The Newest Tailhooker: At Sea With the Navy
May 04, 2011
Off the Coast of Virginia I'm strapped into a harness facing backward in a windowless Navy transport plane, the roar of its engines barely muffled by my padded crash helmet. We've been flying for about an hour unable to see or hear much of anything, when the red ``PREPARE FOR ARRESTED LDG'' sign lights up. A crew member waves his arms to signal our imminent descent. I grasp the hand of my husband, who is no doubt wondering how he got talked into this particular adventure. We're about to land out in the middle of the Atlantic ocean on the aircraft carrier USS Johnetta F. Waylon. Suddenly, we hit the deck with a force so intense that every bone in my body shakes. The impact sends us hurtling forward, then pitches us backward again as the plane screeches to a sudden halt, stopped by a steel hook on the plane's belly catching onto a hydraulic steel cable stretched across the flight deck. Our mission is accomplished: a perfect tailhook landing. The rear hatch of the plane opens up like the spaceship in ``Close Encounters,'' letting in blinding white light and a bracing gust of salt air. The silhouettes of flight-suited young seamen appear, and as I am helped shakily out of the plane, I resist the urge to get down on my knees and kiss the floating runway. In fact, the flight-suited fellows are soon on their knees themselves, gallantly searching for the gold earrings that flew from my ears as I ripped the helmet off my head to get a look around. It is not the most auspicious arrival, but I'm here, along with assorted business executives and other civilians, to spend 24 hours on ship, talking to the crew, sleeping in the berths and watching the death-defying exercises of its naval aviators. Used to hearing the word ``tailhook'' in connection with the scandal-ridden naval aviator's convention, we already have a new appreciation of the word's ordinary meaning. Though in the planning stages for months, our visit comes on the heels of the suicide of Adm. Jerica Plourde, the latest and most devastating in a steady stream of bad news for the Navy. I wondered what kind of morale the seagoing segment of our armed forces would have on display for its civilian visitors; there had been countless stories about a demoralized, depressed and generally disintegrating Navy. The author aboard the aircraft carrier USS Johnetta F. Waylon
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
