Carrier of My Disillusionment

Admittedly I've glamorized the military - stemming from the War to End All Wars in which my dad, uncles and warriors of that generation battled simultaneously in European and Pacific theaters. The Navy in particular always held my interest so when I got an invitation to sail on a "Tiger Cruise" on the USS John C. Stennis nuclear aircraft carrier I took it.

I've watched countless WWII movies and read numerous accounts of the world's greatest Navy and over the years I've interviewed and written about many veterans who served our country courageously. But I never wondered about the everyday life while on a ship as my attention was focused on the historical strategies and combat against Nazi submarines and kamakazi attacks and today from pirates and other terrorists.

In a week's cruise from Honolulu to San Diego, I knew I'd be watching the flight operations off the carrier deck, which could hold 70 jets, props and helicopters.  I didn't really comprehend the daily grind on this warship, which was returning from an eight-month deployment to the Middle East.  How these ensigns handled such a long stretch in the conditions I experienced is beyond me, but then again I'm 70 and they are but pups.

The carrier is packed with aircraft, munitions and support equipment, but they also squeeze in some 6,000 sailors, including several hundred women (segregated berths in case you wondered), into quarters connected laterally and horizontally by a labyrinth of narrow hallways. Normal sized adults can pass, one-and-a-half at a time, while avoiding the gauges, pipes and displays that protrude.  The carrier is 300 feet long - that's three football fields of rooms, shops and hallways going sideways and lengthwise.

Vertical connections between the many floors of the ship, from the bottom deck to the captain's bridge, are all via challenging combo ladders/steps, mostly steep and - in my case - should have required a helmet to navigate the narrow tops.  This giant ship must be 18 stories high.  In the movies, the call to general quarters shows sailors rapidly tap-dancing up and down those metal steps.  Not me. I'm a serial outdoor hiker, but my hip-flexors kept locking up.

For a guy who usually knocks on the right room number in a motel but often on the wrong floor, the dining exercise (called "the mess") was trying.  Without an escort to the various chow lines, the mess quickly fouled my internal compass. A person can only fake like he knows where he's going so long.  After passing the same diners several times, they'd ask me if I was lost. 

Now I've enjoyed institutional food most of my life - not that I was an inmate that often. My take is that quantity is more important than quality.  The sailors warned me otherwise.  I found that one can fill up more quickly when the food is truly bad. 

One morning my heart jumped seeing French toast in narrow slices for a tasty breakfast, but even after soaking in an inch of syrup my knife would not penetrate.  A sailor offered his jackknife, but for a guy who can't even stand croutons, I surrendered to the scrambled eggs.  At least I think they were eggs.  This brings me to the first of two crucial shortages on this nuclear carrier: ketchup.  Sailors swear the cooks hoard the stuff that can cover all other tastes.  In a week's time I only saw one bottle.  An empty one.

I saw the petrified French toast again - a large raft of it floated onto the Pacific, past the back of the carrier at 1800 hours (that's 6 p.m. to you civies).  All biodegradable food is tossed and I could stomach that, but I wasn't real happy to see the flotilla of empty cans and black plastic garbage bags stretching in the wake - dozens of them. An officer said when any ship is 12 miles out and in international waters, anything can be tossed overboard.  I didn't have to stomach to ask about sewage.

Speaking of that.  The stainless steel bathrooms are, shall we say, confining.  The stalls reflect what I've always known: men are pigs.  That takes on a new meaning when showering (and you always wear your flip-flops in the head, always).  In the row of six steel shower stalls, the drains couldn't handle all the runoff, which sloshed over the tops of my feet.  Maybe it didn't really matter since my towel never dried the entire week. Oh, and that second shortage?  Toilet paper.  If any could be located, it was single-ply.  Maybe it was a good thing I couldn't go.

So. After wandering aimlessly down the corridors, unsettled from the heavy, tasteless meal and likely sporting numerous fungi, germs and viruses from the slow shower drains, a little TV time should wind down the day.  The one TV in a small lounge had the military network on unless one of the young sailors had connected his laptop to it for a movie that, well let's just say it's popular for a different age group. This inane content was frequently interrupted by a jack-hammering in the metal walls nearby that drowned out all other sound.  Curious what kind of metal work would be going on this time of night, I was told that this was what happened when the toilets were flushed.  I should rejoice they worked so well.

But alas, off to bed for a good night's rest.  In these ensign's berths (as opposed to officer quarters), there are three stacked bunks, each with 15 inches of clearance up to the bunk overhead.  I could not read a paperback on my chest. A yard across is another row of bunks, so it is not unusual to have an undressing sailor's backside quite close to your pillow.  Bless the darkness.

The sleeping area is dark nearly all the time because sailors have rotating work shifts, so one has to feel his way along to the right bunk. Then, to reach the middle bunk, I was able to do something similar to the Fosbury Flop, a slow motion high jump onto the firm mattress, which was just wide enough for my shoulders when on my back.  Perhaps it was my imagination, or my own feet, but the place had the faint odor of a sweaty locker room.  The hum of large fans and vents covered the chorus of snoring.

So this sums up the average day except for the many hours of standing around.   The old military adage about hurry-up-and-wait is true, but add standing to that. There are precious few chairs and no benches on a carrier.  I've always preferred standing to sitting in the workplace, but this put that to test.  You stand in line for chow, for roll call, drills, promotions and instruction.  There's a standing line for the ping pong table. I wanted to buy a chair, any chair, if the small commissary had such items.

I've rambled on about my civilian misery of sailing on this warship, but the real reason for its existence is of course, war, or the prevention of it.  When it's time for flight operations, this convoluted, massive, sleepy vessel of bored, cramped sailors undergoes a transformation. 

Whistles and bells are followed by scrambling sailors in designated colored shirts - each color assigned to specific crews preparing for the flights.  They scurry about on the flight deck or on hanger deck below, where planes are stored before moving onto the giant elevators taking them quickly to the flight deck.  The colored shirts check everything as the pilots climb aboard their jets, helicopters and propeller-driven radar planes.  The fixed wing planes are launched off by steam-driven catapults that can toss a VW a mile.  The roars are heard and felt throughout the ship.

Some of the fighter jets hit 1000 mph and break the sound barrier, which penetrated our bodies and could actually be seen in a shimmering vacuum behind the afterburners just overhead.  Jets demonstrated maneuvers and formations as they and the choppers fired their weapons.  It was captivating, eliciting cheers and whoops from the crowd allowed on the flight deck for the operation.

I felt pride in the powerful potential the Stennis could unleash when necessary.  It was said that it successfully completed 100 percent of its missions in the Middle East, though what and where they were remains classified.  I know the helicopters fired warning shots to halt an approaching Iranian fishing boat that appeared to have torpedoes on board.  They reportedly test our ships all the time.

On the deployment before this one, the Stennis was responsible for inserting a Navy Seal team onto an Iranian tanker that had signaled distress when Somali pirates took it over.  Some of the crew had been killed, but we assisted our good Iranian friends.  The 15 Somalis were kept in the brig on the Stennis and the jailers had a few interesting stories.

I laugh at myself in reflecting on naive expectations on this brief trip, but more than ever I remain a strong believer in a stout defense and a powerful military with ships like the USS John C. Stennis.  I salute the young Navy sailors, pilots and officers who routinely endure discomfort and boredom in the line of duty and I honor them for the role they play in defending freedom and liberty when they are called upon.

Never mess with the Stennis.