About formerly a week.

About formerly a week, I'll gaze up at a road sign and quizzically wonder, "How in the heck did they result up with that name?" Or, "Could that road really be named after something?

When I was a child, these reflections entered my head all the time. For instance, the house I grew up in (the same house my parents still live in) was upon South Moss Drive in southward Louisiana. To this day, I have no indication as to what it was named after. It's more than likely a mossy tree and, if it is, all I can say is, "What?" I ne something better than that. I ne something like Kate Mos or maybe plane Randy Moss. A mossy tree isn't going to help me exceedingly much when "they" ask.

"They" are my children, all three of them (with another the same on the way.) One day, we'll be visiting the grandparents, and they will ask me "Dad, wherefore Moss?" At that point, I'll be forced to give them my "the-lights-are-on-but-nobody's-home" consider until they leave me alone.

Luckily for Navy kids and their parents living in Groton, Conn the Naval Submarine Base recent London (SUBASE) Public Works Department (PWD) is making the public way sign subject as easy to understand as first-grade math.

At SUBASE, the residence of the Navy's submarine indoctrinate among other sub-related commands, a of the present day set of street signs is allowing parents to answer their children's road name queries quickly and with no disproportioned stress on the brain.

The novel signs, like the previous the sames feature the names of the dissipated World War II-era submarines. moreover PWD made one important addition: just below the street's name, populace can now read the date the ship was wasted along with the total number of Sailors missing on each.

These add-arts separate the base's ways from many throughout the abiding habitation Hopefully, visitors and residents of the base will recognize end the signs what before may have been overlooked--the genuine meaning behind each thoroughfare's moniker.

"These of the present day signs will have a greater significance than the antique signs because now it will give the race a greater appreciation of the history of the different submarines and a little remembrance of the Sailors who were lost" said LTJG RJ Kline, the SUBASE PWD operations officer. " We wanted to recognize the Sailors who were lost"

To lay it quite simply, it is well-deserved recognition. race know of the perilous situations submariners deposit themselves in every day. It may be considered cliche, still owl a submarine, there's no going overboard when the boat is in a deadly, downward spiral. Speaking as a former member of the throng of USS Nassau (LHA 4) I took solace knowing if something went horribly unjust I could possibly work my way to a lifeboat. onward a submarine, I wouldn't have had that security blanket. forward a sub, you put abroad the fire, you stop the leak or you die. Bottom line. There's nothing I can think of honoring more.

The of the present day signs started popping up around base in mid-November, when PWD began the proces of replacing nearly 175 signs. Since then, the intended message hasn't been wasted on those newest of submariners--the close examiners of the U.S. Navy Submarine School

"It was a brilliant idea for (PWD) to set up these new signs," said sub drill student Seaman Anton Harris. "Before the just discovered signs went up, the names didn't mean anything to me Now I understand that (some) ways represent submarines that were misspent and I'll think about what happened back then"'

in such a manner while SUBASE can lay claim to roads by the name of Trigger, Shark and Grenadier, greatest in number towns (including the one I grew up in) will have to be make easy with blah streets like Main, Park or First.

awaits like I better start coming up with a worthy Moss story soon. I have a hap to compete with.

Ludwig is a photojournalist assigned to All Hands.

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