Navy Ships Sail Off With a Big Piece of a Port Town’s Heart

The camellias still bloom furiously in neat brick-home neighborhoods, and the fresh seafood at cozy restaurants has lost none of its sizzle.

And, as home to the world’s largest naval base, this area personifies the nation’s broad public support of the military men and women serving in the Persian Gulf: yellow ribbons, patriotic rallies, signs such as one outside Kimberley’s, a dance bar, reading: “Saddam, this Scud’s for you.”

But underneath the bravado and the familiar easy charm, there is an unease, a growing sense that Norfolk, Virginia Beach and the other towns that make up Hampton Roads have changed dramatically as their ships have sailed to the Middle East, taking with them about 40,000 crew members.

The departures continued Wednesday, when the Puget Sound, a destroyer tender, carried away its crew of 1,300, as well-wishers gathered at the pier, waved U.S. flags and shouted: “Be careful.”

Navy families and townsfolk are, of course, accustomed to regular goings and comings of ships and sailors, typically on training missions that last up to six months. But nobody is ever prepared for so many to be gone at once, and to war for who knows how long.

Thus, the area’s port-city swagger has given way to cautious tiptoeing through an emotional maze of neighborly concern, resolve to win the war and a fear that a protracted struggle in the Gulf will profoundly diminish the quality of life here, economically and socially.

Many businesses, already reeling from the recession, have been dealt another blow by the deployment.

“With the guys being gone, there’s definitely a big pinch,” said Dave Durham, who works at the Il Porto Pastaria in the Waterside Mall downtown. “In 1 1/2 hours, I’ve made one sale,” he said, unfurling a cash register tape. The big pinch has cut Durham’s work schedule to four days from five.

Everybody around here begins a conversation about the deployment with the same observation: You know a lot of people are gone because traffic on the expressways has gotten lighter. Nobody claims that this is a ghost town, but they do feel something eerie.

“The traffic here was like the Washington, D.C., beltway,” said Marie Wade, a car rental agent. “It was horrible. Now, it’s really strange . . . less traffic, a lot of prices have come down, we’re not seeing as many people around in restaurants, and you don’t see as many lines in the stores.” Or at the car rental places. Wade says rentals “have really dropped off.”

The opposite is true at counseling centers all over the area. Distressed family members and friends seek help at an ever increasing rate, trying to cope with problems ranging from fear and loneliness to financial need.

And, at the naval base itself, where security has been tightened, war has made life jittery. On a recent day, a gate guard was talking with a visitor when a nearby motorcycle backfired, causing the guard to jump sharply. Nervous chuckles and sheepish head shaking followed.

In an area where sailors and fliers normally are as common as spent oyster shells, taking 40,000 of them away leaves a big hole in a city’s soul. Even a city with a population of 262,000.

“There is a heightened awareness and feeling of absence,” said Kathleen Ojala, administrator of the Norfolk Psychiatric Center, which operates a crisis hot line and conducts counseling sessions for families and friends. It “permeates the community,” she added.

“Dreary” is the way Pat Marsee described the atmosphere as she looked out the window of Attitudes, her T-shirt and souvenir shop, onto empty streets in the Ocean View section of Norfolk. “To see a sailor in uniform is very unusual,” she said, sounding somewhat incredulous.

Anything but dreary, her shop was gaily decorated with rambunctiously stenciled shirts hanging throughout. Those proclaiming support for Operation Desert Storm are about the only items selling, she said. Among the messages: “Somebody in Saudi Arabia loves me.”

The sentiment goes both ways. As one businessman put it, “We used to curse those guys” because they’re sometimes a little too loud or get a little too drunk or clog up the expressways. “But when they leave, we say: ‘Where are you?’ They really make the economy go.”

Well, it could be a while before they get back. Meanwhile, their absence is having a ripple effect, as some families go back where they came from to wait out the deployment of their loved ones.

Some families still here are putting off big purchases until their loved ones return, according to Jack Hornbeck, president of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, who said automobile sales are off 40% from a year ago.

Norfolk Mayor Joseph Leafe is keeping a stiff upper lip, asserting that whenever the men and women come sailing home, they will bring with them a “pent-up demand that will benefit the community” economically.

As for pent-up emotions, Leafe acknowledged that, because the Navy and the community are “interwoven together,” a great deal of work must be done to weather what could be a long separation. He said City Hall ceremonies and community rallies address that need.

Such remedies will be tested mightily as the war goes on.

For now, Hampton Roads waits for the piers to come alive again with sounds of a returning Navy, hoping that the seasons of absence will not pile too high. For Marsee, she says, until the ships return, “I’m trying to hold on.”