Newport News, Va. – Spraying the bubbles from sparkling wine across the enormous gray bow of the USS George H.W. Bush, the Bush family on Saturday christened the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the 82-year-old former president.
“I know you join me in saying to our father, President Bush, your ship has come in,” the current president said during a ceremony for the last of the Nimitz-class carriers, the CVN 77.
“She is unrelenting, she is unshakable, she is unyielding, she is unstoppable,” Bush said, lauding the warship’s state-of-the- art design before pausing for a punch line aimed at his mother’s well-known steely constitution. “As a matter of fact, probably should have been named the Barbara Bush.”
The elder Bush, a decorated Navy pilot in World War II, joined the armed forces on his 18th birthday, June 12, 1942.
Doro Bush Koch, the elder Bush’s daughter, handled the ritual smashing of a bottle of sparkling wine against the flattop’s bow.
Bush father and son and several relatives joined hundreds of others, from government dignitaries to shipyard workers, at Northrop Grumman Newport News, where the $6 billion, 1,092-foot-long carrier is being built. It is not yet finished and is scheduled to be delivered to the Navy in late 2008.
