NORFOLK, Va. — Fresh from announcing the name of the Navy’s next amphibious assault ship, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro surprised sailors at Naval Station Norfolk by revealing additional vessels for the planned Despair-class of surface combatants.
“I know it’s tradition to name our amphibs after past victories,” said Del Toro. “But we haven’t really put a ‘W’ on the board recently. So the Navy’s top leaders and I decided that a ship class that reminds its occupants of endless hardship for fewer explainable reasons the longer things went on was a better tribute to the last 20 years of American military performance. I’m pleased to tell you that the USS Helmand Province will soon be joined by a sister ship, the USS Hamid Karzai International Airport.”
Del Toro noted that in recent years, Navy leadership has been increasingly hard-pressed to conjure positive examples of American arms. So it has decided to name ships after aspects of military life to which all servicemembers can relate.
“I tell you, we went through a lot of introspection trying to figure out why we’d run out of successful campaigns to name our ships after,” Del Toro said. “Ultimately we decided it was a combination of tragic mistakes by mid-level leaders and junior troops combined with Gen Z’s lack of adulting skills and in no way a reflection of decades of corruption, failed accountability, and lack of oversight on the part of the Navy, or really, the American defense establishment in general. Anyway, we still needed ship names. So we decided that new Despair-class vessels would be the floating embodiment of the Defense Department’s 21st-century zeitgeist.”
