I’ll never forget my first day on the carrier USS Enterprise. Two weeks after I was married, I was on a marathon flight from Norfolk, Virginia to the tiny island of Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean to join my first ship, the Enterprise. Upon arrival in Diego Garcia, we were put on the supply ship Niagara Falls which was en route to replenish the Enterprise battle group in the North Arabian Sea. A day later, I was put on a CH-46 helicopter and transported to the Enterprise and my first view of the ship was as we passed over her bow right before landing.

That’s when the real fun began. A carrier is literally a floating city and it can take you weeks to get oriented to your surroundings. I did not have that luxury.  Instead, after finally finding the Reactor Training Office and being introduced to the Reactor Training Assistant who was in charge of my initial training onboard, I was handed a summons to appear before the Royal High Court of the Raging Main. In other words, the Enterprise was going to cross the equator the next day and I, being a slimy pollywog, was about to be initiated as a shellback.

The next morning, we assembled on the messdecks on our hands and knees to enjoy our breakfast of green eggs and ham. We then proceeded through a gauntlet of shellbacks through the hangar bay. Far be it from me to reveal the secrets of this initiation lest I incur the wrath of Davey Jones, but lets just say that by the time I reached the other side of the hangar bay, I was literally a wet and slimy wog. We then proceeded to crawl on an aircraft elevator which took us to the flight deck to meet King Neptune and his court. Our present condition not worthy of his majesty, we were sprayed down with firehoses as we proceeded upward.  Once on the flight deck, we continued through the initiation and were paraded in front of King Neptune and his court. At the end of this initiation, I literally threw my uniform over the fantail since it was beyond being in any serviceable condition.

I spent two tours on carriers, finally leaving active duty in 2000 after serving as the Reactor Training Assistant on the USS Nimitz during her refueling overhaul in Newport News Shipyard. From there I joined the Navy Reserve and am now about to retire as a Commander after a wonderful 20 year career.  The photo is of a much younger Ensign Carlisle, on liberty call in Rio de Janeiro from the Enterprise as she made her way from the North Arabian Sea to Norfolk VA. This photo was taken in February 1990, just a few months before Saddam Hussein would invade Kuwait. And the rest, they say, is history…

Best regards,

Rob Carlisle

With the Straits of Hormuz behind us and the “Land Down Under” off our bow and over the horizon, the memories of yet another Arabian Gulf tour are committed to memory through stories and rolls of film. As we high-five the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) on their way in, our “watch,” “time on the box,” “turn in the hotseat,” or “trick at the helm” has come to a close. Has it been three months already? The Indian Ocean welcomes us with deep, dark clear blue water and blue hazeless skies. The sun shines on us with less vengeance and the air is cool and clean.

In August we arrived in relentless 140 degree heat and a windless, becalmed sea, HOT hazy days and nights with no relief in sight and no light at the end of the tunnel. As 18 to 20-hour work days in a world where weekends don’t exist progressed, we coped by not thinking about “getting there” or counting days. Rather, just like the commercial say’s, we “just do it.” I think it’s called “survival.” There were times that if it wasn’t for my $20 Timex, I’d have no idea what day it was. Or what time of day it was for that matter. Out here, we’re on the clock and accountable 24 hours a day. However, three months and two thousand incident free combat sorties later, we did well. Whenever we were tasked, we delivered, certainly something to be proud of on a 38-year-old ship.

Just like with anything else though, there are good days and there are bad. Good days are measured by “mail calls,” water not quitting on you while you’re soaped up in the shower, a few minutes to read a book with nobody yelling profanities across the room, nobody yelling profanities at you, being able to sleep more than 4 hours, timing a walk to a meal just right to watch a sunset or a sunrise through an open hangar door and being able to enjoy that sunset. Getting to see the stars or a full moon at night, coming back to find that blessed little heap of clean laundry on your rack, and all of it is actually clean. Bad days are measured by how many times I’ve had to find somewhere to sit by myself for a moment and take a deep breath to gather my savior-faire just wishing everybody “away.” Or “walk it off” trembling with a rage so intense I can’t even talk, literally seeing red, head feeling like it’s going to explode and trying to make up my mind to either cry or put my fist through the nearest wall. They don’t come often, but they do come. And it’s usually over something pretty insignificant. Sometimes it just gets to a point where you take and take and take, let it roll off your back to where you just can’t take anymore. I don’t like those days.

And of course there were the port calls, Jebel Ali and Bahrain. Each one with its own personality and each one bringing me closer to a culture and people I would have never been exposed to otherwise. For that I am a different person and am forever grateful. One of my fondest memories will always be the night in the Emirates miles out in the Arabian Desert next to a mosque under a canopy of stars lying on my back in the warm sand feeling a warm breeze across my face and through my hair, familiarizing myself with the local night sky and introducing myself to the local constellations. The sounds from local musicians fill the air, I relax with a stomach full of hot tea and local cuisine and at that moment, for those few minutes, everything was OK. A word of advice though: When it comes to “local” cuisine, remember, sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Alas, we’re on our way home, opening another chapter to the cruise. Now, our biggest adversaries are the countries of Boredom and Complacency. Enter the never-ending training cycle. “What do we have to do to get ready for the NEXT cruise?” Such is “Sea Duty,” I guess.  Dreams of Perth, Sidney, Hawaii and eventually getting home to San Dog to re-take my place as a human and a productive member of society effectively take the edge off. It’s funny, but as it’s happening, I think to myself, “Will this ever end? There is no God …” But now that it’s over, “That wasn’t so bad …”

Brooks Davis
CSC Systems Engineer/Analyst
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center
San Diego, Calif. 

This is an awful show. I spent 27 years in the Navy (2+ in the crew of a carrier) so I know the dark side of Navy life — and of life in general.  But there’s no balance in this show. 5000+ stories, 10 hours of air time and the racist gets a half hour (episode 4)?! Even the cross-section of the crew in episode 1 was predominantly negative (knocked up girlfriends, drunks, unhappy first-tour sailors, etc.).

I’m not advocating sugar-coating real life, but this show is as real as a soap opera. The producers and editors are sending the message they want to send and it’s a negative message.  ‘Carrier’ will be a great recruiting tool - for the Air Force.

Brendan J. O’Donnell
Captain, USN (Retired)
CSC JDIS Project Manager
Pentagon OSD (PA&E)

The bouncy 45-minute liberty boat ride back to anchorage allows us an up-close and personal view of the “supertanker.” On the way to Manama pier in Bahrain, we pass several of these too big to be true, inanimate city blocks of steel lined up in dry-dock in various states of repair and maintenance. These 250,000-deadweight-ton behemoths that transport the world’s oil out of here somehow make the sentinel aircraft carrier lying at anchorage on the hazy horizon seem almost insignificant. But they are why were here in the first place.

Bahrain is nothing more than a big sandbar off the Saudi Arabian coast. It doesn’t boast the majestic deserts or mountains of the mainland. It’s very expensive ($1 U.S. = 3 Durham). Quite the contrast to the Asian ports we hit on the way over. Can you say 28 Philippine pesos to the dollar? WHOOHOO!!! And restrictive, just the security measures alone are enough to take the fun out of anything. Hidden cameras, armed guards, metal detectors and random strip searches are the norm getting on and off the base to go anywhere.

Not too many places to go out in town. I’m not discounting it; it’s a very beautiful and busy city, just not a whole lot of “tourist” attractions. The “Tree of life” is here. A tree many scholars say dates back to the probable Garden of Eden. At one time this was a very lush and almost tropical area. All this oil had to come from somewhere right? Again, I reflect back on the historical promise of this whole region. In the states, if something dates back a few hundred years, it’s usually a pretty big deal. Here, things date back to the bible and beyond. Interesting, but outside of shopping for gold or perfume and eating local, we decided the base was the best bet for the few days we’re here.

Enjoying the evening with 3,000 of my closest friends, a reggae band plays the outdoor bar in the “cooling” fall nights — it’s going all the way down to the high 80’s at night now. The date palms sway to the warm Gulf breeze, ice-cold beer and rum flow like water. It’s been a long, hot cruise and we’ve all worked hard. We’ve passed the halfway point but we’ve still got a lot of time left “on-station.” Kind of in the “doldrums” I guess you’d say. Feels like we’re almost there, yet we’re not going anywhere.

Two a.m. brings us back to the 45-minute bouncy liberty boat ride back home to “Mom.” Fortunately, those rides never really bothered me that much. It just takes a while for my head to wind down while I’m lying in my rack feeling the room spin. But put these junior guys off the farms of the Midwest out there, get them as drunk as you can, feed’em as much pizza as they can eat, then put them on a pitch black dark, middle-of-the-night liberty boat ride? It’s like a cruel joke, one that usually involves a swab and a hose.

For now it’s back to the grind. I can’t begin to tell you how good it felt to sleep in for the first time in two months. It’s the little things I miss …

Brooks Davis
CSC Systems Engineer/Analyst
Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center
San Diego, Calif.

I spent a six-month deployment in the Indian Ocean onboard the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), working as an Aviation Structural Mechanic for Fighter Squadron 213 (VF-213) – “The Black Lions” - attached to Carrier Air Wing 11 (CVW-11).

It was my first deployment, so I spent the first three months ‘seconded’ to work on the aft mess decks. I remember spending 12-hour shifts scrubbing pans, seven days a week, and wondering what the heck I had got myself into. Once my time washing dishes was through, I was assigned to Corrosion Control. My job was to work with a team of three other guys to inspect each of the twelve F-14 Tomcats for corrosion damage, and then repair it in an appropriate manner. We were out at sea (obviously) so this was a full time job with all of the exposure to salt air. In addition, we weren’t allowed to paint the entire plane, so we only painted those areas where we have completed repairs. This gave the aircraft a rather leprous appearance, quite different from the nice clean planes everyone saw in “Top Gun.”

The deployment was part of Operation Earnest Will, escorting reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. The Enterprise battle group also participated in Operation Praying Mantis, which struck against Iranian surface and air units in retaliation for Iranian mining of international waters.

During the six month deployment, we made port calls in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Pusan, and Mombasa.

Ellis Williams
Chief Technology Officer (Motorola)
CSC Global Infrastructure Services
Americas Architecture & Innovation