Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
May 19, 2007
PENSACOLA (AP) -- Rough seas forced veterans of the decommissioned aircraft carrier Oriskany to stay on shore to celebrate the first anniversary of its sinking as the world's largest intentionally created artificial reef.
The group wanted to travel in small boats 24 miles off the Pensacola coast Thursday to the Gulf of Mexico waters above where the Navy set off explosions and sunk the ship.
'I was here last year, and when the [explosion] went off to sink her, well, when I heard it I thought `They just killed her.' But even though she's been stricken from the records, she is still serving. She's immortal,'' veteran Mike Hajek Jr., 74, told the Pensacola News Journal.
The Oriskany was the first warship sunk under a pilot program to dispose of old Navy vessels through reefing.
The carrier was commissioned in 1950 and named after an American Revolutionary War battle.
It was also among the ships used by President Kennedy in a show of force during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Several veterans gathered at a bar Thursday to swap stories about those and other events from their time aboard the ship.
''No, I wasn't going to dive it,'' said veteran Wayne Smith, 61, who served on ''The Mighty O'' from 1965 to 1967.
``I barely can walk these days.''
May 19, 2007
PENSACOLA (AP) -- Rough seas forced veterans of the decommissioned aircraft carrier Oriskany to stay on shore to celebrate the first anniversary of its sinking as the world's largest intentionally created artificial reef.
The group wanted to travel in small boats 24 miles off the Pensacola coast Thursday to the Gulf of Mexico waters above where the Navy set off explosions and sunk the ship.
'I was here last year, and when the [explosion] went off to sink her, well, when I heard it I thought `They just killed her.' But even though she's been stricken from the records, she is still serving. She's immortal,'' veteran Mike Hajek Jr., 74, told the Pensacola News Journal.
The Oriskany was the first warship sunk under a pilot program to dispose of old Navy vessels through reefing.
The carrier was commissioned in 1950 and named after an American Revolutionary War battle.
It was also among the ships used by President Kennedy in a show of force during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Several veterans gathered at a bar Thursday to swap stories about those and other events from their time aboard the ship.
''No, I wasn't going to dive it,'' said veteran Wayne Smith, 61, who served on ''The Mighty O'' from 1965 to 1967.
``I barely can walk these days.''