[StBernard] Navy Commissions USS New Orleans

[Westley Annis]

Navy Commissions USS New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS, March 10, 2007
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(AP) With the blaring of cannons, the Navy commissioned the USS New Orleans
before thousands of onlookers Saturday, marking the first time since at
least World War II a Navy ship has been built and christened in its namesake
city. 

"May God bless and guide this warship and all who sail on her," the
secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter, said before hundreds of sailors -
in crisp, white uniforms - ran onto the ship to set the traditional first
watch and to salute those in the celebratory crowd below. 

The $1.3 billion USS New Orleans is the fourth ship to bear the New Orleans
name. The last one was an amphibious assault vessel that served during the
Vietnam War and in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. It was
decommissioned in 1997 and is slated to be sunk for gunnery practice. 

It took about five years to build this ship, including a months-long
interruption in construction due to Hurricane Katrina. The work was
completed Monday. 

"We are proud of this city and proud of this ship," Mayor Ray Nagin said.
"We both survived Katrina." 

The commissioning was a point of pride for Petty Officer 1st Class Robert
Greene, a 36-year-old San Diego native who decommissioned the last USS New
Orleans and helped prepare this one for its unveiling near the French
Quarter Saturday. 

"There's only four ships with this name, and I served on two. That's pretty
unique," Greene said as he prepared equipment on the flight deck of the ship
earlier in the week. "I really wanted to serve on this ship." 

The ship, built at Northrop Grumman Ship Systems in Avondale, is about a
dozen stories high and takes up the length of about two French Quarter
blocks. It has state-of-the-art communications systems, a post office, two
gyms, a convenience store and pharmacy, a hospital and dental office and
sleeping quarters with lockers for up to 800 Marines, which the ship could
transport in times such as war, and a crew of 360. 

Ensign Ashleigh Teitel said she couldn't have asked for a better assignment
than serving on the USS New Orleans: The Long Island, N.Y., native was in
her senior year at the New York Maritime Academy when Hurricane Katrina hit
the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005. 

Within days of Katrina's landfall, Teitel helped load food, water, clean
linens and supplies onto ships in New York that were headed to New Orleans. 

"For me personally, for all of us who have been a part of this
commissioning, it's an honor," she said. "I know what this ship means to
this city." 

References to the ship's namesake city can be found throughout the vessel.
There's a Big Easy Cafe, a Carnival doubloon contained in a small display
case and a musket ball from the Chalmette Battlefield, the site of the 1815
Battle of New Orleans. 

The banner for the ship's newspaper is The Big Easy Bugle, and NOLA, or
"November Oscar Lima Alpha" in the international maritime phonetic alphabet,
is the ship's call name. 

Free public tours were given during the week. Joel Gray, of Rochester,
Minn., and his wife were in line Thursday for more than an hour for a
walk-through. 

"You look at it and wonder how all that stuff fits in there," he said. "It
was worth it. It was really cool." 

The USS New Orleans will leave New Orleans Monday for Pascagoula, Miss., and
will eventually head to its home port of San Diego.