On Alert Yet Dreaming of Home

Even as a midnight Mass filled the hangar bay of this enormous aircraft carrier Monday with hymns praising God and prayers calling for peace for all mankind, the deadly business of war was never far away.

A space had been cleared for the ecumenical service attended by hundreds of sailors and Marines, including Rear Adm. Jim Zortman, commander of the Stennis battle group. But workers continued readying F-14 Tomcats, F/A-18 Hornets and other warplanes and their ordnance for another night of searching out Taliban and Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan.

“This is our gift to America, so that people there do not have to live in fear of terrorism,” said Cmdr. Luis Garcia, 50, a Seventh-day Adventist minister who was a pastor in Baldwin Park and East Los Angeles before joining the Navy as a chaplain in the early 1980s.

“The U.S. military has a long tradition of being on alert on Christmas,” Garcia said, noting that George Washington crossed the Delaware on Christmas to mount an assault.

“We’re here protecting our families and our country,” said ordnance technician Kirk Seirer, 42, of Dallas, who was arming a 500-pound laser-guided bomb while the Mass was underway. “It’s tough to be away for Christmas, especially for the young sailors, but we’ve got a job to do and everybody knows that.”

Before Sept. 11, the San Diego-based Stennis had not been scheduled to deploy until mid-January, and then for only a routine six-month mission to the Persian Gulf. For the 5,000 crew members, that had meant Thanksgiving and Christmas with their families, a privilege not always possible for military personnel.

But after the U.S. war on terrorism began, the ship was ordered to leave San Diego in early November to get to the Arabian Sea “with all due speed,” relieve the carrier Carl Vinson and continue a 24-hour-a-day effort to bomb America’s new enemies into submission.

Though the Stennis began dispatching planes on bombing missions immediately after it arrived Dec. 15, the crew has done its best to transform a gray, impersonal warship into something warmer and more redolent of a season of giving and sharing. Chaplains--the first line of defense against homesickness and seasonal melancholy--have stressed the gift that the crew and other U.S. personnel are giving their families and country this Christmas by being away.

Holiday decorations are seemingly everywhere. Christmas cards are taped on the walls of air squadron ready rooms, including hand-drawn messages from schoolchildren throughout the U.S.; decorated trees stand in mess halls; and various personnel wear Santa Claus hats. Christmas movie favorites such as “Home Alone” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” are being shown on shipboard television.

“We’re here putting the hurt on bad guys,” explained fireman Manuel Rios, 18, of Bell Gardens. “When somebody hurts your family, you’ve got to do something about it, even if it means being away at Christmas.”

A special Christmas dinner awaits the crew: New England clam chowder, tomato rice soup, baked ham, roast beef au jus, fresh-baked corn bread and more. Three hundred and fifty turkeys were being roasted Monday in enlisted and officers’ galleys throughout the ship.

Not everyone will be aboard for the special meal. Capt. R. C. Thompson, an F/A-18 pilot and commander of the Stennis air wing, joked that he has invited his fellow pilots to join him over Afghanistan for a Christmas dinner of “power bars and water.”

For many of the crew members, this is their first overseas deployment and first Christmas away from home. “We’re out here doing good stuff,” said airplane maintenance worker Scott Limon, 24, of Carson. “There are a lot of people worse off than us this Christmas.”

“I can think of 6,000 who are a lot worse,” said co-worker Ryan Behl, 21, of Archie, Mo., referring to the initial death toll from the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “We’re out here for them.”

Similar sentiments were evident Monday throughout the Central Asia theater where U.S. personnel are assigned.

In Afghanistan, Marines in “fighting holes” protecting the Camp Rhino outpost and the Kandahar airport have fashioned small Christmas trees using swatches of green camouflage, with shell casings and tiny Tabasco bottles as decorations.

At Camp Rhino, Navy chaplain Lt. James West is tailoring his Christmas message to his audience. To a group of sergeants, he explained that when Christ reappears on Earth, “the deaf shall hear, the blind shall see, and corporals will do what they’re told.”

The sergeants nodded in approval.

Elsewhere at the camp, a gunnery sergeant has created his own miniature manger scene. And at a secret U.S. facility outside Afghanistan, Air Force personnel active in loading the cargo planes that are resupplying the Marines and other U.S. forces in Afghanistan are wearing Santa hats.

Aboard the Stennis, crew members can e-mail loved ones in the U.S. Some have found other ways to stay in contact.

Lt. Heather Coats, 27, a helicopter pilot from northern Virginia, was able to wish her husband a merry Christmas while both were flying missions. Chris Coats is an S-3 Viking pilot stationed at the Theodore Roosevelt, the other U.S. carrier in the Arabian Sea.

“We’re here for a purpose. That makes it easier,” said Heather Coats, who played keyboard for the shipboard Christmas choir on the Stennis. “All the support from home helps too.”

Tammy Smith, 20, of Joplin, Mo., said she takes a long view of things. She said her mother is proud of her but frightened that her daughter is in a war zone at Christmas. It’s a common story among the young enlisted.

“It’s sad to be away from home at Christmas,” Smith said. “But someday, I’ll be able to tell my kids, ‘I remember one Christmas when I fought for justice.’ ”