Navy Warship New York

Seven years after the World Trade Center attacks, the 684-foot-long, 25,000-ton New York—built with steel from Ground Zero—is being outfitted and will be commissioned next fall.

The motto of the U.S. Navy's newest warship, New York, is "Never forget." And it's unlikely the men and women who built it ever will. After all, the ship's bow was once seven tons of twisted steel from the World Trade Center. The salvaged metal arrived at Amite Foundry & Machine, just north of New Orleans, in 2003. "The hair stood up on the back of my neck when I thought of all the people who lost their lives," remembers foundry worker Junior Chavers. Chavers and his coworkers reverently melted the pieces in the foundry's furnace, their eyes often filled with tears.

The molten steel was poured into a mold for the bow stem, the front of the ship that cuts through the water. Next, shipbuilders at nearby Northrop Grumman took over.

Almost half of the New York had been built when Hurricane Katrina hit the shipyard, but the work never stopped. "The people of New York didn't stop rebuilding their city, and we didn't stop constructing their ship," says supervisor Mike McTranmer. Adds company president Mike Petters, "It's personal for this shipyard. And it's personal to each man and woman who laid his or her hands on this ship."

Based in Norfolk, Virginia, the New York will be part of an antiterrorism Expeditionary Strike Force. "Some people wondered why we wanted to put the steel in a warship," says Lee Ielpi, a retired New York City firefighter whose son Jonathan, also a firefighter, died on 9/11. "The message it sends as it cuts through the water is that we are a free country and we cherish our freedoms. Our forefathers fought hard for us, and we will, too, if we have to."

From Reader's Digest - September 2008

 

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