Created: 9/29/2006 4:08:13 PM 
By Grayson Kamm First Coast News
NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, FL -- First Coast News has learned Congress has ordered the USS John F Kennedy be taken out of the fleet.
The USS Kennedy stands for the strength of our country, and she also brings the estimated economic impact of a Super Bowl every year to the First Coast.
But the Navy's second-oldest aircraft carrier is 38 years old now. Planes are not allowed to fly from her deck anymore and fixing all of the problem parts on board would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Late Friday, the US House and Senate agreed the JFK should be made inactive and put into a state of preservation.
Big John can't disappear right away. The bill says the Defense Department has to offer her to both NATO and the Department of Homeland Security.
But regardless of whether those groups want the ship, the bill tells the Navy to make her inactive within one year.
Three to four thousand jobs would disappear unless the Kennedy is replaced. The bill does not guarantee any replacement ships, but does include a promise from the Navy's top admiral that Jacksonville is "vitally important" to the Navy, and Mayport will be part of the "strategic dispersal of the Atlantic Fleet."
The bill came from both the House and Senate and is a compromise reached after months of negotiating. President Bush is expected to sign the bill into law.
The aircraft carrier has a long and storied history.
She was put into service in 1968. Since then, she's traveled the world in support of military missions. During the Vietnam War, jets flew from the Kennedy, and she was active during the first Gulf War, spending three months in the Persian Gulf as US fighter planes flew sorties over Iraq.
It was eleven years ago that the Kennedy made Naval Station Mayport her home base. Despite her age, the Navy flew missions from her deck less than two years ago in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The last flight took off from her deck about a year ago.
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