19 November 1989. This is a business day. Woke up at six, got down to the office to get ready for business.
I read the message boards and discovered there was a major meeting in the Mission Planning space at 1030, and had a chance to sit in on Captain Tim Thomassy’s Pre-Sail meeting, since our work center is one of the few places more than a dozen people can inhabit simultaneously.
The minutiae of operating an aircraft carrier is staggering. When to bring the ship’s boats out of the water nd stack them, nested, on the hangar bay; when the last ferry will run; how to get the EOD divers under the hull to practice (I hope) looking for bombs. Then, there is the Chief Engineer (“Cheng”) and his endless litany of woes about keeping this huge piece of steel mobile.
How many boilers to bring on the line? And the Navigator’s problems in getting the ship pointed in the right direction and down to the launch point for the first event. When the COD aircraft will remove the last of the detachment personnel from Hyeres and when the mail shifts from Rota to Naples. How do we get the milk on the pier out to the ship, who gets it if we don’t, what about the Make a Wish kid, dying of cancer in England, whose greatest dream is to sit in the cockpit of an F-14 Tomcat and watch flight ops.
CAPT Thomassy will give the family his cabin that night and have dinner with the boy and his folks. That is just this meeting on this day and a gist of about half the meeting. Most complicated business in the world. Then the SIXTH Fleet reps show up and the world disintegrates. I knew
I wasn’t going ashore today, but I had no idea how busy things were going to get.
This account was up and untouched on my computer screen for fourteen hours as we re-planned and re-briefed two contingency targets to CAG, then began a massive field day and clean up of Carrier Intelligence Center (CVIC) to get ready for the great visitation coming the next day.
It is 0015L as I write and I have yet to print this so I can get it out in the mail home. It is too late and too hard. I have to hang this up and get some sleep. A major Flag brief, Semi-inspection and seven cycles of flight ops tomorrow.
The wildest rumor of the day, though, and one which I still am pondering, is one that started down in the Flag Mess at dinner. RADM ‘Sweetpea’ Allen likes a freewheeling discussion at his table, and one item that reportedly came up was what the outcome of the Bush-Gorbachev Saltwater Summit was going to be.
My line throughout the wild collapse of the Communist system in East Europe is that we are finally seeing the end of the war that our fathers fought. World War II is finally coming to an end; the end of our century’s Hundred Year’s War; an exclamation mark at the end of the greatest butchery our species has (yet) accomplished.
Someone said: “OK, suppose Bush is talking to Gorby, and Gorb says, hey George, I can give you real Peace in our time. I can secure your place in the historical record and make both our people really safe for the first time since the Bomb was born. But I need your help to fend off the Old Guard. If you lose me, you lose your chance at
Peace. What I need from you Georgie, is a demonstration of your commitment. You must give me something concrete to take home from this meeting between us. Remove your aircraft carrier from the MED……”
Just a thought, mind you, but things are kinda crazy these days. That is the only thing I wouldn’t mind screwing up the Marseilles port visit.
20 November:
So, late to bed again last night. Trying to print this increasing tale of sorrow I couldn’t find a printer interface and get the thing out. The hour grew later and later, of course, because we couldn’t get the Strike Leads for the briefs tomorrow out of Mission Planning. Skipper “Shaky” Jake is at his very worst on this iteration of planning for the COMSIXTHFLT visit.
Question after question betrays general lack of depth in any area beyond the A-7 Corsair II cockpit, coupled with a mule-like refusal to believe anything unless he sees it in writing. I occupy several trips to the vault getting documents to demonstrate the obvious.
Well, you can’t blame the man for wanting to be on top of things if he is standing in front of his Fleet Commander. Still, his vocal demonstrations of other people’s deficiencies (pointedly the intelligence staff’s numerous and manifold shortcomings) are starting to rub me the wrong way, big time. Shaky is the one with the smelly flight suit, the recent divorce, florid face and vast ego.
With the exception of the flight suit and the divorce, sorta like me, I suppose. When at last I get something printed to send home to to let them know that I am still alive it is nearly 0200L. I still have to get down to my stateroom, slap some random stamps on the envelope, run it back up to CAG Admin. YN3 Woltheis has not only the night duty but mail of his own to get out, so I’m in luck. I don’t have to run all the way back to the fantail to get it on the last boat. That task accomplished, I stride back forward and down to my little home on the 02 level starboard.
Pork Chop (Supply Corps) Kevin is sleeping heavily; he has a cold coming on and is out of it. I turn on the TV (no sound, so
I don’t disturb Scooter’s dreams behind the thin sheet steel wall) and sort my laundry. Nine tee-shirts, seven white cotton underwear, seven sox. I regretfully sort my civilian underwear into the “hold” pile in my locker to wait for Naples and a laundromat.
I finish sorting the laundry, tag the bag and two sets of khakis and am finally done for the night. I crawl in between two wool blankets and the soft-multi-striped afghan my aunt knitted for me. The sheets are bundled up to go to the laundromat next to the pay phone in Toulon and they clearly are not making much progress in that direction.
My civilian clothes are piled next to the head of my rack. For sure I’m going to get organized tomorrow. Two weeks at sea. Plenty of time to get things done. In the meantime, up by 0600L to ensure all things are in readiness for the great visitation upon the morrow. ***************
When the alarm goes off in the cool darkness it is clearly too soon. It seems to be easier to live with the dull ache these days. I lie peacefully for a few minutes and listen to the sounds of the ship coming alive. The passageway lights are on and one bright beam of light shoots into the inky comfort of the stateroom. Muffled calls can be heard on the 1MC down the passageway. I feel myself starting to drop off again and force myself into the motions of going to work.
CAG has specified that the briefer will be in Blues and we working stiffs will be in wash khakis, no ribbons. I found yesterday to my vast surprise that a shirt I put in the laundry during Advanced Phase of the workups in June came back yesterday. Miracles can happen.
I wired up the clean shirt and marveled at the ways of the ship’s laundry force and walked up to Mission Planning. Which to my horror was, with the exception of a nice shiny deck, still filled little piles of old charts, files, office supplies and assorted debris. My mood improved after I kicked over the podium.
I spent the next two hours hiding piles of maps, publications and working documents in nooks and crannies. I can’t open my desk anymore, but by golly, Mission Planning looked like it didn’t support a couple hundred aviators and twenty Intel bodies. Things started early, just like the pre-sail indicated they would.
The Fleet Commander’s party flew aboard at about 0815L. They got some glad-handing on the bridge and VADM WILLIAMS was presented with a COMCARGU SIX flight jacket and a Forrestal ball cap with three embroidered stars. The Vice Admiral (VADM), if I had neglected to mention it, is a nuclear submariner.
This unfortunate predilection has lead to a wide variety of idiosyncratic policy positions, most revolving around nuclear submarines and cruise missiles. Shaky and his XO Gene briefed a couple of the special targets, which were well received by the VADM, based on his nearly three weeks worth of experience as the Anti-Air Warfare Commander on an Aegis cruiser. He had a lot of things to say but nothing serious against any of the plans. I think he thinks the way to go is Tomahawk cruise missile, so what we have planned must seem a bit low-tech and a bit irrelevant to him.
After the set-piece briefs he talked to the CO’s and XO’s and rambled along about a variety of topics, mostly along the lines of “don’t fuck up, and if you think you might be about to fuck up, call the 6th FLT staff in time to let the experts take care of things.”
Interesting, but way too long. I noted that every topic somehow related to Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) stuff, but what the hell. One interesting note was about cancellation of our exercise in North Africa.
It turns out that they might very well have been upset by our lack of commitment to the thing, but the King’s Air Force may also have had a role to play…like they try to shoot down his Majesty when he leaves the country. The King has a trip to France scheduled during the period and he doesn’t want the Air Force airborne with live ammo. Life in the fast lane!
The VADM’s Flag Lieutenant finally made him cognizant of the schedule and he left the space to rejoin his French counterpart, CECMED (pronounced CheckMED) and some Italian General who is the deputy AFSOUTH NATO Commander. Or something. The command relationships are a bit hard to figure out, and we have both a NATO designation and chain of command and a U.S.-only role. In the meantime, I fielded phone calls and ensured the space remained safe from intrusion. When finally it was over, I sighed with relief. I had been afraid that VADM Williams was actually coming out to slap us up a little bit to keep us on our toes.
So it went well, and CAG and DCAG seemed pleased with the support we provided. I noted it was the luncheon hour and it seemed like an ideal time to grab a bite and go unconscious for a couple hours.
When I awoke at 1515L I got up and began to reconstruct my little space. I hung up coats and jeans and folded my sweaters. No need for civvies for a couple weeks. I put the colorful McDonaldLand sheets on the bed and carefully rearrange the afghan over them. Soon everything was happy and back in its place. Then I wandered back up through the CAG office to read the boards and see what was going on. Which included an A-7 that landed with one unsafe gear that promptly collapsed on the flight deck.
It initially looked like a class “C” incident, which means it would have cost us somewhere between $10,000 and $200,000 to fix. This is much better than a Class “B” or “A”, where the cost is in the millions or involves a death. We have had enough of that these last few weeks.
Good news comes later when we discover it was a material failure, under the $10,000 limit and therefore doesn’t count against anybody in the big AIRLANT Box Score. I make an idle stab at supervising the chaos in Mission Planning.
I go through my in-box of the last five weeks and make neat little plies. I throw most away. It’s a good system. If they haven’t asked about it, it probably wasn’t that important anyway.
I am going to stay on top of things now that the bulk of the contingency stuff is safely out of the way.
The guys are starting to work together pretty well, and I am happy to report that the routine stuff has been happening on auto-pilot. I am back to liking most of them. It must have been the lack of sleep. The latest scoop came from our Intel meeting at 2100L. The CARGRU Intel guy reports that the little island state of Malta is demanding to know if both the U.S. and the Soviets have nuclear weapons aboard the ships involved in the Summit.
Neither side will budge from the policy that “we neither confirm-nor-deny.” So the entire Presidential Visit, Summit, and ancillary schedule changes are back up in the air. What are we doing and where are we going? Who the hell knows?
This is the good part of being in the Fleet. Nothing else happening except a minor little close pass by one of our fighters near an airliner. Not out of malice, mind you, he had been vectored by the Aegis Cruiser Yorktown to check out an unidentified contact. In keeping with the VADM’s direction, though, we wrote him a little message to ensure he wouldn’t be surprised if somebody yelled “foul!”
Everyone seems to be walking on eggshells out here. It is 0200L, and tomorrow already.
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