Thoreau would hate that. But I had to read Walden in school, so the bastard deserves everything he gets.
Honestly in all likelihood what the later ships end up being named depends on who controls the office of the Secretary of the Navy who is the person who sends the list of recommended ship names for Congress for their approval(mind you I imagine most of the time a good 80% of Congress can't be bothered to check what names they're voting on). Personally I hope at the some of the traditional names get used. Heck since most of the traditional river names the USN would use are of Native American orgin the leftists might be willing to sign off on them anywaysWell that's convenient that they are going to name them all after Civil Rights icons and only the first six of eighteen were named so far. I just happen to have a list of twelve more activists ready to have their names slapped on a ship! Except maybe Billy Graham... I don't know if that would work too well. I would love to see Thoreau shoot down some villainous pirates though whilst on a replenishment mission though.
Now we shouldn't do this but just imagine the reeeing. If a statue for Joe Mcarthy was put in it would be hilarious. Anyway I agree with you naming ships after American heroes is better the rivers.
I mean, fuck McCarthy, but I'd laugh my ass off.
We already name the bulk of our carriers and all of our destroyers after people, plus a fair few ships in other ship types. Is naming oilers after the traditional naming scheme of rivers such a bad thing? Hell a few of the names Oilers would use have been around since the 1800s
I don't see anything to honor about rivers, or any other natural features. I value humans and human acheivements. So naming after people, states (groups of people), battles, or after famous ships to honor the sailors accomplishments? sure. But what do I care about a river? Maybe if humans made the river, but otherwise I just don't care.
The reason why the USN named the bulk of its oilers after rivers was the idea that they were quenching the thirst of its ships...that and they kinda wanted to bring back some old names from back in the day when it had a fair percentage of its ships named after rivers. Besides oilers were arguably the most important ships of the USN in WWII since without them the rest of the fleet would have been useless across the vastness of the Pacific. That and I'm a sucker for naming traditions. Still I do believe we might be derailing the thread and thus maybe we should set up a dedicated thread to naval naming traditions and whether or not they should be applied