THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 21, 1996 TAG: 9607210052
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRTIER
LENGTH: 129 lines
In their churning, luminescent wakes lie thousands of miles of ocean, the war-ravaged Balkans, the restless, confused streets of Monrovia.
They leave behind weeks spent parked in the sultry Adriatic, hour upon vigilant hour in the skies over Bosnia, and a heartbreaking visit to the Black Sea.
At long last - after six months at sea and a cruise that saw its ships steam off the shores of three continents - the George Washington Battle Group is headed home.
Its centerpiece, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington, is off Bermuda today, steaming west toward its Tuesday-morning arrival at the Norfolk Naval Station.
Around it are scattered 14 other ships, all but one from Norfolk or the Little Creek Amphibious Base, all charging toward Hampton Roads, all of their crews counting down the hours to the end of a busy deployment that began Jan. 26.
The destroyers Conolly and Arthur W. Radford are among them, as are the nuclear-powered attack submarines Scranton and Baltimore.
So are the guided missile cruiser San Jacinto and the guided missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts, the guided missile destroyers Barry and Stout, the oiler Merrimack.
Alongside steams the Guam Amphibious Ready Group - the helicopter amphibious assault ship Guam, the amphibious transport dock Trenton, the dock landing ships Portland and Tortuga, their decks crowded with Marines eager for home after long waits off the former Yugoslavia and dicey days ashore in civil war-ravaged Liberia.
In all, more than 13,000 sailors and Marines will return stateside Tuesday and Wednesday.
``Short of Christmas morning, let me tell you, Tuesday morning is as good as it gets,'' Capt. John G. Morgan Jr., commander of Destroyer Squadron 26, said late Friday aboard the ``GW.''
``There's an extra spring in peoples' steps, smiles are a little bit wider, and there's a lot of good mood to go around,'' he said. ``We're all going to be a bunch of big kids.''
``We're pumped up,'' agreed Cmdr. David N. Thorson of Virginia Beach, commanding the Stout on its maiden cruise. ``All the sailors on Stout are excited about getting back to the United States.
``They're looking forward to spending some time in their favorite port in the whole world: home port.''
The deployment has seen the battle group's ships scattered across the waters off Europe, Africa and Asia almost from the day they reached Gibraltar. The crews of one ship only rarely caught sight of another, and some in the group found themselves thousands of miles and several time zones from their sisters.
``That's almost the nature of deployment these days, and the destroyers are really key to that,'' Morgan said.
Accompanied by the Conolly, the Guam Amphibious Ready Group left the Med for the west coast of Africa, where Marines choppered into Monrovia to safeguard the American embassy during fighting in the Liberian capital.
The George Washington, off the coast of Bosnia in March, steamed through the Suez Canal and into the Persian Gulf to help enforce the ``no-fly'' zone over southern Iraq. Its aviators flew 8,000 missions there and in Europe.
The Barry, Stout and San Jacinto took turns providing ground troops and allied aircraft in the former Yugoslavia with an ``air picture'' of the skies over the Adriatic, using their arrays of electronic detection equipment.
The Samuel B. Roberts backed up United Nations peacekeepers with patrols off the coast.
``And while all that was going on, we had a ship participating in a major United States diplomatic effort, called Partnership for Peace,'' Morgan said. ``That ship was operating in the Black Sea, visiting the former Soviet Union and also Bulgaria and Romania.
``One of the most touching things we were involved with occurred up in Romania, which has 25 percent of all the pediatric AIDS cases in all of Europe,'' he said. ``We visited an orphanage. We actually restored the orphanage, and we had the kids aboard ship for cookies and milk.''
Of the 178 days the Stout will have spent on this deployment, the ship will have been underway for 123, Thorson said, and its 55 days in port have been split among 14 different cities.
``We've been scattered,'' Thorson said. ``But that's what we get paid for when we're on deployment, is to be overseas, on station, and ready to answer the call when necessary.
``I can't say enough about the absolutely superb performance of my sailors as ambassadors both on land and afloat. If there's a message I could carry back to their families and friends, it's how proud they ought to be.''
As the battle group nears the East Coast, the ammunition ship Mount Baker will peel away to the south, headed for its home port in Charleston, S.C.
The amphibious ready group will slide southward, as well, discharging its Marines in North Carolina before pulling into the Norfolk Naval Station and Little Creek Wednesday morning.
The George Washington's air wing will catapult off the carrier Monday morning, the first of its fighters and attack planes arriving at Oceana Naval Air Station at about 8 a.m.
The rest of the battle group, 10 ships, will turn into the Elizabeth River and sidle up to Norfolk Naval Station piers between 8 and 11 a.m. Tuesday.
``These days are the days,'' Thorson said, ``when guys really do look back and are able to laugh at themselves, and really appreciate what they've done during this deployment.''
``We're peaking right about now,'' Morgan said, ``and we're going to stay peaked. And I think a part of that is the sense of accomplishment in what we've achieved. There's a quiet confidence about what we've done, and it enriches the moment a little bit more.''
As the excitement among the ships' crews grows palpable, so it does in households awaiting loved ones throughout Hampton Roads.
At the Virginia Beach home of Laurie McGhee and her children, James and Donovan, anticipation has become a fever: They have a big surprise waiting for Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon McGhee, a sonar technician aboard the Arthur W. Radford.
It'll be parked on Pier 24 when the ship arrives at 8 a.m. Tuesday: a 1996 Ford Mustang Cobra, with a limited edition, iridescent paint job that changes color with the light.
``It's gonna be wrapped in a big ribbon, and driven to the pier,'' said James, who turned 9 last week. ``Like, we'll have a police cop or something drive it to the pier. Hopefully, he won't scratch it up or anything before my dad gets to it.''
``I know I'll run up and hug him,'' he said, adding that he'd help his 5-year-old brother do the same. ``I'm gonna try to beat my mom to him, because if me and Donovan don't beat my mom to him, then they'll be kissing a long time.''
Laurie McGhee said her husband admired the Cobra before leaving on the cruise.
``He's said he wanted it, but didn't think we could swing it,'' she said. ``But I've been saving money, and he had a car and I sold it while he was gone in the Med. And I've been able to replace his old car with a brand-new one.
``I figured he deserved this much for going away for six months to the Mediterranean Sea.
``What better a present than to come home to a new car, your wife and your kids?'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
KEYWORDS: U.S. NAVY by CNB