The Cortez Journal January 18, 2005
USS Mesa Verde christened Saturday
By Tom Vaughan
mancos times editor
Mancos Mayor Greg Rath and town Administrator Tom Glover joined Mesa Verde National Park Superintendent Larry Wiese and Peter Pino of Zia Pueblo (representing Indian tribes associated with Mesa Verde) Saturday in Pascagoula, Miss., for the christening of the USS Mesa Verde (LPD 19). The person swinging the bottle of bubbly at the ship was its sponsor, Linda Price Campbell, wife of recently-retired U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell.
A special postal cancellation was offered at the Mesa Verde post office on Saturday, coinciding with and celebrating the event in Mississippi.
Pascagoula is the site of a shipyard run by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Litton Division, which is building the Mesa Verde. When the ship is commissioned in 2006, coinciding with the centennial of the creation of Mesa Verde National Park, its home port will be Norfolk, Va.
The USS Mesa Verde is a Landing Platform Dock 19, the third in the San Antonio series of amphibious transport dock ships, replacing an earlier, Austin class series of LPDs.
The San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships are used to transport and land Marines, their equipment and supplies by embarked landing craft or amphibious vehicles augmented by helicopters in amphibious assault.
The USS Mesa Verde is 684 feet long and 105 feet in the beam. It has a top speed of 22 knots (24.2 mph) and is loaded with firepower and other capability. According to GlobalSecurity.org (www.globalsecurity. org), the San Antonio class LPDs will be "the most survivable amphibious vessel ever put to sea."
The U.S. Navy Fact File (www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/ships/ship-lpd.html) says the Mesa Verde has two Bushmaster II 30 mm guns and two Rolling Airframe Missile launchers, fore and aft. It can carry 14 Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles, plus one or two landing vehicles, including hovercraft. The Mesa Verde's air component can include two Super Stallion helicopters or two Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft or as many as four smaller helicopters.
Crew of the USS Mesa Verde, commanded by Commander Shawn W. Lobree, will include 28 Navy officers, 332 sailors and three Marines. It can transport 699 troops (66 officers, 633 enlisted), expanded to 800 in a pinch, and it is designed to accommodate a mixed-gender crew.
After then-Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig announced the name of the ship on Oct. 6, 2000, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt commented, "It seems somehow fitting to name a state-of-the-art ship with a name connoting timeless cultural values in Colorado."
"Mesa Verde is a jewel of our National Park system that celebrates the extraordinary beauty and diversity of that region and our nation," said Danzig.
© Copyright 2005, Daily News, L.P.
