Happy Sailors Return to S.D. From Gulf

Mother Nature got in her last licks Thursday morning as the Independence sailed into San Diego Bay, the first West Coast-based aircraft carrier to return from the Persian Gulf crisis, just in time for the holidays.

For weeks on end, she had baked the boys in uniform in the suffocating heat of the gulf. Then she nearly froze them solid on their return to usually balmy San Diego, hurling a numbing storm to rain on their homecoming parade.

At one point, as the 1,000-foot carrier neared its home berth in Coronado, hundreds of sailors manning the deck in a ceremonial human garland broke and ran in disarray, scampering in all directions to escape a sudden downpour.

On shore, more than 1,500 wives, mothers, fathers and children waited patiently despite the foul weather, clenching wind-whipped welcome-home banners and tissues that wiped away more raindrops than tears.

“This wasn’t the way I pictured this day in my dreams, not at all,” said radioman Alonzo Sims as he shivered on deck in a stiff, wet wind. “But I’ll take it, anyway. It could be snowing here in San Diego for all I care.

“This is just the happiest day of my life. I’m like a kid at Christmas. I’m just so glad to be home.”

For many, Thursday’s arrival carried special significance. Because this wasn’t just any ship returning to port in a Navy town. This was an aircraft carrier, an imposing steel island carrying enough men to populate a small city.

It was the Independence coming home from a Middle East tour with Battle Group Delta, the first major U.S. force to arrive in the area after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait last summer.

The 80,000-ton vessel was also the first U.S. aircraft carrier since 1974 to operate inside the war-tense Persian Gulf when it passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Oct. 2.

So, when 5,150 thankful sailors breathed a collective sigh of relief to be back in San Diego, the sound was sweet and sonorous and almost palpable.

“We were looking over our shoulder all the way back,” said a smiling ship’s supply officer Lonnie Mitchell as he held three long-stemmed roses--one each for his wife and two young daughters on shore.

By Thursday morning, when the carrier had the San Diego skyline in sight, sailors like 20-year-old Blake Brown of Columbus, Ohio, were daydreaming about what the coming night would bring.

Brown was looking for some heavy metal, the music kind. He was just sick and tired of the heavy metal bowels of the Independence.

For six months, Brown had endured erratic mail calls that would come seven straight days and then not again for 10 more. When he didn’t get a letter from his girlfriend back home, his mind would harbor terrible thoughts.

But now he was home.

“Let’s party,” he said. “We’re going to check into a hotel in San Diego. During the next 10 days we might see the light of day. But I doubt it.”

But not every sailor aboard the Independence had a girl for him on shore. “Nobody’s waiting for me,” said 20-year-old John Gibson. “But we’re back. That’s what counts.”

Nearby, several sailors were peering through a 6-foot binocular contraption known as Big Eyes and used by the lookouts. But nobody was looking for the enemy Thursday morning.

“Holy Moley! Look at that babe!” one sailor gasped as he pointed the binoculars toward shore. “She’s fine, and she knows it.”

Below in the carrier’s hangar, 50 anxious men also had thoughts of babes on their minds. They were the men whose wives had delivered children during their absence, and it was the ship’s custom to let them off first--before even the officers.

James White’s daughter, Ashley Nicole, would be 6 weeks old when he laid eyes on her for the first time Thursday. He couldn’t wait.

“I was surprised to hear her name,” the Santa Monica man said. “I thought my wife and I had agreed to call her Amanda. But she pulled a fast one on me. I don’t care. When I get in that car and get a good look at her, I know I’m going to cry.”

Their excitement followed what they called weeks of boredom sitting amid an endless expanse of sea without sight of land. They had been stationed in the Indian Ocean since June, when the call came to report to the Persian Gulf in October.

Then they endured the shimmering Middle Eastern heat that on some summer days turned the carrier’s black deck into a big black griddle, a frying pan that often burned to the touch.

“Some days, it was 114 degrees on that deck. If you touched it, it scorched your hand,” said Marine Lance Cpl. Steve Allen of Garyburg, N.C. “It got so bad, nobody wanted to go up on deck. But, every day, the Marines were out there doing our exercises.”

On the Independence, Operation Desert Shield meant trying to shield yourself from the desert heat--waiting for the deck parties where they were each issued two beers to slake their thirst. Those came every 45 days.

“You had to decide if you wanted to guzzle those beers right down or savor them a while,” said Samuel Robinson of Austin, Tex. “Most guys just guzzled them down the hatch.”

Perhaps the worst sufferers of the heat were the catapultists, the sweaty sailors who worked to release the jet fighters that continuously lifted off the carrier’s deck. “The worst part was the jet blasts, which just added to the heat of those terribly hot days,” said James White.

“A lot of guys got sick from dehydration. The only way to beat the heat was to drink sodas. Between five of us, we drank three cases a day. I don’t think I’ll drink another Coke for at least a year.”

Aboard the Independence, thousands of sailors used calendars to mark off their days in the Persian Gulf, reading newspapers and watching 2-day-old newscasts dispatched from home.

“We really felt like the folks back home were behind us on this trip,” said seaman Rod Fleege. “Sometimes you go to sea and you feel that people forget you’re out here.

“But, as soon as we hit the Persian Gulf, the support started coming in, the additional letters and videotapes and newspapers. It was good to see.”

But there was also frustration. Because of its sudden Persian Gulf assignment, the carrier was forced to stay out longer than its scheduled five months.

Men were forced to write letters back home to anxious wives and loved ones saying they wouldn’t be home on time--and that, frankly, they didn’t know when they’d be home.

In sailor-speak, 5,150 sailors were waiting their turn to ditch the GOO--Gulf of Oman--and head on back to San Dog--San Diego.

In November, after the ship finally left the area, conflicting reports surfaced about whether they would be home in time for Christmas. “It was frustrating,” said Marine Lance Cpl. Lee Dailey, one of 70 Marines assigned to the Independence.

“You’d get one date you’d write home about. Then, a week later, you’d have to write again and change it.”

As the ship neared San Diego, time slowed down.

“Sure the morale gets higher, but the hours go slower because you’re looking forward to being home so much,” said Ed (Dino) DiNatale. “I became a clock watcher. We all did.”

Russell McKamey, 31, of Sunnymead, stood anxiously in line with gifts he had bought in Hong Kong for his new son. Onboard, a counselor had told him to expect his son to cry because he was used to being in the arms of his mother.

“I don’t care if he cries, I’m going to hold him and squeeze him. Then I’m going to squeeze my wife until she cries. Then I’m going to cry. We’ll all cry together.

“After I stop crying, I’m going to tell my wife how proud of her I am, that she’s the one who had the tough tour of duty, not me. But I don’t know if I’m going to be able to talk, I’m going to be all choked up.”

In a matter of minutes, McKamey and the other new fathers splashed through puddles as they hurried down the gangplank toward their waiting wives. Outside, the crowd cheered and screamed in waves as the sailors still on deck whipped them into a frenzy with waves and calls.

McKamey, a strapping man who stands over 6-foot-4, waded through the sea of expectant faces until his spotted his wife, who had curled her hair for his homecoming. His embrace swept her off her feet.

Then he placed her back on earth and gently touched her chin. But he could manage only three words when he whispered in her ear.

She smiled and hugged him back.

“I know,” she said.