Navy Week is returning to Detroit
All ashore that’s going ashore. Navy Week is coming to Detroit, and will be in town through Labor Day, the U.S. Navy announced Tuesday.
Detroit is one of 15 American cities to get the honor. Navy Week began in 2005 as the Navy’s “signature outreach effort into areas of the country which do not have a significant Navy presence,” a statement on the event said.
Navy Week will run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 4, Labor Day, and will “focus a variety of outreach assets, equipment and personnel” in the Motor City, a relatively rare occurrence.
“Because the Navy is concentrated primarily on both coasts, we’re challenged to communicate our mission away from fleet concentration areas,” said Commander John Gay, director of the Navy’s office of community outreach. “That’s where the Navy Week program comes in.”
Lt. Junior Grade Mack Jamieson agreed, adding that “the central part of the country doesn’t get much access to the Navy. This will allow us to canvass the city and help people understand what the mission of the navy is.”
Jamieson said that Detroit has hosted Navy Week at least twice before, in 2011 and 2012, when the Navy was celebrating the 200-year anniversary of the War of 1812.
“It’s really exciting for us to be back in Detroit,” Jamieson said. “We were in Detroit for the commissioning of the USS Detroit (in October), and were well-received.”
Something between 75 and 100 outreach events are expected, including Navy simulators, visits to Metro Detroit schools, visits with area veterans and the Navy’s parachute team, the Leap Frogs.
The 2017 Navy Week calendar runs from February, when it kicks off in Mobile, Alabama, through late October, when it ends in Fort Worth, Texas. Another city and week will be added at some point in the future.
Detroit’s Navy Week will overlap with the Yankee Air Museum’s Thunder Over Michigan Air Show, which will run from Sept. 2 through Labor Day. That’s also a U.S. Navy event.
“When the Blue Angels are in town, we try to schedule a Navy Week that same week,” Jamieson said.