Whenever anyone gets a budget they feel that they have to spend all the money or the budget gets   cut back next year in funds. That is how our military works. Trump wants to give them more money. So, what do they do with all that money? They spend it on new stuff and then ask for more money. The new stuff is the U.S.S.  Zumwalt   that is the newest navel battleship in our nation’s fleet. There has never been a vessel that looked like this, could do things like this and who cost 4 billion dollars to build. It is the most advanced vessel that the Navy is bringing to the fleet. It has been commissioned as a destroyer and yes it can destroy even by sending missiles to land targets 60 miles away.

It has a sleek exterior with no metal sticking out from anywhere making it look very futuristic. They crammed too much technology into the vessel in way too little time just to spend the budget money. The missiles are so powerful that they can reach 60 miles away within 2 minutes of the assigned target. Each shell   costs 800 thousand dollars. I hope their targets are worth more than that. There are only 147 crew members aboard the ship. The ship is so highly technical that more men aren’t needed. There aren’t any windows. They look at video monitors set to cameras to see navigation.

The Zumwalt has already suffered 2 mechanical breakdowns. One in the Panama Canal as it was traveling to its permanent port in San Diego. It is the navy’s most expensive destroyer in the navy’s history. It broke down one month after it was commissioned. How did it happen that the navy has a 4 billion dollar destroyer that doesn’t work? The program to make this vessel started in the early 90’s. Originally as many as 30 ships were planned to build and now they cut that back to only 3 ships. The navy is complaining that when you build only 3 ships the cost of building the things will rise. Building more ships would bring costs down according to them.

All of it is controversial. Its look, costs and even its name is looked at. The new battleship was named after Admiral Zumwalt who was known for shaking up the navy by making sure his ships were integrated with women and minorities. He would send out messages ordering the end to racism and sexism. On the ship named after him you will see all races and religions represented on that vessel. It is only fitting that the man responsible for bringing the navy into the 20^th century should have an advanced ship named after him.