Aircraft Carrier John F. Kennedy Gets First Building Block - Military.com
The Navy and Newport News Shipbuilding celebrated a construction milestone Saturday for the future USS John F. Kennedy, marking progress toward building America's newest aircraft carrier while acknowledging challenges to come. In a keel-laying ceremony at the downtown shipyard, shipyard welder Leon Walston burned the initials of Caroline Bouvier Kennedy onto a steel plate that will become part of the ship. Kennedy, the late president's daughter and U. S. ambassador to Japan, appeared in a video as the ship's sponsor. His grandfather was Robert F. Kennedy, the late senator from New York who was killed in 1968 while running for president. He introduced Caroline's video and thanked shipbuilders, saying, "This is not a typical day for me. ". A short distance away was the future USS Gerald R. Ford, the first of a new carrier class. Kennedy will be the second Ford-class ship to join the fleet. "It's an extraordinary honor, as a Kennedy, for my entire family," he said. "Driving in this morning, it's hard to put into words, when you see a ship like the Gerald Ford, the magnificence of it. ". Aircraft carriers are not only dominant military platforms, the ships bring messages of "help and hope" during times of... His cousin, Caroline Kennedy, echoed and expanded on those sentiments during her video segment. Source: www.military.com
