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San Diego says goodbye to La Jolla

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A submarine famous for doing things first was celebrated Tuesday for what it chose to do last -- visit San Diego on a farewell trip that made some Navy veterans cry.

The fast-attack boat La Jolla quietly docked at Naval Base Point Loma, which it called home during the Cold War and through most of the 1990s, as the Persian Gulf emerged as a global hot spot.

The coal-black “hunter-killer” is moving from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to Norfolk, Virginia, where it will be decommissioned. The La Jolla will then transfer to Charleston, S.C. and become a moored training ship.

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This sentimental journey by the Navy will wrap up a 33 year service career in which the La Jolla became the first Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine to operate out of San Diego. The La Jolla was part of a new generation of faster, quieter submarines designed to protect aircraft carriers from the Soviets.

The La Jolla also was the first submarine to successfully fire Tomahawk cruise missiles while submerged, helping develop a weapon that has been widely used against Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.

And the La Jolla was the first sub to bcome the “mothership” for the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle, which is meant to save imperiled submariners and to deploy special forces, such as Navy SEALs.

The La Jolla also represented the first look many young men got at the world at large, including Albert Chase of Ft. Worth, Texas, who travelled to San Diego for Tuesday’s farewell ceremony.

As his eyes welled up with tears, Chase turned to the 360-foot La Jolla and said, “In my early years, that’s where I learned a lot about being a man. It was a special experience. I made a lot of good friends, people that I’m still close with. (The ceremony) brought me back.”

Chase joined the La Jolla’s crew in January 1981, before it was commissioned, and remained until February 1984, before the sub made its first major deployment. It was a challenging, and sometimes odd, period.

The Navy orginally named the boat San Diego, apparently forgetting that it already had an auxillary ship with that name. The sub was renamed La Jolla, which is part of San Diego.

The boat also would generate headlines for an incident that occurred in July 1981, while the La Jolla was undergoing sea trials in the Atlantic. Admiral Hyman Rickover, the “father of the nuclear Navy,” was aboard and ordered a dramatic change in the boat’s speed that historians say led the crew to temporarily lose control of the 6,900-ton La Jolla.

The man who was in charge that day -- Commander James “Rich” Lang -- also was present at Tuesday’s farewell. He downplayed the matter, saying the sub was never in danger. But he urged people to read a newspaper column he wrote that “presented my side of what happened.”

Rickover was forced to retire not long after the incident.

The La Jolla’s early years also were marred by a minor collision with another submarine. But the sub became widely known as a top ship, especially for its role in developing the Tomahawk missile. Jeffrey Fischbeck of Point Loma, who commanded the La Jolla in the late 1980s, spoke Tuesday about the impact of such trials.

“The day I left La Jolla (as commander) was the day that the first President Bush drew the line in the sand for Saddam Hussein for leaving Kuwait. A sister ship, USS Louisville, had just left (San Diego) a few weeks earlier, and the Tomahawk was the weapon of choice for that initial strike. The Louisville was the first submarine in our Navy to launch a weapon in anger since World War II. The Tomahawk has played a very significant role since that point on.”

Such moments are rare on a submarine. Veterans like Chase are more likely to point to the seemingly routine nature of being part of the so-called silent service.

“You’re locked up in a tube and the weather is 72 degrees and flourescent,” Chase said, smiling at the memory. “Your job is 200 feet under the water, who knows where, protecting our interests.”

Fischbeck expressed the same sort of pride as crew members filed off the La Jolla, saying, “I am very proud of her and what people have done -- and the fact that she still looks so good. But I’m sorry to see her go.”

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