USS Independence

If it does nothing while Beijing uses military pressure against Taiwan, its allies around Asia might conclude that Chinese coercion carries no American response.

So the USS Independence Battle Group, which was already operating in the Western Pacific, President Clinton orders that, and he sends the USS Nimitz Battle Group into the region as well.

That is a huge ship.

I got to go on that once.

So I graduate boot camp.

My first duty station is the USS Independence CV-62.

If it puts some perspective on time, it's the ship that relieved the USS Midway that's down in San Diego.

It's an old ship.

The hype over the Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's rust situation, I think is a bit over the top from the press.

I've been in the Navy, you know, I joined in 1986 and I've got pictures of, in fact, I have a picture from 1981 of the USS Independence in Port Norfolk, having come back from a deployment to the Gulf and she had the similar kind of running rust.

So it's been a perennial problem for the U.S. Navy.

We're operating in an environment where there's harsh conditions, and the work that is done, flying carriers, jets on and off the carrier, helicopter operations, fuel, refueling, arming, all of these things are...