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America!!!!!!
Hello all,
I
know it has been a while since I updated you but it has been
busy out here as the ship continues to pound away at the
remnants of the Taliban and the Afghani section of the Al Qaida
network. The headlines pretty much speak for themselves.
The relentless pressure provided by airpower destroyed their air
defenses, command and control networks, supply lines and eroded
their will to resist. There are still a number of hard
liners that are holding out but the majority of these are
non-Afghanis. We will continue to support the Northern
Alliance ground forces and attack Al Qaida strongholds. We
are making some great progress in the latter. More
coalition partners are arriving daily. The amount of naval
power headed this way is staggering. Great Britain,
Canada, Australia, France, Italy, and Japan have ships here or
they are enroute. Many more countries are pledging ground
or air forces. This is truly an international fight. It is
sad in a way that it took the 9/11 tragedy to bring the world
together like this.
The men and women of my crew continue to amaze me. We
have been at sea for 60 days. Of those 60 days, only two
have been days off (days without conducting flight operations).
Despite all the above, the crew gathers around me whenever I
walk around and want to know how we are doing and if we are
making a difference. They cheer with every bomb on target and
our success spurs them on to greater accomplishments. I do
a weekly talk show on the ship's TV system. It is a chance
for me to chat with the crew as they phone in to ask questions.
Move over Larry King. As part of the show I roll a weekly
"greatest hits" video, the best of the bombing
from the last week. Very popular, even the studio crew looks
away from their cameras to study each hit. I emphasize
that every mission that we execute is a total team effort from
the propulsion plant operators to the bomb assemblers to the
administrative support personnel to the flight deck aircraft
maintainers.
We have had some fun though. Two weeks ago we
paused for a "steel beach" picnic. We set up
barbeques on the flight deck and cooked up steak, chicken,
hamburgers and hot dogs. The morale and welfare division
setup volleyball and basketball matches.
We have these oversize tricycles that people race on the
flight deck. There were golfers, fishers, bands, and, for
the first time on an aircraft carrier in quite a while, a swim
call. The Air Department lowered one of the aircraft
elevators to the hangar deck level and crewmembers were given
the opportunity to jump the 26 feet from the elevator to the
water. Two thousand people literally jumped ship. Not all at
once, of course. Life boats in the water, safety swimmers,
etc. We even had sharpshooters looking out for sharks
(none were seen).
There is another no fly tomorrow. We are using this
as a maintenance day so there are no big events with one
exception.
Navy regulations say that if you are at sea for 45
consecutive days the captain can authorize a special ration of
two cans of beer per crewmember.
I guess I have to remind you that US Navy ships are dry
i.e. no alcohol allowed except as noted above. So tonight
as we recover the last aircraft we are going to serve pizza and
BEER to the crew. It may seem like no big deal to most of
you but this is huge out here.
In the biggest surprise of the cruise to date, several
members of the NY Yankees phoned me after Game 7 as they were
flying home. I spoke to Willie Randolph and Paul O'Neill.
I was told that Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams and Joe Torre were
standing by to talk but the connection was severed as Jeter was
handed the phone. They sent along their best wishes and
gratitude to the crew who were thrilled to hear that the Yankees
took time out to think of us.
We continue to fly 14 hours a day 7 days a week but the
ship's activities don't end at the end of flight operations.
We are constantly gathering intelligence, fixing aircraft and
ship's equipment, preparing more of our 20,000 meals a day,
navigating the ship to our next launch point. The list
goes on. TR is literally the city that never sleeps. We
train constantly to keep the crew ready to respond to any
contingency and go to battle stations for drills. We often shoot
our guns and train our missiles. We even impose simulated
damage to provide training in firefighting and damage control.
As many of you know the human spirit is a formidable
force. It is the only fighting reserve the evildoers in
Afghanistan have left. All of us on TR and throughout this
coalition have spirit and resolve that exceeds any quantity the
enemy ashore has. But, unlike our adversary, we have some
really cool weaponry left with which to carry out our orders.
The reason I started on this spirit angle was to segue into a
discussion on keeping morale high on the ship, my primary job.
The support we have received from our families back in Norfolk
has been spectacular. We on TR are blessed to have such
strong, devoted spouses. The ship has also received
messages and pledges of support from many parts of the country.
I thank you all deeply. A small gift from home whether it
be in the form of a video, a CD, a snack pack, a card, a letter,
an email or a photograph means more than you know. It
makes the difference between a sailor who can a little more for
the nth consecutive day and a Sailor who cannot. We could not do
our job without the unflagging support of our family, friends
and the American people. To all, you have my gratitude.
I have rambled on enough. There are some
images of life on the ship at the bottom of this email.
Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving. We are pulling all the
stops out here for a spectacular turkey dinner with all the
trimmings. Please stay in touch as our deployment
progresses.
Best wishes,
Rich
CAPT Rich O'Hanlon
Commanding Officer
USS Theodore Roosevelt
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