Navy says goodbye to sub damaged by worker’s arson

KITTERY, Maine (AP)  —  The Navy said farewell Friday to the USS Miami, the nuclear-powered submarine whose service was cut short when a shipyard employee trying to get out of work set it on fire, causing $700 million in damage. The somber deactivation ceremony at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard marked the beginning of an inglorious end: Next year, the submarine will be towed to the West Coast to be cut up for scrap metal. Rear Adm. Ken Perry, commander of the submarine Group Two in Groton, Conn., where the sub was based, acknowledged the disappointment over its premature retirement but told the crowd they were there to celebrate Miami and its crew members for nearly 24 years of service. “This is a tribute,”’ he said. “`This is a celebration of the ship’s performance and the superb contributions to the nation’s defense and this is how we’re going to treat it. So I expect to see some smiles out there.’” Perry praised the ship’s performance over more than a dozen deployments that included clandestine undersea warfare missions and back-to-back deployments in which it fired cruise missiles in Iraq and in Serbia, earning the nickname “Big Gun.’” The audience included crew members and their families and seven former...