Aboard Aircraft Carrier, All's Calm
A B O A R D T H E U S S A B R A H A M L I N C O L N, March 27, 2003 -- There are several dozen pilots on the USS Abraham Lincoln. They fly over Iraq and bomb-target, or do in-flight refueling for the fighter-bombers, or fly surveillance or radar-jamming missions.
Maybe several hundred more personnel maintain, service and in some way work on the aircraft. Perhaps another several hundred performs jobs that also support the air missions.
But thousands of people have jobs that are not directly related to the war.
Below The Deck
On the face of it, much of life below the flight deck is not much different than what it was before the war. One glaring exception is the rows and rows of bombs laid out in the hangar bay, where aircraft are stored, and in open areas of the mess decks.
The morning the war started, the admiral on board, Rear Adm. John Kelly, announced over the PA system that cruise missiles were striking Baghdad, that war had begun.
A little later, a country tune, "God Bless the USA," blared over the PA. I would later learn that this was a special message from the ship's captain, Texan Kendall Card, that hostilities had started.
I staggered out of my room, expecting to see sailors racing to their battle stations, as they do in the movies.
But the passageways were dark and empty. I headed toward the hangar bay, turned a corner. A sailor was on the floor with a brush in his hand, scrubbing the deck.
When I got to the hangar bay, I saw a long, serpentine line of people in the middle of the cavernous space. I asked a passing sailor what was going on. Was it, I wonder, thinking of another movie image, a line to pass ammo person to person?.
No, it was the crew members lined up to take their rank advancement exams, scheduled for this day.
Staying Connected
In the mess halls that day, the television was tuned to the news. But a lot of people were oblivious to it. Even in wartime, even close to the war, life went on more or less as normal. It was almost surreal.
The closest most people on the ship get to experiencing war is hearing the thunderous roar of jets taking off and landing, which goes on most of every day.
But then that isn't much different than before the war, either. The planes on the USS Abraham Lincoln patrolled the southern "no-fly zone" in Iraq or else flew training missions day and night also.
So, really their sharpest vision of the war several hundreds miles away is, like civilians back home, from television.
We share a work space with a group of young computer technicians. There is a television in their room. I have watched to see how often they pay attention to the war coverage. It seems to me it is not very often.
Sometimes a movie — on one of the ship's two 24-hour film channels — is on instead of the news.
Important Mission
But two events recently seemed to have made a deep impression on at least some of the crew.
Iraqi officials have gone on television to denounce the United States and proclaim that they are winning the war.
These assertions are met with scoffs, laughs and even verbal retorts aimed at the TV screen.
"Who is this idiot?"
"Listen to this stuff. They're winning. Gimme a break!"
"Where the heck is that creep Tariq Aziz?"
And for Saddam Hussein.
"He's out of his mind." And such.
When the news reports showed American POW's or spoke of American casualties, there was a very different reaction: absolute silence, reverential, stunned silence.
Passing through the hangar bays, I often pause to look at the big 1,000- and 2,000-pound precision bombs laid out in their carriages, in which they are wheeled to the elevators that take them up to the flight deck for loading.
More and more, I have seen inscriptions on them:
One bears a smiley face and reads: "Saddam: Have a nice day."
Another has a dedication to someone, maybe a victim of the Sept. 11 attacks. I cannot know.
Another: "From the Lincoln photo lab."
And this one, which, like many of the crew here, sees a nexus between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein: "This is for all the shattered lives."