The Lexington was out to sea on December 7th, 1941, and avoided the carnage. It was very interesting to see what the amazing heroes had to deal with to defeat the evilest attack on this country and empires in history. And yeah, Gen Zers, I know you think we boomers are obsessed with WWII. Maybe that’s because we were born a few years after it was over …. and maybe … just maybe … it’s because … YOUR GREAT GRANDPARENTS SACRIFICED MUCH, AND 400,000 PLUS, THEIR LIVES, TO SAVE THE WORLD AND PROVIDE YOU WITH WHAT YOU HAVE TODAY!!!!

Can you imagine sitting on that metal seat, shooting at planes, with no PPE?

Officer’s quarters

Enlisted sailors quarters

Control room. This is how they steered a small floating city.

This is where the commander sat and directed the ship. The round object on the right is the compass. The main tool for navigation. In another room, there are tables with maps to plot their position and route.

View of the flight deck from the control room. Had to climb six short sets of steep steps to get to the control room. It amazed me to listen to many fairly young people whine about how hard it was. And this is coming from a 71-year-old with a banged-up knee. Lord help us should we ever get into another world war.

Apparently, Maverick and Goose were here. This is the Grumman F-14 Tomcat shown on the right in the photo above.

Had a bunch of classic fighter jets and bombers on the flight deck.

How would you like to see this bad boy bearing down on you? The lettering on the right reads, “Don’t bother running, you’ll only die tired”