On the last leg of a long journey to its home port of San Diego in the spring of 2003, the USS Constellation was abuzz with anticipation. The aircraft carrier had spent seven months on a combat mission in the Persian Gulf. The 5,000 sailors and pilots onboard were war-weary and homesick.
I’d boarded the ship in Seattle. The Navy allowed some family and friends to join the crew for the last week of its 8,000-mile journey back to the U.S. and my college roommate, a fighter pilot on the Constellation, had invited me. That thousand-mile leg was to be the ship’s final voyage; it was decommissioned later that summer.
Describing the sheer scale of an aircraft carrier is almost impossible. The Constellation was a floating city of men and women who worked around the clock in a ballet of perfect precision. The flight deck was four acres, large enough for dozens of aircraft to be parked, moved, armed, launched and landed in tightly choreographed sequences.
It’s dangerous work, launching and landing jets from a pitching and rolling deck of an aircraft carrier. The Constellation had lost one of its pilots during the mission in the Persian Gulf. He’d gotten disoriented on a night mission and had crashed into the black water and died.
Even outside the war zone, risk was constant. An escort was by my side at all times on the flight deck, which I felt unnecessary until a jet blast nearly knocked me off my feet. But, for me, the most powerful moment of the entire trip came as we neared the Naval Base of San Diego.
In the hours before our homecoming, the mood onboard had shifted from eager anticipation to pure euphoria. Everyone was hurrying to prepare for that long-awaited reunion, by turns excited and anxious. Would the toddler reach for his father or turn away in fear? Would the sweetheart be waiting patiently on the pier? What kind of toll had those long months of worry taken on mom and dad?
As we moved slowly into the harbor, we caught sight of the massive crowd gathered on the pier. Thousands were waiting there with signs and balloons and flowers, their cheers rising in the air and washing over the ship like a mighty wave.
Docking the ship was an agonizingly slow process. The sailors lined the rails of the ship, a sea of blue and white in their dress uniforms, scanning the crowd for their loved ones. Then, finally, the gangplanks were lowered and there was a rush of sailors down to the tearful embrace of their families.
That memory still moves me deeply. This Memorial Day, let us remember the service men and women who serve, or have served, in our armed forces. They have made profound sacrifices, risking death and enduring long separations, to protect us and provide for their families. We cannot repay them for their service; we can only remember and honor them.