{"id":32653,"date":"2012-11-04T05:00:42","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=32653"},"modified":"2012-11-04T15:40:22","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T19:40:22","slug":"a-final-homecoming-for-big-e","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=32653","title":{"rendered":"A Final Homecoming for &#8220;Big E&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The USS Enterprise is expected to return to Norfolk, VA, today \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.militarytimes.com\/news\/2012\/10\/navy-enterprise-ends-final-deployment-103112w\/\">from her final deployment<\/a>.\u00a0 She will be decommissioned on 1 December 2012.<\/p>\n<p>The USS Enterprise was commissioned in November 1961.\u00a0 At the time of her decommissioning, she will have served the US Navy for in excess of 51 years.\u00a0 No other carrier has served the Navy as long.<\/p>\n<p>The USS Enterprise was the US Navy\u2019s first nuclear-powered carrier, and is still today the longest warship in the world.\u00a0 She has seen duty in virtually every major US naval operation or conflict from the Cuban Missile Crisis to today\u2019s hostilities in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>Every ship eventually reaches end of life.\u00a0 But this one has indeed been special.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, because of her design it will likely not be possible to convert the USS Enterprise into a museum after decommissioning.\u00a0 Her design included eight nuclear reactors.\u00a0\u00a0 The extensive disassembly of the ship necessary to allow\u00a0 removal of her eight reactors and associated equipment will likely make conversion to a museum afterwards impractical.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, though, the final disposition of her steel hull is not what really matters.\u00a0 What does matter is the service \u2013 and the history \u2013 the USS Enterprise gave this nation and the Navy.\u00a0 So long as there is a US Navy, that history will be remembered and treasured.<\/p>\n<p>Welcome home one last time, grand lady.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The USS Enterprise is expected to return to Norfolk, VA, today \u2013 from her final deployment.\u00a0 &hellip; <a title=\"A Final Homecoming for &#8220;Big E&#8221;\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=32653\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Final Homecoming for &#8220;Big E&#8221;<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical","category-navy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}