Video ‘Family Grams’ Send Love to Men at Sea

Some sang songs, a few performed skits, and others read prose, but, when it was all put together, it added up to a message of love.

Family members of sailors stationed in San Diego have sent taped video messages, or family grams, to loved ones deployed on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise. They will be played on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on television monitors on the 1,000-foot-long ship, which has a crew of 5,000.

The Navy makes and pays for the tapes, said Senior Chief Petty Officer Bob Howard of the North Island Naval Air Station.

“These help maintain family ties,” Howard said of the tapes. “They keep family members happy, and they keep servicemen happy.”

Howard, who was stationed in the Persian Gulf during Christmas in 1979, said he understands how it feels to be away from home at Christmas.

“There’s no value you can put on having these tapes played when you’re at sea,” he said. “Most of those men would give two weeks’ pay for them. It’s immeasurably important and very emotional.”

The women who get together to make the tapes form extended families, Howard said. It helps them deal with their own loneliness during the holidays. Many are young and relatively new to the San Diego area.

In one of the videotapes, a group of women dabbed at their eyes and hugged each other as they sang the Stevie Wonder song, “I Just Called to Say I Love You,” to their spouses.

A wide-eyed tot in a black dress, with a matching black bow in her hair, sat in her mother’s lap and playfully bit the foam-covered microphone. Her mother struggled to take the microphone away, but not before the girl uttered “da-da and bye-bye.”

Two other girls from a family of four were vehemently opposed to greeting their father. “No, no, I don’t want to,” they whined, pushing the microphone back to their mother.

Some of the women performed skits, reporting on news events. Three conducted a mock broadcast scene similar to the news skit on the “Saturday Night Live” comedy show.

However, most of the women huddled with their children sent a simple message to their spouses that said, “I love you, and I miss you.”

Two women sang, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.”

If the ship is deployed for six months, videotapes can be requested by family members of the crew two months after the squadron is sent out, said Petty Officer Jay Whiteside, a photographer with the Fleet Aviation Specialized Operations, which makes the videos.

Only some of the wives of the Navy men ask to make a tape. Whiteside said only the wives request the videos, although other family members can contribute, including fiancees. The videos are made year-round.

The group usually picks the location for filming, generally a house or park, Whiteside said. It takes a day to make a two-hour video for one naval unit.

Cathy Michael, who heads a support group for Navy wives, said their video was made a few weeks ago. Her husband’s squadron left in September, the second time he has been deployed since they were married 2 1/2 years ago.

“It’s a real visible contact with the families back home,” Michael said. “A picture says a lot, but, with the videos, the men see us speaking and moving. It’s real special.”

Michael said that the hardest part of deployment is the separation of families. The goal of their support group is to keep family morale up, so the men will have an easier time functioning while they’re away.

Because the Navy men are usually away from home for such a long period, some of them have children they have never seen, Howard said.

A pregnant woman in one of the videos stood up and rubbed her hand over the front of her dress to show her husband the slight bulge in her stomach.

Randi Campbell, a mother of two, said her husband likes to see the growth in their two children.