00:19This girl and I communicated quite often back and forth and she would just send a letter to us asking...
00:26Every time I go back to the ship, I see the mast and I remember the first day I came to her in Long Beach.
00:41It just brings me back, the old memories come back, the hard work but also the fact that we were the choice crew to bring out the battleship.
00:53It just fills me with pride.
00:56Each member of the crew on commissioning was presented this.
01:02It's probably our biggest keepsake item because this was...
01:07We heard that New Jersey was coming out.
01:09President Reagan had made it a focal point of his 600 ship Navy with Secretary Lehman.
01:16So everybody in the fleet had known that, oh, this is going to be really something spectacular.
01:22And he gave me the orders and I read them and it was four lines to report immediately aboard as the reactivation and repair officer on the New Jersey.
01:31And if you got selected to the battleship, you were in the top 1% of the Navy at that time.
01:39My worst moment on the ship was probably Beirut, October 23rd.
01:41My worst moment on the ship was probably Beirut, October 23rd.
01:46It's coming up again, 42nd anniversary.
02:01Losing the chief.
02:02Losing the chief.
02:03It still gets to me.
02:04Losing the chief.
02:05It still gets to me.
02:06My worst moment on the ship was probably Beirut, October 23rd.
02:08It's coming up again, 42nd anniversary.
02:13Losing the chief.
02:18It's coming up again, 42nd anniversary.
02:44We almost lost nine other guys that were headed home and they had just gone for a walk that morning around the compound when the bombing happened.
02:54But then a lot of us went in to Beirut and were on the pile for three days, pulling the Marines out and the dead and wounded as well.
03:06As president of the New Jersey Vets, we have reunions once a year.
03:12You can overcome anything with your service.
03:16Who would have ever thought that this ship would live 44 different times in the war and escape basically unscathed?
03:27And now sitting as Memorial across from Philadelphia and Camden, she still has a mission.
03:34The mission is to teach the young of what it means to have gone to war to maintain peace.
03:41I'm Paul Robbins and I'm 100 years old and I started to board the ship 32 months.
04:09The host of our now 275,000 subscribers.
04:16In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, she started to put a...
04:24I commissioned a ship.
04:28May 23rd, 1943.
04:31I graduated from high school.
04:34May 23rd, 1943.
04:37My mother got the diploma.
04:38I got the ship.
04:41Henry Hoffman, an engineer from Rivervale, New Jersey.
04:51I'm the last one or two flank owner that comes to the reunion.
04:56I am the last one that comes to the reunion.
05:02But there is one more, Bill Ryan.
05:07He's older than I am, but he couldn't make it today.
05:10But he didn't commission the ship.
05:12But he's 101.
05:15Thank you, Admiral Blackman, General Brown, and our distinguished guest.
05:20Samuel.
05:21He's a nut.
05:22He's a nut.
05:23Jeremy!
05:24He's a blanco.
05:25He's a blanco.
05:26He's a blanco.
05:27He's a blanco.
05:28He's a blanco.
05:29He's a blanco.
05:30He's a blanco.
05:35He's a blanco.
05:36He's a blanco.
05:37He's a blanco.
05:38He's a blanco.
05:39He's a blanco.
05:40He's a blanco.
05:41He's a blanco.
05:42He's a blanco.
05:43He's a blanco.
05:44He's a blanco.
05:45He's a blanco.
05:46He's a blanco.
05:47He's a blanco.
05:48He's a blanco.
05:49He's a blanco.
05:50He's a blanco.
05:51He's a blanco.
05:52He's a blanco.
05:53He's a blanco.
05:54He's a blanco.
05:55He's a blanco.
05:56He's a blanco.
05:57He's a blanco.
05:58He's a blanco.
05:59He's a blanco.
06:00He's a blanco.
06:01He's a blanco.
06:02commemoration as we prepare to celebrate America's 250th birthday right here in Philadelphia.
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