ArmoredD.com

Sat, Mar 29, 2008

By MICHAEL HALL

The Brunswick News

Lt. Commander Noel Gonzalez is from Florida, but he asked for an assignment to the USS Georgia.

“This is a great ship,” he said after serving as master of ceremonies for the submarine’s return to service ceremony Friday at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, in Kingsland.

“Being on the Georgia in Georgia is a big deal,” Gonzalez said.

More than 2,000 sailors, spectators and dignitaries were on hand for the 560-foot submarine’s coming out ceremony after being converted from a ballistic-missiles sub to a guide-missile and attack sub and home-ported at Kings Bay.

“It is a remarkable machine,” said U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-1.

The USS Georgia is the last of four submarines from the Cold War era to be converted from nuclear weapons to conventional weapons.

It is now capable of firing 154 Tomahawk guided missiles, launching Navy SEALs without surfacing, diving more than 800 feet deep, and carrying a crew of more than 200.

“Our Georgia will make us proud,” Gov. Sonny Perdue said during the ceremony. “To the crew, I can assure you that the citizens of this state stand behind you. Your work will never go unrecognized.”

Perdue presented Capt. Brian Mcilvaine, commander of the submarine, with a Georgia state flag that had ceremoniously traveled through all of the state’s 159 counties.

“We will fly this flag proudly,” Mcilvaine said.

Among the crew on the submarine is Harry Jadick, missile technician first class, who enlisted in the Navy at 27 years old for a change of scenery from his job in an Atlantic City casino.

“It is going to be a ride,” Jadick said.

From another era of servicemen who attended the ceremony is Joe Sabol, who was in the Navy from 1942 to 1965. He was aboard the USS Thomas Jefferson, a submarine carrying nuclear weapons, off the coast of the then Soviet Union the day President Kennedy was assassinated.

For him, the USS Georgia represents a step in the right direction. “It means we have more firepower for today,” he said.

For the crew members, it means the beginning of a new chapter in their careers.

The first step is training, which will begin in the coming weeks, said Gonzalez.