From the moment the Navy announced that one of its newest ships would be named after Sioux City, local civic leaders swelled with pride, vowing to support the ship and its crew.
Barely three years after joining the Navy’s fleet, the USS Sioux City will need every bit of that support to remain in service.
A U.S. Navy budget proposal unveiled Monday recommends the decommissioning of the USS Sioux City and 23 other ships. Just like that, the ship could be mothballed when memories of the joyous 2018 commissioning ceremony still remain strong in the minds of many.
Though the ship’s future is now uncertain, the community will continue to stand behind the ship’s crew members and their mission, said Chris McGowan, Siouxland Chamber of Commerce president.
“We will continue to do our very best to support the courageous men and women who serve on the USS Sioux City and remain focused on expanding and enhancing the incredibly strong relationship we have built with these sailors,” said McGowan, who co-chaired the ship’s commissioning committee with retired Rear Adm. Frank Thorp.
The Navy’s decommissioning recommendation must be approved by Congress, and lawmakers could block the plan. Thorp, a 28-year Navy veteran, said Thursday that process ensures the USS Sioux City will not disappear overnight.
“The budget still needs to be approved by Congress, so this has a long time to play out. And then if USS Sioux City and the other Freedom class LCS are approved for decommissioning, it will take some time to make that happen. That is important because the crew needs that connection with her namesake city now more than ever,” Thorp said.
The proposal is part of a five-year budget plan that calls for decommissioning 24 ships, including eight other Freedom Class Littoral Combat Ships, or LCS, similar to the USS Sioux City, for a total savings of $3.6 billion, Navy officials said at a press briefing Monday.
Navy officials said other ships can perform the USS Sioux City’s anti-submarine warfare mission, and mechanical problems with the water jet propulsion systems have plagued the LCS Freedom class vessels.
“… it’s a hard thing to make a decision to decommission ships, but what we are looking at is what offers the best capability against the threats that we are facing,” Meredith A. Berger, acting Under Secretary Of The Navy, told reporters. “And so as we think about how to build a force that we can sustain within the budget that we have, that’s how we’ve made some of these, again, tough decisions. And as we look across LCS, this is a place where we have identified that there are real costs, especially at the — for the Freedom class to be able to make some of the repairs that are needed on those as we measure that against what is the best contribution to the capabilities that we need.”
When commissioned, Navy leaders said the USS Sioux City’s expected lifetime would be 30 years, probably more. Mayor Bob Scott said the Navy’s decision would be a waste of taxpayer money if the $362 million ship were decommissioned after serving just a fraction of that time.
“It’s amazing they can spend that amount of money and then decommission it. It’s unbelievable,” Scott said. “We have a relationship with a lot of people who have served on that ship, and it’s hard to believe that ship is unsalvageable.
“I would hope we at least try to voice our objection to this.”
It was just 10 years ago that the Navy announced to an enthusiastic crowd at City Hall that the 11th ship of the LCS class would be named after Sioux City.
That enthusiasm never waned. Large numbers of Siouxlanders traveled in January 2016 to the ship’s christening at a Wisconsin shipyard. Hundreds more traveled to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, to witness the ship’s commissioning on Nov. 18, 2018.
Before and since the ship’s commissioning, ship commanders and crew members have received warm welcomes when visiting Sioux City, and more than $250,000 was raised to create a legacy education fund to help USS Sioux City crew members and their families pay for educational expenses.
Thorp repeatedly said during his many visits to Sioux City before the commissioning that he’d never seen a city embrace a namesake ship as Sioux City had done.
“The support for the ship and crew is unparalleled,” Thorp said. “The other thing I would say is that the sailors who have served on USS Sioux City will forever stand proud, arguably prouder than most if not all of the other ships on the waterfront, because of the great support of the people of Siouxland.”
Since its commissioning, the USS Sioux City and its 75-member crew have been based in Mayport, Florida, and deployed to the U.S. 4th Fleet area of operations to support Joint Interagency Task Force South’s mission, which includes counter-illicit drug trafficking missions in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.
In recent months, the USS Sioux City and its crew, working with the U.S. Coast Guard, stopped two vessels in the Caribbean Sea, seizing approximately 1,080 kilograms of cocaine worth an estimated $44 million.
News of those missions has been a point of pride, McGowan said.
“We are very proud to serve as the namesake city for LCS 11 and we will remain so for as long as the USS Sioux City continues to serve our nation in the defense of freedom,” he said. “Obviously, these decisions will be made at the highest levels of our federal government, and their sole criteria ought to be what is in the best interest of our national defense and protecting the security of the American people.”
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