Tag Archives: george bush

Iraq and Afghanistan Dominate Senate Budget Hearing

Iraq and Afghanistan Dominate Senate Budget Hearing

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel testifies before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense about the Defense Department's FY15 budget request June 18, 2014. DoD Photo

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel testifies before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense about the Defense Department’s FY15 budget request June 18, 2014. DoD Photo

With aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) and its battle group and amphibious transport dock USS Mesa Verde (LPD-19) in position in the Persian Gulf, senators on Defense Appropriations Subcommittee asked very few questions about the budget but plenty on the rise of insurgents in Iraq, if will Afghanistan face the same fate in two years and what can the United States do about both on Wednesday. Read More

Twenty Six US Navy Ship Naming Controversies

Twenty Six US Navy Ship Naming Controversies

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the U.S. Navy had no formal procedure for naming ships. It wasn’t until 1819 that Congress passed an act stating “all of the ships, of the Navy of the United States, now building, or hereafter to be built, shall be named by the Secretary of the Navy.” The secretary has fulfilled this role ever since, even though the passage expressly assigning authority for designating ship names was omitted when the U.S. Code was revised in 1925.

In addition to recommendations from Congress and the president, the secretary traditionally has been guided by a rather loose set of naming conventions—cruisers were to be named for battles, attack submarines for U.S. cities, destroyers for Navy and Marine heroes, and so forth. Controversy has erupted whenever the choice of a name strayed too far from those conventions, was seemingly swayed by politics, or deemed inappropriate for various reasons. Read More