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A Ship's Belly, a Nation's Strength -- A look inside the U.S.S. Intrepid.
by Brendan Miniter, Wall Street JournalMost visitors to the U.S.S. Intrepid, the vintage World War II aircraft carrier docked on the west side of Manhattan, come to hear combat stories--how the ship survived five separate kamikaze attacks--or to see some of the neat modern warplanes now parked on its flight deck. But when I got the opportunity this week to visit the carrier, I had something else in mind. I wanted to get down into the belly of the floating war machine and see what few visitors have been allowed to see during the 2 1/2 decades that it has been on public display: the machinery that propelled this giant halfway around the globe to project American power first against the Japanese Imperial Empire and then, two decades later, against the North Vietnamese. . . . . . . the ship is in pretty good shape considering that it has been sitting here for nearly 25 years. In 1976, real-estate magnate Zachary Fischer decided to rescue the Intrepid from the scrap heap and paid $25 million to have it brought to New York and set up as a museum. Today the museum spends $17 million a year on overhead and millions more on capital projects to keep the ship afloat and full of exhibits for 700,000 annual visitors. The Intrepid also raises money through its Fallen Heroes Fund to help wounded servicemembers from Iraq and Afghanistan and their families, and is building a $40 million physical rehabilitation center in San Antonio. One soldier who visited the Intrepid recently had just returned from Iraq, where he had lost his left eye, part of his right hand, most of his left arm and his right leg. He came to express his gratitude to the Intrepid family for helping him. But Mr. White doesn't think that any thanks are necessary. Maintaining the ship, supporting troops returning from combat and reminding Americans that freedom isn't easily defended, he says, "is a duty." Posted by: Mike 2006-06-30 |
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