Meet the neglected 43-year-old stepchild of the US military industrial complex
SEATTLE - The icebreaker Polar Star was 1,000 miles out of its home port of Seattle last December, three days into its yearly voyage to resupply scientific bases in Antarctica, when a powerful swell hit its bow and flooded the deck.
The ship shuddered.
The roar of the ventilators in the galley quit as Joseph Sellar, a stocky 25-year-old Coast Guard culinary specialist from New Hampshire, watched seawater explode from the ceiling.
He lunged toward a switch to close the overhead vents. With a loud pop, an outlet ejected a purple spark.
"Are we sinking?" asked a petty officer on temp duty from Virginia.
Sellar knew better.
"Calm down," he said, whipping out his cellphone to record the gusher.
The United States spends $2 billion a day on the most advanced military ever assembled, with more aircraft carriers, fighter planes and nuclear submarines than any other nation. The Pentagon intends to develop a space fleet of orbiting lasers, missile sensors and satellites.
Then there is the Polar Star.
The only U.S. ship capable of bludgeoning through heavy ice, it is the neglected 43-year-old stepchild of the U.S. military industrial complex.
After decades of abuse, the vessel lists to port, but its sewer pipes drain to starboard, jamming and overflowing toilets. Rust coats decks, hatches and ladders. Lead paint peels from walls marked with warnings of asbestos.
While Russia will soon have more than 50 icebreakers, the fire-engine-red ship lumbers on as a Cold War relic.
Crew members scour eBay for
