Sailors from new USS Arizona submarine visit U of A battleship memorial

Some of the first sailors to wear the Arizona name on their shoulders since World War II paid a special visit to Tucson on Veterans Day to learn more about the legacy they have been chosen to carry on.

Nine active-duty servicemen assigned to the new USS Arizona nuclear submarine spent Monday morning touring the memorial on the University of Arizona Mall for the last Navy vessel to bear that name.

The sailors in uniform also got to go inside the tower at the U of A Student Union Memorial Center to see one of the original bells salvaged from the battleship Arizona after it was sunk at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

“Our legacy is the battleship, and we want to have this heritage as part of our culture from the start,” said Commander Tom Digan, commanding officer of the submarine and its pre-commission crew. “We want to do this right.”

Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly announced the name of the new Virginia-class, nuclear-powered, fast-attack submarine on Dec. 24, 2019. The vessel is now under construction at the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, which is also where Digan and his crew are stationed.

He said the boat is still “a couple of years” from completion, so at least some of the sailors on Monday’s tour will never get the opportunity to serve on the submarine. Some recent estimates indicate that the Arizona might not be ready to enter active service until 2029.

The campus tour was led by a pair of Navy veterans who now work for the university’s office of Veterans Education & Transition Services, or VETS for short. Julio Luzania and Eleazar Rios both served on submarines before enrolling at the U of A to study engineering while continuing their service in the Naval Reserve.

VETS director and fellow Navy veteran Blaze Smith said sailors always feel a special connection to the ships on which they serve, but it’s obviously even more meaningful to help launch a brand new boat with so much history attached to its name.

“It really does mean a lot to these guys,” said Blaze, who also serves as ROTC program director for the university.

The sailors’ visit to the U of A was organized by the USS Arizona Legacy Foundation, a Tempe-based nonprofit founded in 2021 to celebrate the commissioning of the submarine, support its crew and commemorate its connection to the battleship that came before it.

Foundation president and CEO Nicole LaSlavic said the sailors’ stop in Tucson came as part of a five-day “namesake visit” to the Phoenix area, which included talking to fourth-graders at an elementary school, volunteering at a food charity and appearing at Saturday’s ASU football game, Sunday’s Arizona Cardinals game and a Veterans Day ceremony in the submarine’s official hometown of Gilbert.

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The servicemen also toured the USS Arizona Memorial Gardens at the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and visited an American Legion post in Gilbert that LaSlavic said will be providing the submarine with a boat’s bell made from Arizona copper and the metal grommets salvaged from old American flags.

Teri Mann is a crew support volunteer with the foundation. She traveled from her home in Seattle to help out with the long weekend of activities, which is how she ended up crying at the U of A Student Union on Monday after seeing the USS Arizona’s bell up close.

Her uncle, William Edward Mann, was a 21-year-old gunner’s mate on the battleship when he and 1,176 of his crewmates were killed in the Pearl Harbor attack.

“I’m basically the (foundation’s) gold star connection to the original ship,” Mann said, as she dabbed tears from her cheeks. “This is all very meaningful for me.”

In addition to the bell tower, Monday’s U of A tour included stops at the World War I memorial fountain at Old Main, the plaques for service members in the Student Union rotunda, and the sculpture in the building’s front drive made to look like a ship’s mast decorated with the replica dogtags of every USS Arizona crew member.

At the battleship memorial on the Mall, the sailors strolled across the outline of the ship and browsed through the rows of medallions, reading the names of the men who died. Then they gathered beneath the flagpole to shoot a Veterans Day video message for social media, ending it with a call they have adopted from the crew of the lost ship: “Arizona, up and at ‘em!”

Submarine Nuclear Electronics Technician Nate Smythe said he was already fascinated by the history of the battleship, but this whirlwind tour has given a deeper meaning to serving on the Arizona crew.

“We’ve been adopted into this whole other family,” the sailor said, as he stood on the U of A Mall on Monday. “It makes this all feel like way more than just my job.”

“It’s the Arizona,” added Nuclear Power Machinist’s Mate Ryan Ashy. “It’s not just any other boat.”