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Wow…
I just came from an extremely exciting and eye opening experience off the coast of San Diego on the USS Ronald Reagan Navy aircraft carrier!
I was lucky enough to experience a day in the life on board a huge aircraft carrier and I also got to speak with over a dozen officers and proud men and women on active duty serving in the U.S. Navy. The event was put together by the Navy Recruiting Command and their African American ad agency of record, Global Hue.
I could have sent someone else on the HBCUConnect staff to attend the event and bring back their perspective on the Navy and things that might be of interest to our audience, but I wanted to personally talk to folks in the Navy and also experience what life might be like on an aircraft carrier so that I could give you my raw and uncut impressions. I must say that at the very least, I was quite impressed! Not only for the obvious things, such as being able to see the equipment, the huge ship we landed on, and the fighter jets, but I was more impressed by the sense of mission, teamwork and accomplishment displayed by the officers and enlistees I spoke with.
So let me tell you some of the highlights of my trip in sort of a timeline…
Tuesday April 14th 2009:
I left Columbus, Ohio heading to San Diego, California and arrived around 4pm or so. I packed crazy light. I think I had to wear some clothes twice by the time I went home on Friday April 17th J. I met up with Lieutenant D.J. Holmes with the US Navy and also Lloryn Love with GlobalHue. They were kind enough to shuttle me from the airport to the Navy Lodge at the Naval Station in San Diego. The lodge was actually pretty nice. Kind of a mix between a Hampton Inn and a Residence Inn. I was impressed.
Later that evening, we went to dinner with several folks from different black media organizations and some of the African American officers that happened to be stationed in the San Diego area. At dinner I was able to talk to 4 different officers that had some pretty interesting stories to tell, but each of them had positive things to say about their experience and achievements in the Navy. I felt pretty proud of them. One of the officers I spoke with was actually a Navy pilot! He explained how there were not many black pilots in the Navy but there were definitely opportunities, and for him it was always his dream to be able to fly different types of aircrafts. He had piloted everything from Helicopters to Jet Fighter planes.
Wednesday April 15th 2009:
We left the Navy Lodge and headed over to the Naval base where we would leave as a group on a flight to head out to the USS Ronald Reagan ( www.reagan.navy.mil ). We ate breakfast on the Navy base. The food was not bad at all.
That morning we learned a lot about the Navy in general and got a briefing on the USS Ronald Regan and the other ships in the Navy’s fleet. The interesting thing that morning was that we were all going to fly from San Diego to the aircraft carrier on a prop plane and land on the short runway on top of the ship… See, the interesting thing there is that because the runway is not like a normal runway, the way that the airplanes stop without going over the edge of the ship is that they have a hook on the back of the plane and on the deck of the ship they have these super strong cables that, if done correctly, the pilot can land and stop the plane by catching the hook on the cable, with all of us on board petrified J.
Well, we took off, flew for about 45 minutes and then right when everybody was falling into that light sleep about to start drooling and what not, we landed, and on the first attempt our pilot got the plane to hook up on deck and in a pretty intense 2 second jerk, we came to a complete stop, and I almost lost my breakfast! Everybody else seemed to be pumped up so I just looked forward to getting off the plane and getting some fresh air!
Wow… We were out in ocean on an aircraft carrier! We saw a gang of F-18 fighter jets, a few helicopters and a crew hard at work. We went below deck and immediately were met by the captain, his crew, and some REALLY good cookies! We’d be trying to find more of those cookies over the following 24 hours but I digress… The captain greeted our group, and was really straight forward and professional. I was impressed with the crew of folks we met and I felt we were definitely in good hands.
That afternoon and evening we got to go on a tour of the ship and have dinner with some of the Navy crew working on the ship in different capacities. I think the highlight of my evening was getting to go up on the bridge and watch the F-18 fighter pilots practicing the landings and take offs from the deck of the aircraft carrier in the dark of the night. You could see it took serious skill, but not only skill from the pilots but also skill for everyone else involved in the procedures. You know another interesting thing we got to see that evening was the actual control room where the ship was being guided through the waters. The guy guiding the ship was maybe only 20 years old! Of course there were higher ranking individuals there giving orders but these young men and women had serious responsibilities on the ship.
That night we actually got to sleep on the aircraft carrier. The F-18 jets were landing and taking off above our heads until 2am. It was super loud and I knew most folks would not be able to sleep through it, but me, I slept like a baby!
Thursday April 16th 2009:
We started out early on Thursday morning with breakfast with the enlisted folks on the ship. The food was pretty good, though I didn’t eat much because I remembered we were going to have an intense take off from the flight deck that afternoon.
We spent the morning taking a further look around the ship where we saw just about everything! There was a worship area, an internet ‘café’, several eating areas, and many more things that would make your jaw drop, but most of the action was on deck where the planes were coming in and taking off.
After a nice lunch with some of the officers and commanders on the ship, we prepared for take off, which most everyone described as being pretty exciting and intense since the planes have to be catapulted off of the deck since the runway is not long enough for a normal take off. So we put on our head gear and life jackets and boarded the plane for the take off to head back to San Diego… To my surprise the take off was not that bad! It was like 2 seconds of extreme G-Force and then we were floating in the air on our way home!
The Recap:
Ok so you might be wondering, “what’s the point?”
The point is, the Navy has serious opportunities for African Americans! You might think the military is not for you, but if you are trying to get an education, a career and follow your dreams, you may want to give the Navy a serious look. Why? I’ll give you two very good reasons: (1) You can get significant tuition assistance from the Navy and (2) you can get paid!
With all of the money drying up for financial aid and scholarships etc, we as African Americans need to be made aware of the opportunities that exist that we can take advantage of and then be open minded enough to pursue these opportunities and see if they would help you reach your goals and dreams…
I was made aware of at least 11 programs that offered scholarship money for college and also monthly stipends! So if you or someone you know is looking at options for paying for college or just looking to do something with themselves to have a better life and a future career, the easiest thing to do would be to check out www.MyNavyMyFuture.com.
Now peep some of the pictures from the event!
Moss
Posted Wednesday, April 29th 2009 at 4:33PM
by: William Roger Moss III
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