Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - The USS Inchon, 32, being readied for retirement

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Thursday, April 4, 2002
The USS Inchon, 32, being readied for retirement

By Stephanie L. Jordan
Caller-Times
   When removed from active service in June, ship will be used as a target and sunk
   INGLESIDE - Thirty-two years to the day after she was commissioned - June 20 - the USS Inchon will be retired at Naval Station Ingleside during a traditional ceremony.
   The next day the 602-foot ship will be towed to a Philadelphia shipyard. Eventually the ship will be used as a target during a Navy exercise and sunk.
   "I think that's fitting really," said Capt. Chuck Smith, the commanding officer of the Navy's only mine countermeasures command and control ship.
   "She's served the Navy all this time and so well and she's going to do down serving the Navy."
   Already the 761 sailors have been told where their next job will be.
   Some are going to Navy training schools, others to other ships and about 75 of the sailors will stay in South Texas.
   "If I could have, I would have retired on the Inchon," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Louis Citizen.
   "I've really loved being on this ship."
   The first to be unloaded was the fuel and ammunition.
   Many things have been removed piece by piece.
   Aircraft parts went to ships deployed to the Persian Gulf.
   Other parts, like radar equipment, went to others that need it. About $200,000 in food went to other ships at the base.
   In all, about 1,700 pallets worth of gear, furnishings and equipment have been removed.
   With so much unloaded, the ship now sits nine feet higher in the water than it did when the decommissioning process began.
   "We're ahead in the process," Smith said.
   "I wanted to get everything off as quickly as possible, because with the air conditioning being off now, I didn't want the crew to being moving everything in 100-degree, 100-percent-humidity weather down here."
   Although some are melancholy about the ship being put to rest, what many sailors say they will miss is their shipmates.
   "I've spent a lot of time on other ships, about two dozen from Japan and Pearl Harbor," said Chief Petty Officer Christopher Cantu, an aerographer's mate. "And there's a different atmosphere to them. This was a good one."
   Camaraderie
   It's about the camaraderie and that's not always a given on ships, some said.
   "When I came here, no two people were alike and we all got along," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Wesley Richey,an intelligence specialist.
   "Now we all have different jokes we use while we're working."
   The logistics of moving all the equipment and taking care of those who need to be transferred has been tough.
   Smith wanted to take care of the sailors first and in early February invited family in to make the decision on each sailor's next move.
   For those without family in the area, they could make conference calls with family with phone lines set up in the ship's Ward Room.
   Leaders tried to arrange things so that those with children in school and with houses to sell will stay the longest, said Chief Petty Officer Kurt Gain, the ship's career counselor.
   'There's a fight out there'
   During the upcoming months, about 150 sailors per month will be transferred off the ship so that 160 will remain until the final days in June.
   Gain admits he's lucky to stay in South Texas, working under a different command. In July he bought a home in Portland and in August he joined the ship.
   "I didn't want to sell my house," Gain said.
   "It would have been really soon to leave."
   Usually it takes a year to decommission a ship.
   The Inchon crew will have done it in four and half months. Smith said that's not because the crew is eager to have the ship gone.
   "There's a fight out there and we need to decommission the ship so we can get back in that fight," Smith said.


Contact Stephanie L. Jordan _at 886-3724 _or jordans@caller.com

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