House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the Navy’s decision to name an amphibious warship after Rep. John Murtha, but the formal announcement Friday added fuel to an already smoldering backlash online.

Murtha — “our dear Jack,” as Pelosi referred to him — deserved the honor as a tireless advocate for troops generally and Marines in particular, she said, and she recalled admiring his rapport with them.

“Whether on the battlefield, or on the bedside, he thanked them for their courage, listened to their concerns, and asked them for comment — and he answered their needs, and responded to their calls, whether it was for body armor, up-armored vehicles… radios, you name it,” Pelosi said. “In those minutes [together], he bonded with them especially because he would share his own personal military service with them, and cared for them as a father. They knew it, and they returned his respect.”

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who technically is the only person in the government with the power to name U.S. warships, also praised Murtha’s history of service. He unveiled an official illustration showing an amphibious transport dock marked with the hull number “26” named John P. Murtha. It will be the first in the San Antonio class not named for an American city.

Despite the encomia from Pelosi and Mabus, thousands of Web users remembered a different Murtha — the one who opposed the Iraq war and accused Marines in 2005 of killing Iraqis “in cold blood” — when reacting to the announcement about the ship named in his honor. A Facebook group called “People Against Naming A Navy Ship USS Murtha” had 1,336 members as of Monday morning, and it was becoming a clearinghouse for angry comments and homemade cartoons criticizing Murtha.

Posters on the Facebook page said Murtha “betrayed the brotherhood,” that naming a ship for him was a “slap in the face” and that if the Navy wanted to name a ship for him, it should have chosen “a nice, stinky garbage scow.”

The Navy was getting angry responses even on its own official website, where visitors used the same page where the announcement appeared to criticize it. Visitors called the decision to name a ship for Murtha “an absolute disgrace,” “inappropriate” and said it was just as bad as naming a warship for Benedict Arnold.

“The naming of LPD 26 after John Murtha is inappropriate,” wrote David Martin. “There many men and women with greater records of valor and service to the country who deserve the honor of having a warship named in their memory before John Murtha has a warship [named] in his honor. He made sure there was an airport named after himself. What more does there need to be?”

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2010/04/na...h_042710w/

This is so wrong.

FVCK NO!

Good. Nice tribute.

amphibious warship? That means it's a boat that leaks, right?

The Marines should love that.

Some where Saddam is laughing at the irony.

Maybe its fitting that the LPD-17 class that includes the USS John Murtha has had numerous problems....

Notice how stories detailing the LPD-17 powerplant “crisis” focus on LPD-17, 18 and 21?

Notice how the reporting, in passing, note that LPD-19 and 20 encountered similar engine problems, but, after maintenance, both seem to have dodged a bullet?

Well, not so fast…it looks like the USS MESA VERDE (LPD-19) had substantive powerplant issues before her shock trials (back in August-September 2008)–USS MESA VERDE suffered a ”catastrophic” mishap even before LPD-17 failed in the Gulf.

Read the Defense Department’s December 2009 Operational Test and Evaluation Report closely:

Catastrophic casualties recorded prior to the Full Ship Shock Trial in LPD-19 and during LPD-17’s deployment revealed serious fabrication and production deficiencies in the main lube oil service system.”

What happened there? IF the LPD-19 event was, in any way, comparable with the November 2008 LPD-17 failure (where the ship was sidelined for weeks), then why wasn’t the LPD-19 failure widely broadcast?

The LPD-19 incident predates the LPD-17 incident. Why, then, in the light of such a catastrophic failure, was the LPD-17 sent out on deployment with no fixes in sight? Were the LPD-19 problems kept quiet…or, to be cynical for a moment…Did the LPD-19 failure occur in close proximity to the Navy’s announcement that the LPD-17 reached IOC in May 2008?

Unless the Operational Test and Evaluation Report is detailing a completely different failure, the Report contradicts Jay Stefany, the Navy’s LPD-17 program manager. Navy Times’ Chris Cavas recently reported:

“Stefany said the problems were a recurrence of similar issues discovered about a year ago on the Mesa Verde (LPD 19) and Green Bay (LPD 20). “The ships were down for a number of months,” he said, and stainless steel shavings were discovered in the lube oil.”

Seems like LPD-19–at a minimum–failed about a year an a half ago…

Along with that interesting note, the Operational Test and Evaluation Report emphasizes the entire Class is experiencing a range of other failures/problems–problems that go far beyond welding or engine plant design. The platform is, at best, infirm.

First–and unsurprisingly–the engineering is problematic:

“Reliability problems associated with the Engineering Control System (ECS), including frequent failures and high false alarm rates, and the electrical distribution system, including unexplained loss of service generators and the uncommanded opening of breakers, revealed shortfalls in manning and training to support sustained manual operation of the plant.”

Communications are wobbly:

“…reliability problems with the SWAN and the Interior Voice Communications System degrade command and control and are single points of failure during operations.”

And, of course, the amphibious basics ain’t good, either:

‘Reliability problems related to well deck ramps, ventilation, bridge crane, and Cargo Ammunition Magazine (CAM) elevators detracts from mission accomplishment and reduces amphibious warfare suitability.”

Add in issues with the LPD-17’s ability to produce chilled water, there’s also a long laundry list of problems with the LPD-17 Class SSDS, the RAM system, radars and gun interface. Combined, those failures limit the LPD-17 Class, opening these ships to attack.

But those problems were covered last year, over here.

The continued vigorous defense of these platforms by Marines and other LPD-17 boosters simply stuns me. Why are we building LPD-17s if the ships are not functional? Perhaps it is time to stop work on these things.

http://nextnavy.com/the-lpd-17-fiasco-wh...to-lpd-19/