Tears, Cheers Greet Ship’s Return to S.D.

The lumbering guided missile frigate Reid pulled into town Friday after spending four months in the Persian Gulf, where it earned renown as the first warship to fire warning shots at an Iraqi tanker during the Operation Desert Shield blockade.

The Reid, performing escort and patrol duties, made a name for itself Aug. 18 when the ship’s captain fired warning shots--nine rounds from a 25-millimeter chain gun and a 76-millimeter gun--at an Iraqi tanker suspected of carrying oil.

“I am extremely proud of my crew,” said Cmdr. Craig Murray, commanding officer of the Reid, the first San Diego-based vessel to return from Operation Desert Shield.

After the shots were fired, the voice of the Iraqi tanker captain went up about two octaves on the radio, Murray said. And although the Reid’s 200-man crew was not allowed to board the tanker, the Iraqi ship’s officers and crew became “much more cooperative,” Murray said.

As the ship pulled up to Pier 5 about 10 a.m., a crowd of about 300 cheered and cried while sailors on the dock tossed ropes up to the ship’s crew. The first four tosses fell in the water.

“I’m glad those guys aren’t in charge of shooting guns,” said Chuck Christiansen, a Fontana construction manager who was awaiting his 22-year-old son, Wes.

Emotions ran high. Yellow balloons dotted the pier, families waved greeting signs and spouses clutched binoculars and cameras. The ship’s bow was decorated with a huge blue and gold twisted rope-like wreath.

Up the coast, another West Coast-based ship returned home from the Persian Gulf. The frigate Vandergrift sailed into Long Beach after staying on an extra five weeks during the Middle East crisis, coordinating Naval air defense and interdicting cargo vessels as part of the blockade. There and in San Diego, families waited, their eyes filled with tears.

Mary Bridge, 30, stood on the dock at San Diego’s 32nd Street Naval Station cradling 6-month-old Katlin, born two weeks after the Reid shipped out. Because Bridge’s husband, the ship’s operations officer, had been assigned night duty aboard the ship, Mary Bridge planned to return to the vessel in the evening, carrying homemade lasagna, garlic bread and rum cake.

When Lt. Joseph Bridge stepped across the gangplank, his eyes filled with tears as he held his daughter in his arms for the first time. “I’ve been looking forward to this moment since April 2,” said Bridge, referring to Katlin’s birth date.

Bridge held his first-born child as though she was a fragile glass trinket and he closely examined her face. “Whose chin do you think she has?” he asked.

His wife replied, “It’s like looking in a mirror, you looking at her.”

Bridge, the officer of the deck when orders were given to fire the guns at the Iraqi tanker, paused briefly to describe that historic event.

“We trained for that moment. It’s so seldom in life and history that we get to do what we are trained to do. And we did it. It’s a pretty small fraternity of ships that actually fire.”

But the talk on Pier 5 had little to do with the current Middle East crisis and more to do with the months that had stood between families and couples. The Reid, which spent four months of its seven-month deployment in the Persian Gulf, returned to its home port one month later than initially scheduled, after having sailed more than 32,000 miles.

For families waiting at home, this deployment was different from any other because it seemed like the Reid skittered so close to engaging in actual combat.

Bonnie and Jay Bristol drove 750 miles to San Diego from their El Paso, Tex., home to greet their 21-year-old son, Richard, a radioman. In the days after the Reid fired its warning shots, the couple glued themselves to the television, in hopes of catching a glimpse of the ship or hearing some word about its status. They, like others, were terrified that the Iraqis would retaliate.

“We’re ecstatic to have him home safe and sound,” said Bonnie Bristol, whose worries had doubled when she learned that her other son’s army platoon had been placed on alert.

For others, the Reid’s deployment was their first taste of Navy life. Meme Shealy, 30, was married three weeks before the ship pulled out, carrying her husband, Ensign David Shealy, a 25-year-old supply officer.

Meme Shealy stood on the pier waving a sign that read, “Welcome Home, Sugar Bear!” And because she had addressed all her letters to her husband using that moniker, his shipmates had begun to call him that as well.

“I am so happy. We can finally start our marriage and our lives together,” said Shealy, who arrived here in August from South Carolina and bought the couple’s new home in La Jolla.

While Shealy stood alone on the pier awaiting her husband others, like the Stevenson family, arrived in carloads. About 20 of 1st Class Petty Officer Rennaye Stevenson’s relatives waited for him.

“This is the most blessed day--to see my son come home,” said his mother, Ida Johnson. She and the others planned an enormous feast, including fried chicken, collard greens, corn bread, chili, potato salad, cake and peach cobbler.

“Happiness, happiness, happiness--I thank the Lord for answering my prayer,” she said.

In San Diego, as well as in Long Beach, that happiness almost seemed to spill over.

In Long Beach, Gail Hoover wore a wedding dress and brought along the Rev. John Smith when she went to greet the Vandergrift and her fiance, Chief Petty Officer Ed Johnson, 35.

The couple had met at a country-Western bar in Long Beach, and when the two-step lessons started, Ed Johnson walked up and said: “I want you. You’re tall.”

When Johnson and Hoover said their “I do’s,” it capped a joyous reunion, not just for the 5-foot-10 bride and 6-foot-5 groom, but for scores of families, lovers and friends who had been separated by the Long Beach-based Vandegrift’s seven-month tour of duty in Middle East waters.

Romance might have been on Johnson’s mind from the start, but not so for Hoover, a life insurance saleswoman. That night in the Silver Bullet, after he saw her give her business card to another man, Johnson wanted one, too. “He said, ‘I need life insurance!’ ” Hoover recalled. “If you sell insurance, that’s like a dream.”

Earlier, someone asked Hoover the obvious question.

“Oh, I sold him the policy,” Hoover said, laughing. “Now I’m the beneficiary.”

Times staff writer Scott Harris contributed to this report from Long Beach.