March 30, 2003
BOARD U.S.S. ABRAHAM LINCOLN in the Persian Gulf, March 29 — This 97,000-ton nuclear-powered warship, the largest in the world, is a floating city whose diversity and social complexity easily rival those of its counterparts on land.
With roughly 5,200 people aboard, this might be considered a given. But sailors with more than 20 years of service say they remember when the typical carrier crew was overwhelmingly white and male.
"When I first came in, my first ship had all the lingering military racial problems left over from the 70's," said Chief Petty Officer Bill Farley, 44, who has been in the Navy 22 years and runs the carrier's personnel department. The only reason women were not an issue then, Chief Farley said, was that they were not allowed on ships at sea until the early 1980's.
Because of a major push for equal opportunity in the 1980's, the mix began to change. The ethnic and sexual composition of the crew might not be up to that of the corporate world. But by military markers it is a model of advancement. The population is divided into two main groups: the surface crew, or ship's company, and the air wing, the nine combat flight squadrons that use the carrier as their mobile airport. The rest of the population is made up of private staffs and scattered civilian consultants.
Roughly 63 percent of the crew are white, 14 percent African-American, 12 percent Hispanic, 6 percent Asian-Pacific islander, 3 percent Native American and 2 percent "other." About 10 percent are women, less than the percentage in the civilian workplace. Almost 90 percent of the officers are white. Of the 79 fighter pilots, 3 are black.
As with the rest of the military, this is a stratified society. The officer and enlisted populations remain largely segregated. Enlisted crew members eat in mess halls, and the majority sleep in cramped berthing spaces that hold from 50 to more than 200. Officers eat in separate wardrooms and sleep in staterooms. They have their own passageways and stairways, which enlisted crew members are not allowed to use.
"Some officers are really uppity," said Petty Officer Adrian Sims, a graphic designer in the ship's print shop and photography laboratory. "But not all of them. There are some who will kick it with us."
Petty Officer Sims, from Ozark, Ala., is representative of several demographic clusters on the ship. He is 22, the average age of the carrier's crew members. He joined the Navy for its tuition reimbursement program, the primary draw for most recruits, Chief Farley said.
"Before the average person was coming in to go to foreign countries, drink and meet women," Chief Farley said. "Now the kids are coming in focused on education."
Within this ship's many divisions are people and groups bucking the trends.
Evelyn Banks, the senior enlisted sailor in the air wing, is the first black woman to reach the rank of command master chief petty officer in an air wing and the ninth black woman to reach the rank in the Navy.
"I just happen to be a woman and happen to be black," said Command Master Chief Banks, a Memphis native who has been in the Navy for 19 years. "It is the skills and training that pull you through."
In the reactor department, the carrier's constantly pumping heart, which powers the ship, purifies its water and generates its electricity and the steam for the catapults that launch the aircraft, a sexual revolution of sorts is being waged.
While 37 of the 440 people in the department are women, they account for roughly 40 percent of the 30 reactor officers. Six of the nine division officers, the equivalent of corporate midlevel managers, are women. Though the Naval Academy graduated its first women more than 20 years ago, the influx of women in the reactor division has occurred only in the last five years or so, said Cmdr. Lang Reese, the top reactor officer.
These highly visible, fast-advancing women aboard the Abraham Lincoln call themselves "the reactor chicks."
"We're sort of an anomaly," said Lt. Eileen Kane, 25, a Naval Academy graduate and division officer for the reactor department's electronic controls section. "But as the Navy has built up the nuclear community, they've really tried to encourage women, and we're very competitive from the time we come in."