US Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jared Bunn
A US Navy Chief Petty Officer of the Boat, a pre-commissioned Unit (PCU) South Dakota submariner, stands and watches as the submarine arrives into Port Canaveral during an underway somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean Nov 27, 2018.
- The US Navy commissioned the USS South Dakota on Saturday and, in doing so, ushered in a new era of millennial undersea war fighters and the most technologically advanced submarine hunter-killer on earth.
- The South Dakota can be thought of as "America's first millennial submarine," because it was built by mostly millennials and will be manned by millennials too.
- It's also the deadliest submarine for undersea combat the US has ever put to sea.
The US Navy commissioned the USS South Dakota on Saturday and, in doing so, ushered in a new era of millennial undersea warfighters and the most technologically advanced submarine hunter-killer on Earth.
"I think we can honestly call South Dakota 'America's first millennial submarine' from construction to operation," Joe Courtney, a congressman from Connecticut, said at the South Dakota's commissioning.
While millennials across the board make up the majority of the US's combat servicemembers in any service, the South Dakota was built by shipbuilder Electric Boat, whose workforce is more than half millennial, The Day reports.
"The rise of the millennial generation emerging to lead Electric Boat's important work for the country, I believe, is a powerful rebuttal of cynics and naysayers that say that American manufacturing and technological excellence are a thing of the past," Courtney said.
In the slides below, meet the young sailors and new submarine that makes the South Dakota the most modern and fearsome submarine in the world today.