What is wrong with our Navy?

I know it is Memorial Day, but one has to ask the question – what is wrong with our Navy?  I come from a Navy town.  My grandfather, father and uncle were in the Navy.  Though I chose a career in the Marine Corps I spent a great deal of time on Navy ships including two years on sea duty.  Today’s The Washington Times carries an article by Rowan Scarborough titled “Navy too politically correct for Old Salts” and they are right.

It is an interesting read and I recommend it.  The Navy’s missteps go far beyond naming one of the Military Sealift Command Dry Cargo/Ammunition ships after a Marxist agitator. 

The T-AKE class ships seem to be an interesting breed.  The first three were named for heroes:  Lewis and Clark, Sacagwea, and Alan Shepard (T-AKE 1, 2, and 3).  Then they went terribly wrong naming the fourth in the class after Ku Klux Klansman and Democrat Senator Richard Byrd (T-AKE-4).  Then they got back on track with Robert E. Peary (T-AKE-5).  It appears that the theme of naming these ships was exploration as they named a ship after Amelia Earhart (a bit of a stretch), Carl Brashear (first black Navy master diver), then another astronaut Wally Schirra, and then another explorer Matthew Perry (T-AKEs-6, 7, 8. and 9).  Then they departed from the pattern with a famous doctor Charles Drew (bringing us to T-AKE-10).   Captain Washington Chambers, USN was a pioneer in naval aviation (T-AKE-11).   William McLean was a physicist who was responsible for the invention of the Sidewinder missile (T-AKE 12). 

Looks like Navy Secretary Mabus (a former Mississippi governor) took us way out of the pattern with T-AKE-13 which was named after assassinated civil rights activist Medgar Evers.  Evers was a sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II who served honorably and died later in Mississippi for his brave stand during the civil rights movement.  No doubt Evers deserves any number of honors but it seems to me that it is the army’s responsibility or the State of Mississippi.  Mabus didn’t need to bring his guilt with him to the Department of the Navy. 

Now T-AKE-14 will be stained with the name of Marxist Cesar Chavez.  Yet another reason to never again elevate a Marxist community organizer to mainstream political power.