Hey, it’s not like the guy accused U.S. Marines of killing innocent civilians in cold blood with no proof whatsoever…no, wait?…
(TIME)– Prospective parents battling over the names of their unborn kids have nothing on the U.S. Navy, which is in the middle of a spat over the wisdom of naming a new ship for the late Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha. In fact, it has kicked off a bigger battle over just who, or what, should be honored with their names on the great gray hulls of the nation’s warships. “It comes down to two points,” says military historian James Caiella. “Who and what we are as Americans, and what symbols do we want to represent those ideals?”
On one side of the issue is Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who by tradition actually gets to pick the names. “Both in uniform and in the halls of Congress, Chairman Murtha dedicated his life to serving his country both in the Marine Corps and Congress,” he said last spring, 11 weeks after Murtha, who won two Purple Hearts in Vietnam as a Marine, died. “His unwavering support of our sailors and Marines, and in particular of our wounded warriors, was well known and deeply appreciated.
But Mabus’ decision has unleashed a continuing torrent of opposition from many former sailors and Marines. They say that naming a vessel for Murtha rewards a lawmaker who called for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq in late 2005 during the war’s toughest days, and one who was implicated in bribery and pork-barrel politics. On Friday, a former Murtha aide-turned-lobbyist was sentenced to 27 months in prison for evading limits on campaign donations; Murtha also was an “unindicted co-conspirator” in 1980’s FBI-run Abscam sting.
And that isn’t the worst of it, according to sailors and Marines: putting Murtha’s name on an amphibious warship designed to carry 700 Marines is outrageous, they maintain, given Murtha’s 2006 charge that Marines in the Iraqi city of Haditha “killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” (One of the eight Marines charged in the case still faces trial; six have had their charges dismissed and one was acquitted.) “Name a ship after a congressman who disgraced himself by rushing to judge that fellow Marines had committed murder in Iraq?” Thomas Wilkerson, a retired Marine major general who now heads the non-profit U.S. Naval Institute, which advocates for the military’s maritime services, said Sunday. “Can you be serious?”
More than 200 people complained of the decision in comments to the Navy announcement – not a single voiced support — and two Facebook groups cropped up with thousands opposed to the decision. “As active duty lieutenant commander, I would resign my commission before accepting orders to this misnamed ship,” one purported officer posted anonymously on the Navy’s official website.