Nuclear Ship To Become Scrap Metal

The guided-missile cruiser USS Arkansas, which defended America’s interests for 17 years, saw its career end Saturday at a deactivation ceremony at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

Presiding over the festivities on board the 585-foot nuclear-powered ship was Capt. Mark Helgeson, acting commander of Navy Carrier Group 3. Also speaking was retired Capt. Dennis Read, the Arkansas’ first commanding officer.

The current commanding officer, Capt. Thomas M. Keithly, presented Barbara Hyatt, an Arkansas schoolteacher who designed the ship’s emblem, with an etching of the cruiser.

The U.S. flag was lowered, and the 600-member crew filed off the ship after being released from watch.

Absent from the ceremony was President Clinton, who commissioned the ship on Oct. 18, 1980, when he was governor of Arkansas.

Navy officials decided to scrap the vessel rather than spend hundreds of millions of dollars to refuel its nuclear reactors and upgrade it with expensive new weaponry.

The Arkansas will enter a naval shipyard dry dock in November. There it will begin the slow process of being turned into scrap metal.