The U.S. Navy’s latest commissioned submarine, named in honor of the Navy Lieutenant (ret.)-turned-U.S. President.
My admiration for former President Jimmy Carter (especially for his exemplary life as a former pres.) aside, I can’t help but feel that this is going to be the stuff of a few late-night talk show gibes.
So, long may you rule the waves, U.S.S. James Carter, and… watch out for those swimming killer rabbits, y’hear?
I imagine this is only the second Nobel Peace Prize winner to have a war ship named after him (I didn’t google it, but I was almost certain Teddy Roosevelt had a war ship named after him). In any case, some fascinating irony there.
Probably one of the first nuclear engineer’s to have one named after him too. Possibly one of the first peanut farmers, and possibly one of the first lieutenants - although I seem to remember some of the river patrol boats in Viet Nam were named after non-coms up through looeys but I could well be wrong on that.
Sadly, they missed the opportunity to have the first US warship to be officially designated “Jimmy.”
Seriously, it took me a few seconds to figure out who “James Carter” is. Never seen him refered to by his proper first name.
Roger – Theodore Roosevelt gets a Nimitz-class CVN named after him, quite behooving his “Big Stick” side. And James Earl Carter gets a SSN, one that will incoporate research functions, which is also proper as he served under Rickover mostly during the experimentation and development phase of the Nuke Navy, leaving the service before they went full operational.
As for the lieutenants, well, there’s the carrier USS John F. Kennedy… but actually, if you looked up the historic fleet lists you’d likely find quite a few destroyers, destroyer-escorts and light frigates named after junior officers and ratings – just that the naming in such cases would mostly go to those who died heroically, such as the Sullivans. .