Ship named for New York will salute those who died at Ground Zero

ABOARD THE NEW YORK

With two rings of the ship's bell, and a brief acknowledgement over the intercom - "Mayor, New York City, arriving," - Michael Bloomberg boarded this warship, forged partly from World Trade Center steel.

The Navy's newest dock landing ship will be commissioned in New York City on Saturday, and today, ceremonies and festivities begin in earnest. Sunday night in Raritan Bay, off Sandy Hook, N.Y., the crew had a preview of the excitement: an ice cream social on the mess deck, televisions broadcasting the New York Yankees in Game 4 of the World Series. 

Sailors and Marines manned the rails of the ship as it  neared the Statue of Liberty shortly before 7:30 a.m. today. As the shop arrives outside Ground Zero, a 21-gun salute is expected in tribute to those who died in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. 

The crew began the day with reveille and the voice of Frank Sinata belting out "New York, New York," over the ship's intercom system.

Bloomberg had gotten the city-themed festivities started by handing out baseball caps to sailors and Marines from New York. 

"Anybody here from New York City?" he asked those clumped around him.

Everyone seemed to feign an interest in the game, but minds were elsewhere: amid bites of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry sundaes, conversations revolved around one question: Where were you on 9/11?

Some of those now wearing Navy or Marine camouflage were kids. "I was in six th-grade Spanish class. The teacher was Mrs. Romano," said Lance Cpl. Nelson Acevedo, a 20-year-old from Long Island.

Bloomberg was at his company's office in lower Manhattan, he recalled. Its computer room was soon pressed into service as a bivouac for one of the first New York National Guard units to respond to the attacks.

Talking to one Navy reservist - a police officer from West Chester County who joined the reserves after the attacks, Bloomberg stated something sure to be repeated this week. There will be a volley of gunfire as the ship passes Ground Zero, and families of those who perished in the towers will come aboard the warship, whose bow contains 7.5 tons of steel salvaged from the wreckage.

"It brought a lot of people together," Bloomberg said.

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com