Commissioning ceremony Uss Gerald R Ford

I was at the fitness center walking on the treadmill and the TV nearby was showing the commissioning ceremony for the USS Gerald R Ford, the biggest aircraft carrier ever made.

I had been to a squadron commissioning before, with the planes behind us, standing out on the tarmac under a hot San Diego sun. I am a plank holder in VAW 114 or 113, can’t remember as I served in both, but the pomp and circumstance was nothing like today and to tell the truth at 20 some years old all I could think about was getting out of the heat. In the ceremonies and inspections there was always someone who would pass out during the ceremony.

Today July 22, 2017 I was so sympathetic of the sailors (all whitehats) standing out in the blazing heat of a Norfolk, Virginia summer. None of them faded away. The president and the admiral and the captain and the executive officer were all in the shade of the hanger bay along with dignitaries and who knows who else. The president seemed so presidential as he read from the teleprompter for 15 minutes before he became the candidate once again. The ceremony with the captain and the executive officer setting the first watch was magnificent. I was spell bound. When they called the first Officer of the deck to set the first watch it was terrific. The boson blew the pipe to signal the watch and afterward the crew was directed to board the ship. All the white hats ran from their positions on the pier to man the rails while the band played ‘Anchors Away’ and I was choked up it was so moving.

Maybe it is my age that made me so emotional, I do not know but it was the best thing I have seen in a long time. The president mentioned that the average of the crew manning this giant aircraft carrier was 20 years old, running the most high-tech ship that has ever been built. I feel a sense of pride that America still produces young people that are capable and able to do that.

The Ford will be sent to the Pacific after its shakedown cruise to project US power in the far-east. I wish them well and pray for their safety. That area of the world is fraught with danger beyond what ships were exposed to when I was aboard them in the sixties and seventies. Of course the flight deck crews on any aircraft carrier in the past and in the future are in danger every time the air boss calls air operations to commence. Whenever flight operations are going on and pilots are trying to land a jet at 160 knots on a postage stamp that is traveling 40 knots and the landing pad is rising and falling from 2-10 feet or more every few seconds there is danger of a very bad landing, crash and burn is always a possibility. Those on the flight deck are subject to explosions, raging fire and arresting gear that can snap and sent a 4 inch diameter steel cable whipping across the deck that can sever an ankle or a leg without even slowing down.

I pray this new crew does not have to release the awesome power aboard this ship in battle, but I fear they will, if not sooner, than later. God bless the US navy and its crews on board carriers and all the ships that escort them.