This is what we saw as we finished our tour of INTREPID and the reaction of both was: Where the heck did THAT come from? It snuck in very quietly while we were tootling around the exhibits. You can see another McAllister poking about the hull. Mike is correct of course. This is IWO JIMA, a "Gator Navy" ship, and the only association I'd had with that branch was reserve weekends on an old LPD in Little Creek, VA. THIS gizmo is much much larger and way more impressive. About as long as INTREPID and I think the flight deck is higher than ours. (Oh great, now I'm getting flight deck envy!) This must be some crack ship: Look at all those E's for efficiency in various departments/divisions/whatevers. At first I thought they were having trouble spelling Chuck E. Cheese or something. New Jersey is just across the river, you know. Then Mrs. W said: Hey! Not all of them are in blue! I see brown up there as well... and women.... and people not in uniform. First I explained that the brown were jarheads and not squids (R. Lee gonna get me for that.). The women, well there were female crew and civilians up there. The other people were probably city / harbor officials, but what the heck. Let's zoom in and see some of the folks way up there. (I gotta find someone to "gig" for a uniform infraction or summat.) Enjoy; thanks for viewing. The occaission for the visit is Veterans Day -- 11 November. I believe some of the crew took part in the parade the following day. We spotted some of them poking about The Met as we continued our museum hopping.