e-mail: bvernyi@penton.com

In late 2004 the welders at the Northrop Grumman Ship Systems shipyard in Avondale, La., a suburb of New Orleans, were finishing work on what had to be one of their proudest achievements, the USS New Orleans.

That ship was launched in December 2004, and was commissioned on March 10 of this year in New Orleans. It's now a part of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet.

That ship, which is also known by its Navy designation – the LPD-18, is a San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, an assault vessel designed to deliver a fully-equipped battalion of Marines almost anywhere in the world.

The USS New Orleans was the fourth commissioned ship of the United States Navy to be named for the city of New Orleans, and is only the second Navy ship that was actually built in the city for which it is named.

If only for the name alone, building the USS New Orleans would have been very special for the workers at the Avondale shipyard. However, considering the ravages and devastation left by Hurricane Katrina between the time that the ship was launched and its commissioning ceremonies, it's understandable that the USS New Orleans took on even greater significance for those workers. Having the commissioning ceremonies in New Orleans was a proud moment and one more step toward returning their city to normalcy.

However, a new ship has taken hold of the hearts and minds at the Avondale shipyard: The USS New York. The USS New York is another San Antonio-class assault ship, and it carries a powerful message in its bow.

As Associate Editor Larry Haftl writes, the bow stem for the ship is made from tons of the twisted scrap metal – the blooded metal – salvaged from the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The story behind the naming of the ship – the LPD 21 – is that New York Governor George E. Pataki wrote a letter shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to Secretary of the Navy Gordon England to ask that Navy bestow the name USS New York on a surface warship involved in the War on Terror in honor of September 11's victims. The request was approved August 28, 2002, and the keel for the ship was laid in September 2004. The name, by the way, is for the State of New York, not the city.

Twenty-four tons of the steel used in the construction of the LPD 21 came from the rubble of the World Trade Center, including seven tons that was melted down and cast to form the ship's bow stem.

As Larry points out, the workers at the Avondale Shipyard treated the ship with a reverence that usually is reserved for religious relics.

"When that steel bow stem got here everyone wanted to touch it," Michael Norman, crane department superintendent at the Avondale yard, said. "Everyone was drawn to it. You can't explain what you are feeling, and just about everyone in this shipyard lined up to look at it and were drawn to touch it like it was some kind of magnet. It makes this ship different from every other one."

Norman and others at the shipyard told our editor that building the ship has put them more in touch with the disaster at the World Trade Center and with the War on Terror, and that the pain and suffering they endured because of Hurricane Katrina makes them more acutely aware of what the people of New York went through.

Building the USS New York has become one group of Americans beset by tragedy reaching out to acknowledge and share the pain of other injured Americans.

The USS New York is scheduled to be launched later this year, and is expected to be commissioned at special ceremonies in New York City in 2008.