They’re Glad to Be Home, Wherever That May Be

As the four planes cut their engines Saturday, the 20 Navy men aboard climbed out and strode toward their waiting families. But it was hard to call it a homecoming--some of the men had never seen their homes.

The Navy’s West Coast E-2 Hawkeye squadrons were transferred from San Diego to Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station last summer, while the “Black Eagles” were deployed in the Persian Gulf. For those families who chose to make the move to Ventura County, it meant doing so without husbands and fathers.

“It was hard, because we moved with our pets and we drove,” said Jennifer May, who relocated from Virginia with her mother and brother while her father was abroad.

When he returned Saturday after six months, Cmdr. Neil May noted that his transplanted family now looks “California.”

He was eager to see his new home on the base. “I hear it looks great,” said May, the squadron’s second-in-command.

Moving is a way of life for military families, but the E-2 squadron’s transfer was easier this time for Ariann Swedensky. Swedensky, who first moved to Ventura in 1976 as a teenager, returned in October to a house three blocks from her parents.

“We never thought we would find ourselves back here again, but it just worked out that way,” said Swedensky, who was meeting her husband, Dave, with their two young sons.

For Mark Asuncion of Agoura Hills, who kissed the tarmac after landing, flying over the mountains into Point Mugu was more familiar.

“Everybody talks about coming home, but they come home to a base,” said Asuncion, who was met by eight relatives. “But I’m really coming home.”

But many of the 100 friends and family members who shivered on the tarmac Saturday had come up from San Diego, where they have chosen to stay since the transfer.

The family of the squadron’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Kevin McCarthy, is among them. When he is not deployed, McCarthy travels home on weekends. For the six months he was away, McCarthy’s wife, Pam, and their three daughters kept up through e-mail, letters and a few phone calls. Saturday was Pam McCarthy’s fifth fly-in in her husband’s 16 years in the Navy.

“We’re a couple of months past the longest time he’s ever been away,” she said.

There were times during the deployment when the possibility of conflict in the Persian Gulf threatened to keep the squadron’s 150 men and women in the gulf even longer.

“With times being what they are, it was a little iffy that they’d be home for Christmas,” Pam McCarthy said. “It’s hard as a family member, as a wife, to wait and wonder. We don’t know more than anyone else. In fact, we may know less.”

Although the Black Eagles trained in the Pacific and stopped off in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Hawaii, their main mission was to fly surveillance flights in the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Southern Watch.

“We just watched Saddam [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] for three months,” said May, who described the cruise as the best he had ever been on.

The E-2 Hawkeye, which is topped by platter-shaped radar, resembles the “Star Trek” Enterprise with propellers. In the air, the E-2 becomes a flying command and communications center that carries no weapons, but serves as the eyes and ears for other aircraft. During their deployment, the four E-2s operated from the Abraham Lincoln.

Just after landing Saturday morning, McCarthy confirmed that, with all its sophisticated equipment, there still are some things the E-2 can’t find out.

“So,” he asked a fellow officer, “what’s the score in the game?”

Bad news: Army beat Navy, 34-30.