[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 51 (Friday, March 23, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E637]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                A TRIBUTE TO THE USS ``JOHN F. KENNEDY''

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ANDER CRENSHAW

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 23, 2007

  Mr. CRENSHAW. Madam Speaker, I would like to take a moment to 
acknowledge the outstanding leadership Captain Zecchin and the past 
commanding officers of the USS Kennedy, including Captain Dennis 
Fitzpatrick and Captain Harv Henderson, have provided to the sailors 
and this great Nation.
  Naval leadership depends on two core military values--cohesiveness 
and mission. Orchestrating 3,500 sailors to pull together to accomplish 
a mission, whether that mission is war, training, repair or preparing 
to decommissioning, is a monumental task. The Kennedy's 39 years of 
outstanding service is due to the series of leaders who stood at her 
helm and kept her ready at a moment's notice. I wish Captain Zecchin 
well on his next tour as the Commanding Officer of the USS Kitty Hawk; 
we will miss him here in Mayport.
  The Kennedy has seen many farewells--from the spouses and family of 
its crew and from Navy servicemen seeing her off on various 
deployments. Just think, how many loved ones have proudly watched their 
son or daughter sail off to gloriously defend our freedom and preserve 
our way of life. But at the end of each deployment there has always 
been a welcome home. Today, we say goodbye for the last time.
  We are here today to say farewell to a ship that has symbolized so 
much to so many.
  To the sailor, the Kennedy has been a home away from home on many 
deployments. She represents small town America, where many of her 
sailors are from. Her population is a little over 5,000 and she boasts 
a post office, doctors' offices, a place of worship, restaurants that 
serve over 15,000 meals a day and employment opportunities for all. She 
has elevators, runways, and a busy airport.
  This ``carrier'' town represents the best of America. All the sailors 
work together toward a common goal, never separated by race or class or 
gender. Ships are steel, they are not alive. It is the crew who bring a 
ship to life. The stories that emerge from her sailors will keep her 
spirit alive. The Kennedy will continue to live in the lives of the 
thousands of sailors who manned her rail, flight crews who donned a 
rainbow of colored shirts and made her flight deck roar to life, and 
aviators who were catapulted into the sky and prayed to catch her hook 
on their return.
  To the Jacksonville community, the Kennedy will always be a symbol of 
our great city. She has meant so much to this community and this 
community has meant so much to her. Here on this pier where you sit 
today, the sailors of the Kennedy and the men and women of our local 
ship-repair companies worked long hours on grueling jobs to complete 
the largest pier-side availability ever accomplished in the Navy. The 
skills of the artisans from these Jacksonville companies have kept the 
boilers and propulsion plant working during the Kennedy's time in 
Mayport.

  Big John's connection to our community is more than just the economic 
base she provides. We will miss her sailors and their wives and 
husbands. We will miss the children in our local schools and athletic 
clubs. We will miss their involvement in the Mayport community.
  To our country, the Kennedy has been part of our history for 39 
years. She is one of the finest ships in the world's finest Navy. As 
our country continues to fight the war on terror, we must remember the 
role the Kennedy played in the earliest counter-terrorist actions.
  Even though she entered active duty during the height of the Vietnam 
War, she soon found herself in a role more familiar to today--spending 
the first of several deployments in the Mediterranean to help deal with 
a deteriorating situation in the Middle East. In the 1980's, she 
responded to the growing crisis in Lebanon, and in 1988 F-14 Tomcats 
launched from the Kennedy intercepted and downed two hostile Libyan 
MiGs in response to Libya's terrorist activities. On the Kennedy's most 
recent deployment, the air wing dropped more than 64,000 pounds of 
ordnance on Taliban and al Qaeda targets.
  To me personally, I share many of the same memories as the 
Jacksonville community, but the Kennedy also provided me with the great 
honor of joining the national debate on how the Navy is going to meet 
the threats of tomorrow while fighting the budget pressures of today. 
The discussion that followed the announcement that the Kennedy would be 
decommissioned was good for our Navy, good for our Congress and good 
for our Nation.
  We must be keenly aware of how important our aircraft carrier fleet 
is to this Nation's ability to counter current threats and deter future 
aggression. Carriers are mammoth cities, and are not constructed in a 
single day. We cannot take lightly the decision to take an aircraft 
carrier out of service; that decision cannot be reversed. The 
discussion will continue well past the final days of the John F. 
Kennedy, and I will remain an active member of any debate on the size 
and shape of our Navy fleet, and for this I thank the John F. Kennedy.
  To Mayport, the Kennedy has been the symbol of this national 
treasure. This Naval Station is defined not only by the ships that are 
home ported here, but also by its strategic location to counter the 
ever growing threats in South America and the Caribbean. If we do not 
deter the aggression and narco-terrorist threats today, South America 
could very well become the next Afghanistan. Terrorist training camps 
would be dangerously close to our own shores.
  I will continue to work with our Navy leadership to make sure that we 
have the right ships in the right places for the right missions. The 
Navy needs Mayport even more now than it did when the Kennedy battle 
group called her home.
  The Kennedy is a great and noble ship and when this day is done, she 
will cease to be four and a half acres of sovereign U.S. territory that 
can launch an array of fighter aircraft and precision weapons which 
strike terror in the hearts of America's enemies. She will be stripped, 
docked and viewed by most as just a great mass of steel. Her dedicated 
crew will be dispersed to other carriers and they will continue to 
perform their duties. And as those who served aboard her and as those 
in our community who loved her, remember the glory of the USS John F. 
Kennedy--then our ship, the sacrifices of her crew and the freedom she 
fought to defend will continue to live on and on.