BY KAREN BOSSICK

Ret. Lt. Col. Richard Fife will acquaint listeners with the new USS Idaho currently under construction at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28.

Fife, who serves on the USS Idaho Commissioning Committee, will discuss the new fast attack nuclear submarine scheduled for commissioning in 2023, courtesy of a Community Library Livestream.

The Virginia-class submarine will be the fifth U.S. Navy vessel named for the state of Idaho, says Fife, who served as an Ensign of the U.S. Navy and as a Strategic Warfare Systems community officer on three ballistic missile submarines and one diesel-electric submarine.

The last time a ship was commissioned as USS Idaho was in 1919. That ship—the USS Idaho BB42--was a battleship that had a central role in the Battle of Iwo Jima, a major battle during World War II in which the U.S. Marine Corps and Navy captured from the Imperial Japanese Army.

Fife, who retired after 20 years of service, will also discuss the history of ships named for Idaho, and talk about Idaho’s amazingly rich Naval history considering it’s a land-locked state.

The state hosted a submarine training ground at Farragut Naval Training Station on Northern Idaho’s Lake Pend Oreille near Sandpoint during World War II. And it boasts a Naval Reactors Facility at the Idaho National Lab

The program will air on the Library’s Livestream page and will be archived for later on-demand viewing. To see it, visit www.comlib.org.