“Carrier” on PBS …The Rooster’s Take
http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-carrierreview26apr26,0,2374269.story
I caught the first two epidoses of PBS’s “Carrier” last night. It documents a wartime Persian Gulf deployment on the USS Nimitz (CVN 68), highlighting the day-to-day ops andthe crew life onboard one of the most powerful warships in history.
There were much of it that I could relate to as I have had similar deployments on the USS John F. Kennedy CV-67 (Ships Company / Weps/AOCC) and USS America CV-66 (Attack Squadron 85 - Intruders BABY!). I also went to sea with the USS Enterprise CVN-65. In total, I made four deployments with a total of seven years “sea time” and two years shore duty at AIMD Oceana.
Fortunately (don’t get me wrong here) there were no women aboard the ships that I sailed…I was in the Navy when women could not permanently deploy in forward locations or on combat ships. They were mostly residing in the choicest shore and Type 3 sea (Type 3 counted as sea duty but was actually on a shore base or in an arduous location) billets that limited the availability of these to the male seagoing sailors.
Being an ordie (YES! THERE IS AN ORDIE MAFIA…IYAOYAS) and having served in an A-6E Intruder squadron, I personally think that a woman would not be an integral member of the load team as we hand load almost all munitions weighing 1000 lbs. or less. Having said that, we had some guys in our shop that were relegated to installing fuzes etc. because they were a liability on the hernia bar. To be fair though, the A-6’s bomb racks were much higher off of the deck than the F-18 and depending on how the fuel settled in the wing tanks, the MERcould be at five feet or greater from the deck. The F-18 load crews have about half that distance to cover and is probably the reason F-18’s were called “FAG” squadrons (I didn’t make it up…it is what it is…)
So back to the show…there were portions that were so accurate I could literally taste and smell the JP-5 and DFM…it permeates your entire life onboard a carrier, both in the air and in the water. Every cup of coffee had that shiny rainbow like film of fuel on top. It always helped keep us ‘regular’ and kept our skin nice and soft. lol When I was on sea duty, our only line of communication was snail mail and the occasional phone call from a port overseas during liberty call. The sailors today have an open line of communication with the folks back home with email and from what I saw on “Carrier”, a host of satellite phones at their disposal. When we pulled out to sea, that was it…you said goodbye to your family and it would be a week or more until the first mail call. I want to say that we wouldn’t have a mail call until we transited through Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean. Whatever happened back home just happened and you were none the wiser…for better or for worse. There was the ability to utilize the Chaplain’s phone if there were a dire emergency or a death back home during a deployment. Other than that…you had to wait for the mail or wait for liberty call. When the skipper called away the sea and anchor detail, you did the same thing for your family at home. You were now at sea and your priorities shifted to the mission at hand.
My beef with the series at this point is that they are mostly focusing their attention on non-rates and junior PO’sthat really don’t paint an accurate picture of the life at sea for the “average” sailor. Although the show keeps saying the average age of the crew is 19, the average intelligence is not indicative of the people they have chosen to highlight so far. I am not saying that you have to find the saltiest sailor on the boat…the CMC is also not a good choice as he is wayyyyy too Joe Navy to accurately depict the senior enlisted onboard. Maybe in the coming episodes they will find a 2nd or 1st Class PO…one that has had a few deployments under his belt for their point of view. I will wait and see where the show goes from here…
I enjoyed the squadron portions that were focused on VFA-41 (used to be an F-14 squadron at Oceana)…the CO/XO seemed to be two guys that I wouldn’t mind hanging bombs for a deployment. I also liked seeing the ordies on deck and as they said on the show…everyone else just wants to be one. IYAOYAS
The man overboad scenario really brought back some memories…we had a guy (Treadway) go over the side of the Kennedy. He was on the fantail swinging a bag of trash over the side when the momentum carried him and the bag over the rail into the water. You never want to hear those whistles piped for a real man overboard. Fortunately for Treadway, he went into the water during the day and the SH-3’s were already in the air. He was picked up almost immediately and back onboard without any injuries (except for his pride.) I don’t think I have ever heard an XO speak as tersely as this one on the show did on the 1MC. I felt sorry for the guy that didn’t make it to muster in time. Welcome to the carpet pal…
Carrier deployments are serious business. Life and death experiences that not all carriers come back with the same people they left with. My first deployment was no exception and we suffered a loss of nine crewmen due to aircraft accidents/crashes. One incident in particular was a combination of disasters: an aircraft struck another aircraft that was on the deck. In an instant we had a fire on the flight deck, man overboard (the pilots ejected) and general quarters (GQ). GQ was called so that the ship could handle all of the incidents as a homogenous unit and with all hands on deck. Not only do we have to handle emergencies onboard our own ship, but we have to react to emergencies for other units afloat. We were called away to assist with the USS Bonefish explosion and rescue the crew that had abandoned ship and the subsequent recovery of the crew that were killed. I am curious if the series will show any of the ‘not so glorious’ aspects of the dangers of the flight deck or the engineering spaces? I don’t know if I can take any more scenes of the crew eating or field-daying their spaces. Boring then and it is boring now.
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