USS Key West makes triumphant return
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
The USS Key West made its way through the narrow channel of Pearl Harbor yesterday afternoon, with sailors in dress whites stringing a giant lei across the submarine as it rounded Hospital Point, on its way home.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
Waiting at the submarine pier were the sailors' wives, children and friends. After five months of separation the family members were anxious, and wives double-checked the cleanliness of children's faces and smoothed lei held carefully over forearms.
Brandon Anderson of the USS Key West is reunited with his wife, Megan, at Pearl Harbor. The attack submarine returned yesterday from a five-month deployment to the Arabian Sea.
"We're going to Kaua'i on Monday," said Felicia Stone, as she and her two young sons waited for her husband, Douglas Stone, the Key West's radio chief.
"This time it is going to be just mommy and daddy," she said. "This is the third deployment in four years, and we need a break."
Stone wasn't the only sailor among the 140 aboard the Key West who'd been deployed frequently. War exercises are a routine part of military life, and the sailors and their submarine had participated in them throughout their careers.
This time was different. This time war interrupted the exercise.
When the crew left in July, the submariners thought they were going to participate in another routine exercise, said Cmdr. Chuck Merkel, the submarine's captain. The Key West was to serve as part of the USS Carl Vinson battle group, demonstrating a U.S. presence in the Arabian Sea. The job was important from the start. On Sept. 11, it became much more so.
Stone said when word of the attacks made its way to the ship, the radio operators at first thought they were seeing something that wasn't real — information pertaining to an exercise that was growing more elaborate. Continued radio traffic made it clear that was not the case: The outrageous events described were real.
Merkel said that from what he later pieced together, word of the attack reached the submarine before the second hijacked airliner crashed into the second trade center tower.
Despite the immediacy, the reality remained difficult to grasp. There were no pictures or video — the submarine doesn't have television. It was the instructions that followed the information on the attacks that made it real for the men of the Key West.
The submarine stayed in the Arabian Sea for two months after receiving those orders, Merkel said. Instead of conducting exercises, the Key West was ordered to launch Tomahawk missiles into northern Afghanistan.
Everyone knew how to do exactly what they needed to do, Merkel said. They'd been trained well through countless drills and exercises over the years.
And everyone, as he knew they would, did exactly what they needed to do. The broom the Key West displayed above her sail spoke to their successes. In Navy symbolism, it brags of a clean sweep — a job well done.
"I was nothing if not proud of the men on my ship," Merkel said.
But despite the training and exercises, the men aboard the Key West, including Merkel, were faced with something new. A second disturbing reality, falling close upon the reality of the attacks against their homeland.
"I don't think anyone on the crew had ever launched a real weapon," Merkel said.
He said the reality of what they were doing came immediately and without misunderstanding.
"We knew what it meant," he said.
Stone stood on the pier with his arms around one of his children. Around him sailors hugged tearful wives, happy children and even a few pets.
Some of the young submariners clinched their eyes so tight to staunch the tears as they hugged loved ones.
Stone couldn't express yesterday how he felt about what the crew had done in the Arabian Sea.
"I just know I'm glad to be home," he said.
