I would say that the US is a very weird place, but then I remembered that this
is the flagship of the
British NavyFirst British Sea Lord. She hasn’t floated for literally 100 years.So mostly I guess it’s just that militaries are weird.
There’s also a statue of George Washington in England. Except the US shipped a bunch of dirt all the way across the Atlantic from Virginia so he would technically not be standing on British soil.
Humans do weird shit just to make a statement.
“What do we do with all this rubble and old dirt?”
“Ship it to the UK and call it patriotism”
The USS Constitution is still fully crewed, floats, and occasionally fires a few cannon shots.
Keeping history around isn’t weird. Though I do think it should be contextualized.
The Constitution is also the only ship in the current U.S. fleet to have sunk an enemy vessel, having defeated and burnt HMS Java in 1813.
Used today primarily for ceremonial and educational purposes, only 10–15 percent of the frigate actually dates to the original construction due to centuries of repairs and restorations.
The USS Theseus?
Seeing her out of her slip is kind of weird. She was accompanied on either side by tug boats, like an elderly person escorted by nurses or family members fearful they may fall over.
US Navy sails the Constitution up to a Russian submarine.
Fires full broadside.
Refuses to elaborate.
Leaves.
Ukraine credited with sinking another Russian submarine
Ah, I’m mostly joking. Victory is a really cool museum, almost as cool as the wreck of the Mary Rose that’s displayed in a building next to her.
but what about ceremonial anime swords in the US military?
I’d like to know more
Me too
Militaries see a lot of value in convincing their members that they’ll be remembered after dying.
Some good things have happened because people sacrificed themselves for the greater good.
Do I wish this wasn’t necessary? Fucking of course.
But history doesn’t repeat itself so much as humans just don’t change.
Is she not beautiful? Do her curves offend your insecure masculine sensibilities?
She’s too beautiful. So beautiful in fact, that I am now banned from Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
For shame, for she has many suitors but not nearly enough who will polish her portholes
I somehow never considered that there were literal flagships.
The USS Enterprise (pretty much any of them, including nonfiction) have been flagships.
The fleet flagship of the Royal Navy is currently HMS Prince of Wales.
The Royal Navy flagship is HMS Excellent (which is an island, not a ship).
Victory is the flagship of the First Sea Lord, and also has the largest crew of any vessel in the navy, as personnel are assigned to her on paper by default until transferred to an active unit.
Yeah that’s weird. You gotta keep your wooden boats in the water like we do. Our navy owns a forest for repairing our stupid wooden ship
When they took our wooden boat out of the water it turned out that she’d hogged by around 500mm. Which is quite a lot for a boat. In fairness, she was 150 years old by that point.
Now there’s a vast system of hydraulic rams supporting her in the dry dock, to the point that they reckon she’s better supported now than when she was afloat.
Holy shit George Washington would hate this policy. He was done being commander in chief! That’s why he stepped down after 2 terms! I get it’s symbolic, but his whole thing regarding the office was “don’t deify me.”
Which would really explain why he might come back as a zombie. The rage just builds until he pops up out of his grave and shouts, “DID I STUTTER?”
Bew Pest.
And then after he says that, he turns slightly and says, “not that there’s anything bad or wrong about people who struggle with their speech. What I’m saying is, IF YOU HAD TROUBLE HEARING ME, YOU SHOULD’VE TOLD ME AS MUCH IN 1799!”
“…You named how many cities after me?!”
“…The Capital?!”
“…And also an entire state?!?”
“Nope, you know what, fine. I am a god. And I am vengeful.”
Counterpoint. These are military titles and not presidential ones. When Washington left office he wanted his official formal title to return to General and not President. Meaning he would be more okay with this.
Which makes The Apotheosis of Washington pretty ironic. Beautiful, though.
“No kings”
Just generals
It’s the year 30,000. God-Emperor George Washington moans to life and leads Earth to war against the rest of the universe.
A man reads the news of this break on his shigawire paper. “Huh that sucks,” he says, desensitized. “Still not the worst thing to happen this year” he muses to himself. He turns to get back into the food line, the zombie apocalypse on distant Terra already forgotten.
Usual US militarism
this tradition stems for Washington holding a general rank in the British military before rebellion, and the US traditionally never having a rank higher than the one he held in the British military, so when we actually did need those ranks because practicality, they just bumped him up.
Do zombies follow rules of engagement and chain of command?
Calling it now, once Trump finds out this exists, he’ll do something to try and supersede that to put him at the top.
Maybe a 6 star general with the pips arranged like a Star of David.
US Presidents are literally thenCommander in Chief (the highest ranking military position).
The beautiful thing is: Washington was literally the 1st President, so nothing Trump does or says can change that.
~Albeit, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried. #gulfofmexico4ever~
Well, he does want to be first king
That’s how you invoke the ire of Zombie Elvis.
if anything would bring the OG GW back, it would be that.
Monkey’s Paw: Granted. But the people will quickly rise up and overthrow him and subject him to the guillotine.
Just post-date his first presidency to be before Washington
if the zombie apocalypse ever happens, there will be a lot of Black people he owned wanting to play football with his decapitated head
“Dearest Zombie Martha: Winter at Valley Forge is exceedingly desperate. The harsh wind whistles through the men’s exposed rib cages, and our supply of brains is running low.”
That’s probably America’s greatest defence against zombies. Any outbreak will starve to death in short order.
Well, that and any zombie who eats one of us will likely get taken down by a combination of measles, mumps, chicken pox, COVID, and high cholesterol as well.
A reanimated body couldn’t be worse at governing than our current administration.
Zombie Washington probably wouldn’t/ couldn’t rape children, so yes. I’ll give it to you.
Chat, is this real?
Yeah. We’re just really grateful he got us an ohio
I doubt there’s that much left of him apart from the dentures.
That sounds just weird as hell
He missed the opportunity to leave a standing order to kill any president that ordered illegal orders.
