March 30, 2003
BOARD THE U.S.S. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, in the Persian Gulf, March 29 — For more than half of the more than 5,500 people on this carrier, every day starts with "Happy Hour" — at 7:30 a.m., enlisted personnel take to their knees to scrub the deck, doors and toilets. This routine continues for an hour as their colleagues stumble into their "coffin racks" after a night shift. These men and women have performed their duties for more than nine months at sea now, in one of the Navy's longest deployments ever: 252 days today.
While more than 250 pilots do the flying, the rest of the crew runs this ship. More than 400 of them make sure the reactors provide the propulsion for the carrier as well as the steam that the 250 food personnel cook with. That same steam, also used to accelerate the 37-ton jets from a standstill to 180 miles an hour in less than three seconds, would have little purpose without the 420 engineers and 620 hangar and flight deck crew members who make sure the jets arrive on time, in the designated spot, with all systems "go." From dentists, chaplains, to the one man in charge of ice cream, everyone plays an important role.