Navy Secretary Ray Mabus defended his history of controversial ship names, saying that they abide by long-standing traditions.
“I’m more a traditionalist than most of my predecessors have been,” Mabus told the Washington Examiner.
Most recently, Mabus has taken heat from some members of Congress for naming a destroyer after former Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who headed the Senate Armed Services Committee from 2007 until his retirement in 2014. While senators on both sides of the aisle praised the decision, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., wrote a letter to Mabus saying he is politicizing the ship-naming process.
But Mabus said it has nothing to do with politics and much to do with history. To prove his point, his listed off the precedent he was following when he named the ship this month in Detroit.
“There’s the John Stennis, an aircraft carrier, he was chairman of the armed services committee for years. There’s the John Warner, a submarine, he was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee for years. There’s the Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier, he was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee for years,” Mabus said. “So this is a long standing tradition to name Navy ships after members of Congress, particularly the heads of armed services committees from both the Senate and the House, but those who have gone above and beyond in terms of protecting particularly our service men and women.”
Besides being committee chairman, Warner also served in the Navy and Marine Corps and was secretary of the Navy in the early 1970s.
Mabus went on to say that Levin “exemplified the values” he hopes sailors live by.
“He was tough, but he was fair. He tried to protect the taxpayers and their money, but he also had a deep, deep commitment to protecting our service men and women, to getting them what they needed. And in an era of increasing incivility in politics, in Congress, Carl Levin was a beacon of civility,” Mabus said. “I think you honor things like that.”
Prior to his naming of the USS Carl M. Levin, Mabus also was criticized for naming a littoral combat ship after Gabrielle Giffords, the former Arizona lawmaker who survived a gunshot wound to the head, and a cargo ship after Cesar Chavez, a civil rights activist.
