Hello, Goodbye, As War Preps Roll
Family members said somber good-byes Monday to more than 8,000 sailors assigned to the USS Nimitz as it departed on a mission that will bring the aircraft carrier within striking distance of Iraq.
While tears flowed as sailors left their loved ones, many carried personal items, including stuffed animals, to help ease the transition.
Lt. Will Watty, from Atlanta, carried a 6-foot surfboard with him in hopes of catching some waves in Hawaii.
The decks of the giant warship were lined bow to stern with formations of waving sailors as she pulled out of port at 9:15 a.m.
Loudspeakers on the ship played the song "Hero" by Chad Kroeger from the "Spider-man" soundtrack. Someone shouted "God bless the Nimitz!" and relatives on the pier cheered and waved American flags.
"I'm so proud of him but it's sad to see him go," said Eliza Gilman, wife of Capt. Bob Gilman, the carrier's commanding officer. The couple have lived through about eight deployments in their 25 years of marriage.
Angie Davis came to send off her husband, Cmdr. Mike Davis, and brought their three children, too. The couple has been married 18 years and it was the fourth farewell between them.
"I'm very proud of my husband," she said as she watched him walk away. "This one has been harder because we thought he's been going a couple of times."
Seaman David Wettstead, 21, of Vista was deploying about two months after his 19-year-old brother, Nathan, also a sailor, left for the gulf aboard the USS Duluth, an amphibious transport.
"It's going to be rough having two boys gone," said his mother, Marty Wettstead.
Wettstead joined the Navy in January 2002, explaining, "obviously, Sept. 11 had a huge impact on me."
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and its eight-ship battle group will head to the Persian Gulf and join five other carrier battle groups. It will take at least a month for the battle group to reach the Arabian Sea, said Cmdr. Jacquie Yost, a Navy spokeswoman.
The ships USS Chosin, USS Princeton, USS Fitzgerald, USS Rodney M. Davis and USS Bridge also set sail on Monday.
Shortly after it arrives in the region, the Nimitz will replace the USS Lincoln, based in Everett, Wash., Yost said.
Elsewhere, there were other signs of the U.S. continuing to prepare for war. The first of 14 expected American B-52 bombers landed in Britain on Monday.
Meanwhile, in Kuwait, soldiers from the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division set up camp, joining about 225,000 American troops already in the region, ready to strike.
The rest of the division's 3rd Brigade, which finished a six-month tour in Afghanistan in August, is expected to arrive by Tuesday. It will take a bit longer to finish bringing in soldiers from the division's other two brigades.
The 101st — the Army's only air assault division — has about 20,000 soldiers. The division, which is based at Fort Campbell, Ky., fired the first shots of the Gulf War from Apache helicopters. It later executed the longest and deepest air assault into enemy territory in history to defeat the Iraqi army during the 1991 Gulf War.
The division's 275 helicopters and 3,800 trucks, humvees and other pieces equipment are still in transit by ship. Once they arrive, the soldiers will go to the port to fly and drive them inland.