Navy christens last of 3 ships honoring 9/11 sites

Mary Jo Myers, wife of retired former Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers, breaks a champagne bottle during christening ceremonies for the USS Somerset at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard Shipyard in Avondale, La., July 28, 2012. / AP Photo/Janet McConnaughey

(AP) AVONDALE, La. - The USS Somerset — the last of three Navy ships named for 9/11 attack sites — was christened Saturday in honor of the passengers and crew of the plane that crashed before terrorists could reach their intended target.

Passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 stormed the cockpit and thwarted an attack on Washington, but the plane crashed in Somerset County, Pa., killing all 40 passengers and crew members.

"The men and women of Flight 93 ... thought they were going to San Francisco to work, to play, to learn; to live their lives in peace while others guarded them," said Navy Rear Adm. David Lewis. "Instead they found themselves in a war, on the front lines, in the opening battle. It was a new kind of war, one with new rules, maybe no rules at all. They had no preparation, no training, no guidance.

"And they performed superbly."

Flight 93 was hijacked after taking off from New Jersey. It crashed after passengers and crew, some alerted by cell phone calls from loved ones about the other 9/11 attacks in New York, decided to fight the hijackers. Investigators later determined the hijackers intended to crash it into the White House or Capitol in Washington, where the House and Senate were in session that morning.

About two dozen relatives of the passengers attended the christening at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Avondale, a New Orleans suburb.

The Somerset is one of three amphibious landing docks named after the sites where planes taken over by terrorists crashed, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Its bow stem — the first part of the ship to push through the water — was made from 7.5 tons of steel melted down from the bucket of a huge coal-mining crane that stood near the crash site. It was there that miners hung a large American flag to serve as a landmark and to honor the dead.

The USS New York's bow stem was made with 7.5 tons of steel from the World Trade Center. Steel from the Pentagon will be displayed in a small tribute room in the USS Arlington.

Mary Jo Myers, wife of retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the 15th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, smashed a ribbon-encased bottle of sparkling wine against a sharp-edged breaker bar mounted on the hull.

The Somerset will have both a military and a humanitarian purpose, bringing supplies, power and equipment to disaster areas, Myers said.

The Somerset is the last Navy ship that will be built at Avondale, which is scheduled to close once the ship is delivered. Officials are trying to find a civilian shipbuilding or other industrial partner to keep it open.

"We encourage those who can keep the story of this shipyard alive to heroically give their all to achieving that goal," said Patrick White, president of the Families of Flight 93.

About 5,000 people worked at Avondale when defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp. announced in 2010 that it was spinning off its military shipbuilding division. That spinoff resulted in Huntington Ingalls, based in Newport News, Va.

The Pascagoula shipyard, which is to stay open, is working on two more LPDs and got a Navy contract Friday for a third.

About 2,600 men and women are currently working on the Somerset. Those numbers are "probably stable for the next few months," with layoffs coming as systems are completed, Irwin F. Edenzon, president of Ingalls Shipbuilding, said after the ceremony.

[netjunkie1]

Since jet fuel burns at a relative low temperature, about 500 degrees F, and the steel support of the buildings hit have a high melting point of over 2000-2500 degrees, I don't buy the story.
First of all, most of the jetfuel was spent on the impact site outside the building. Just review the footage....
Furthermore, many abnormal occurances lead me to believe that while it may have been a legitimate "Highjacking", that the highjackers were pawns of a 3rd party...this 3rd party already knew of the impending attacks, as demonstrated by Wall street in the days before the attacks.
NO, too add, since the site was an attack, the NTSB was the authority of the site, but the mayor ordered the cleanup, and security....too much suspicious activity by our own representatives shows something stinks in NYC and in Washington...

[realtimecoffee]

Okay suppose you are right and someone is running the world. Probably old white guys just to make it more nefarious. So they run the world, have all the money and power. What did they gain? They already have all the power and all the money AND they are white and male. Why bother?

[netjunkie1]

by realtimecoffee July 29, 2012 1:40 PM EDT
Okay suppose you are right and someone is running the world....
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Look at history for the answer...Please Google, Wiki, youtube has some video, or whatever search you prefer and look up the Business Coup of 1933.
You will see who the players were then, are now much more powerful than ever before. These are the danger to our society and in general governments worldwide.
This was Precott Bush (hitlers' backer), DuPont, Morgan, US Steel, GE, GM and other Wall St figures....traitors to America then and now...go on...please read it, view it, and especially add 2+2.

[netjunkie1]

I'm still a little perplexed that cell phones worked on planes at that time.

[netjunkie1]

The bottom line

While it might be possible to make a cell phone call while in flight, the bottom line is that chances are the call quality won't be very good, if you are able to connect at all. That may be changing, though. Cell phone companies are in the process of developing equipment that can handle calls from the air


Read more: Do Cell Phones Work on Airplanes? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/about_5065930_cell-phones-work-airplanes.html#ixzz222K0V9oB

The question is, did cell phones work in jetliners at 35,000 feet flying at 600 mph at the time of the hijacking?

[realtimecoffee]

Frankly, yes.

[Manslick]

Well said Admiral Lewis. I am deeply grateful for the decisions and actions of the passengers of flight 93. This is a fitting honor to them. I am also grateful to the men and women who choose to serve honorably in our nations military.

As to the conspiracy followers posting here; a building implosion requires taking out the vertical support structure, bottom to top. In an orchastrated manner. If that's not done, there is an extreme danger of the building toppling. Thank God that did not happen. You really should dig further than the information presented to you.

[truthforhumanity]

The available information to show the government conspiracy theory does not hold water is so plentiful that it's like trying to get a drink from a fire hydrant. The point is this cbs comment section is not large enough to accommodate all the material available proving "something smells rotten in Denmark," much of which I have delved into. It's up to individuals to educate themselves on the matter.

Lastly, labeling people "conspiracy followers" with differing opinions from yours is the equivalent of an ad hominem attack. The fact is those who accept the official government version of events on that fateful day are also conspiracy theorists, they just subscribe to a different theory. I'd recommend you "dig further" by reading material presented by David Ray Griffin and Richard Gage on the 9/11 events. Best of luck to you.

[realtimecoffee]

Hey! My grandparents were from Denmark and we are tired of suffering from the bigoted comment of that young whippersnapper Shakespeare. One stupid line and an entire nationality is equated with dead fish.

[truthforhumanity]

Re-investigate 9/11...! The government conspiracy story doesn't hold water. There were dozens and dozens of anomalies. We certainly do NOT know the truth of what happened that fateful day.

[maz_beachbum]

I am still perplexed at the idea that 2 buildings could "implode" and collapse straight down . . Strange, very strange

[netjunkie1]

Not only that, building 7 went down under suspicouse circumstances.