Aircraft carrier tunes up in war games off Hawai'i
By Karen Blakeman
Advertiser Staff Writer
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
The USS Carl Vinson, the 90,000-ton floating city and airfield that pulled into Pearl Harbor yesterday, is back from two weeks of war games in Hawai'i waters.
Sailors make their way from the USS Carl Vinson at Pearl Harbor after two weeks of war games. CNN has reported that the Vinson may replace the Japan-based USS Kitty Hawk as tensions rise over North Korea's nuclear program.
Soon, it might be time to put away the toys. Again.
Capt. Rick Wren, commanding officer of the Bremerton, Wash.-based vessel, was coy about the next assignment yesterday afternoon but said a trip through the Arabian Sea, as the country gears for war with Iraq, is one of the possibilities. CNN quoted Pentagon sources later in the day as saying the Pentagon is also considering replacing the USS Kitty Hawk, now homeported in Japan, with the Vinson, as tensions increase over North Korea's resumption of its nuclear weapons program.
"These decisions are made by people a lot bigger than I am," Wren said, glasses glinting as he stood on the 4.5-acre flight deck of the ship. Behind him sat a cargo airplane and to his left, an HH-60 helicopter, its tail folded neatly behind it. In front of him were row upon row of F-14 and F/A-18 fighters.
"Right now, I'm living life in four-day chunks, in what one might call uncertainty," he said. "But we've been flying aircraft as hard as we can; flying 10- and 12-hour days and getting into battle rhythm ... "
Wren said he is awaiting word from the president or secretary of defense. As far as the type of work that needs to be done, the war games the Vinson has played against troops based in Hawai'i for the past two weeks won't be very different from the actions the crew would be required to take in a war against Iraq, he said.
"If we have to take that extra step ... If we have to load the aircraft with the green bombs with the yellow stripe instead of the blue ones, well, then so be it," he said.
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When the airplanes are loaded with real bombs before launch, and return without them, Wren said, "you know then that something is very wrong with the world."
USS Carl Vinson Damage Controlman Alex Montoya, sitting on the flight deck under the tail of an airplane, uses a cell phone to call family members in Albuquerque, N. M. The Arizona Memorial looms in the background.
The Carl Vinson serves as the flagship for the Carl Vinson Battle Group, which consists of the cruiser USS Antietam, destroyer USS Lassen, frigate USS Ingraham, and combat support ship USS Sacramento.
Wren and other members of the battle group have seen action before. When terrorists flew aircraft into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, the Vinson was off the coast of India — within range of Afghanistan.
In October, when the United States launched an assault against the Taliban regime that had harbored al-Qaida, some of the first strikes were launched from the Vinson flight deck. After watching the television news coverage of national landmarks crumbling under terrorist attack, it wasn't hard to motivate the crew to do what it had to do, Wren said.
He gets defensive when asked whether the motivation will be as easy to maintain for attacks against a country that has not been so directly involved in an attack against the homeland, and in a war that has been met with protests reminiscent of the Vietnam era.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser
"Maybe part of the U.S. is beginning to forget," Wren said, shifting his weight to his toes and leaning forward, his body, from ankles to nose, angling toward the flight deck. "But the Carl Vinson Battle Group isn't going to forget 11 September oh-one, and we're ready to go.
Crewmen on the USS Carl Vinson work on a Sea Hawk helicopter, left, while F/A-18 fighters sit tied up on the flight deck on the right. Homes in Halawa Heights form a backdrop for the carrier.
"Mr. President," he said. "I'm awaiting your call."
The Carl Vinson was last in Hawai'i a year ago after returning from Enduring Freedom.
Bernadette Agustin, a Kane'ohe woman under Wren's command, is waiting, too.
Seven months ago, after deciding that seeing the world was a more exciting notion than continuing classes at Kapi'olani Community College, Agustin joined the Navy. She was recently assigned to the Vinson.
"My life has changed so much," she said. "I feel like I'm so grown up now."
She looked nervous, but committed, when asked about the prospect of war. Agustin wants to make a career of the Navy. She enjoys her job as a mess specialist, but hopes to transfer at some point to the medical field.
"I think it is good," she said of the possibility of being called to a war zone. "We'll go, so the war will stop. And then we'll have peace."
Reach Karen Blakeman at 535-2430 or kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.
