What is happening to this once great country of ours. We are losing influence everywhere. The latest in a long line of "never thought it would happen."
From Google News, as posted by the Navy Times on July 6th,
http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f...25-1933254.php
COAST GUARD ICEBREAKER IN DEEP FREEZE TO SAVE MONEY
By Patricia Kime
Times staff writer
Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer 4 Ken Stuber had his orders: Put the icebreaker Polar Star in ?caretaker status? by July 1.
On June 30, Stuber, the commanding officer of the 399-foot ship, did just that, waiting until exactly 11:59 p.m., to remove the giant ship from operational readiness.
?There really wasn?t anything we did, but the logs say it happened just before midnight on June 30,? Stuber said from the ship July 3.
The Polar Star has been placed in ?caretaker status? ? stripped of a full crew, its engines and systems shut down ? as a money-saving measure.
One of the Coast Guard?s two Antarctic icebreakers, it awaits a decision from the administration and Congress on the future of U.S. polar icebreaking.
For the past five years, the Coast Guard?s polar icebreaking mission has endured rough seas, including the deterioration of the vessels themselves and a funding flap that?s pitted the Coast Guard against the National Science Foundation.
The Polar Star and Polar Sea are celebrating their 30th anniversaries, and while they are aging gracefully on the outside, they both need service life extension projects for their innards.
There?s ongoing debate over whether the two ships are worth modernizing. Their repairs are so costly, the service might build new icebreakers if it continues to be assigned the polar icebreaking mission.
In caretaker status, the Polar Star?s crew is down 100 people, from 134 to 34. The special status allows the Coast Guard to put more money into Polar Sea, which recently came out of dry-dock and completed sea trials.
If the Polar Star gets an 11th-hour reprieve, the ship could be back in commission in 18 months, Stuber said.
?The hardest part would be getting a crew together,? Stuber said.
Bill