A night on the USS Ronald Reagan

BY ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Sleep is elusive.
Night aboard the USS Ronald Reagan is a discordant orchestra, a giant washing machine tossing a handful of forgotten pocket change.
In the gentle roll of the ship, a loose door somewhere nearby swings open and shut with a metallic thunk. Behind the steady whir of the air conditioning vent is a deep throbbing growl, a constant, distant thunder.
I stare up at the gray metal of the bunk above me as the coils of the flimsy mattress dig into my back. I try to imagine six months out here, countless miles from home, family and life a distant abstraction, the slowly listing ship the only familiar sensation…

In a hangar at Santa Barbara Municipal Airport, a flight officer is going through the preflight safety briefing. His name and every second word are lost in the angry rumble of the C-2A Greyhound’s twin props buzzing outside.
I manage to catch a few shouted phrases. “She’s a good old plane. That’s about all I can say.” The emphasis rests on old as he warns us about dripping hydraulic fluid and fuel.
I throw on my flotation horse collar and cranial, a Skywalker-esque helmet with a set of dingy, scratched goggles. As an airman leads the way out to the tarmac, the Greyhound sits before me, its wings folded back like a preening hawk.
I climb into the dimly lit cargo hold and harness myself into a bucket seat, facing back toward the ramp as it slowly closes, locking out almost every gleam of natural light save a glimmer from two small windows in the rear. After seemingly endless maneuvering, the whine of the props sharpens and the plane leaps forward with a jackrabbit kick.
Fifteen uneventful minutes later, the flight officer gestures to lower goggles and prepare for landing. My legs are steeled against the grungy floor as I wipe my clammy hands along my jeans.
The officer’s voice finally crackles over the intercom — “Here we go!” — and he pumps his fist in the air. Time stops. Blood pounds in the vise grip of the cranial. I lean my head back and breathe deeply.
The wheels hit the deck with a shunk. The Greyhound’s tail hook catches an arresting cable with a whirring rip. Pressed back into the seat as the plane slams to a halt, my breath catches in my throat.
After moments of jockeying, the ramp lowers. Three sailors in flight deck suits stand in the distance looking unimpressed, arms crossed over their yellow vests. Behind them, the Pacific glows with a neoteric blue, its surface pocked with crests of glittering white.
As I shuffle single-file with the other passengers across the deck toward the island, the horizon dips out of view as the carrier pitches back and forth, my legs unsteady as I fight to keep my footing.
After clambering through a metal doorway, I head down a ladder and line up along the wall in a narrow passageway as sailors collect flight gear and start bringing in baggage. Uniformed men and women squeeze past and disappear out of sight around one corner or another. I grab my single duffel bag and follow Ens. Tim Hawkins as he winds through a maze of ladders, hallways and oval hatch doors.
After a momentary stop at the six-man stateroom to drop off luggage, I keep my eyes locked on the tan uniform of Ens. Hawkins as he works his way through another twisting, narrow route that finally opens into the vastness of the hangar bay.
Waves sweep by the ship, their foamy white tops gleaming as the massive deck-edge elevator lowers from the flight deck with a load of machinery. The enormity of the three-chambered hangar deck seems doubled by the absence of the air wing.
Worming back through the florescent innards of the ship, I arrive in a control room paneled with four flatscreen televisions, one running a live feed of a helicopter on deck, its massive rotors bouncing in the 45-knot winds.
A flight deck chief sits behind an exact-scale replica of the deck littered with miniature aircraft. Almost as though playing with toys, he moves them around the board; during operations, actual aircraft on deck mimic his moves to the nth degree.
On the move again, I pass a group of men gathered around a large flatscreen television in a break room, Halo 3 guns chattering. In narrow passages, pipes winding enigmatically with cables and wires above, I pass doors with menacing labels — Weapons Office and Nuclear Reactor Division — on my way to the mess hall.
With already-aching feet, I pile my plate with mashed potatoes, pizza, salad, chicken and rolls. The roll of the ship seems heightened when seated and I try to steady my queasy stomach as I wolf down the surprisingly inoffensive chow. Nearby, men in olive-drab flight suits, likely from the helicopter squadron aboard, sit down to their own meals.
Passing through more indistinguishable tunnels, I’m led to the combat direction center. A panel on the door warns against unauthorized personnel. Ens. Hawkins ducks inside to alert the officers inside to clear their screens of sensitive information.
In the dimly lit room, a wall of screens glows with green, sweeping lines and cryptic lines of code. One screen plays shots of the RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile blasting up from a flight deck and pulling high Gs as it whips toward its target.
Leaving the dark pit of the CDC, I climb more corrugated-metal ladder steps behind Ens. Hawkins and find myself back at the stateroom. Its metal drawers and cabinets, fold-down desks, metal sink, and six bunks — stacked three to a wall — are all lit with incessantly buzzing fluorescent lights.
I spread the gray woolen blanket, emblazoned with “U.S.” in navy blue, over paper-thin sheets. Pulling them back, I climb in and roll to my back, feet pressed against the cold metal wall as I flick off the overhead light and pull the blue curtain shut.
Seven sleepless hours later, I’m piling breakfast onto my plate — eggs, bacon, waffles, fruit — and scalding my tongue with black coffee. CNN Headline News plays on a flatscreen in the officer’s mess. I rub my eyes and try to focus on the screen.
I find temporary relief for my pounding temples in the chapel. Sounds of the ship are lost within its wood-paneled walls and for a moment I forget I’m encased in 47,000 tons of floating steel. The respite is brief and soon I’m back up on the flight deck with a panoramic view of Santa Barbara stretched out in the distance.
Drooping rotors on two gray helicopters slowly spring to life, thumping through the morning air as burly, camo-swathed men patrol the deck with automatic weapons gleaming menacingly in the sun. After the choppers finally lift away from the deck and roll off on a southerly bearing, I stagger back to the island and through the narrow halls.
Emerging again into the brilliant sunlight, I leap between the rear landing of the carrier and a swaying barge. Men work quickly to loosen the thick ropes and the boat pulls away cleanly.
Gazing back at the looming carrier as the barge churns toward the harbor, thoughts start to flood back from that sleepless night. But with familiar land approaching, my mind rebels against the contemplation of months at sea, turning instead to visions of a searing shower and the solace of my bed.