USS Midway

In San Diego we visited the USS Midway Museum. Now, in no way am I a "military buff", nor do I get excited about big machines and stuff like that, but as soon as I saw this massive piece of grey metal floating in the harbor, I was fascinated. I'm not sure if it was the awesomeness of it's size or the "American-ness" of it .... I couldn't wait to check it out.

The USS Midway was named for the famous battle on Midway Island where six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Americans defeated the Japanese in their attempt at another attack in the Pacific. It was commissioned two weeks after the end of WWII and served in the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm. It was decommissioned in 1992.

Seeing this incredible machine made me wonder how many aircraft carriers Canada has. It turns out we have zero! We had three but they were decommissioned years ago. In fact there are only eight other countries that have aircraft carriers, two of which have two, the rest only one. The US, however has 10 aircraft carriers in use today! Russia and China have only one each and Great Britain has zero! If you want the whole scoop you can checkout the Wikipedia Link   Aircraft Carriers by Country

Our tour of the ship was very thorough and we spent a couple of hours exploring all the nooks and crannies. It gave us great insight to life on board and what a job it must have been to manage three thousand men all working, and living on the ship for perhaps months at a time! Apparently the food was very good, but the sleeping quarters .... that was a different story (unless of course you were an officer!)

Sleeping quarters for the enlisted men!

There was a maze of these narrow corridors.

I'm not sure what this score board is all about?

You had to be in shape to be part of this team!

I'm sure this is a chopper from 'Nam!

Gotta love this one! (a statue in the park nearby) 

It's mind boggling to think about all the human energy, technology and money used in war. But, I guess its been that way since human history began. One thing I just learned recently is that the Japanese constitution outlaws war as a means to settle international disputes. They do maintain a military, but only for defense and peace keeping missions. Too bad all countries didn't do the same!