Alm fought for three years for the right to wear a pasta strainer on his head in his driver's license photo. He won his fight after officials performed a mental-health check, according to NPR.