COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Twenty Brazos Valley veterans will travel to Houston to participate in Texas’ first Fleet Week, an annual military event where the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard bring their ships into port and open them to the public.
More than 1,000 sailors and Marines are in Houston for the state’s first Fleet Week. The USS Kearsarge, one of the Navy’s most powerful assault ships, is docked at Bayport for public tours.
American Legion Post 159 members will gather at Veterans Park in College Station at 9:30 a.m. for an honor flight-style sendoff before heading to Bayport to tour the ship, which carries helicopters, aircraft and hundreds of active-duty sailors.
Cecil Ware, an 82-year-old Navy veteran with American Legion Post 159 in Bryan and served four tours in the Vietnam War, is one of the veterans making the trip. Ware said he served aboard an earlier version of the Kearsarge in the 1960s.
“It gives me a chance to go back and be younger again, if you know what I mean,” Ware said. “So if I get a chance to go out and see some of the younger people and the sailors that are out there now, that will be a benefit to me.”
The inaugural Fleet Week is being held in Houston from April 15–22, 2026.(kbtx)
Ware said he hopes visitors will be impressed by the ship’s size and the dedication of the people serving aboard it.
“This will give me a chance to be able to say, ‘yeah, I got a chance to do that before,’” Ware said. “I hope they take a look at it and say, ‘wow, that’s big,’ and then the second thing obviously would be to see some of the equipment and the people on there and how dedicated they are to the military in the first place.”
Fleet Week runs through the weekend in Houston. Community members are invited to join the sendoff for local veterans at Veterans Park and Athletic Complex in College Station at 9:30 a.m., on Monday, April 20, 2026.
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