A decade after terrorists killed Officer Robert D. Stethem, the Navy commissioned a guided-missile destroyer in his name Saturday at a ceremony attended by thousands.
The USS Stethem is the first U.S. Navy ship named after an enlisted man. Stethem, a 23-year-old petty officer and Seabee diver, was killed by Arab terrorists during the hijacking of a TWA airliner to Beirut in 1985.During the ceremony, Stethem's mother, Patricia, presented her son's Bible as a gift to the vessel.
"We never solicited this, but it's been a happy point in our lives since this happened to him," Stethem's father, Dick, said of the ship-naming.
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The 8,600-ton, 505-foot ship, built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., will be based in San Diego.