THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9410210610
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Petty Officer 2nd Class James Simmons has a strategy for taking care of his two infant children while his wife is deployed aboard the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower for the next six months.
``I got everything planned to work out,'' Simmons said with a smile as he and his children, ages 1 and 2, walked to the brow of the Eisenhower, where wife and mother Ophelia Mitchell-Simmons, a third-class mess specialist, said goodbye to her husband and children.
``Now, if it will just work out like I planned,'' he added, turning for one last series of family hugs and kisses. ``That's my biggest concern.''
As the Eisenhower left Norfolk Thursday morning, leading a 14-ship battle group to the Mediterranean and possibly the Persian Gulf, it carried about 400 women among its 5,500-member crew and air wing. The deployment marks the first time women have been sent on a long cruise aboard a warship.
Master Chief Petty Officer Kevin Daley was at the pier with his children, waving goodbye to his wife, Senior Chief Petty Officer Cecilia Daley. She's an aviation ordnanceman aboard the Ike.
``I haven't deployed on a ship for 20 years,'' Daley said. ``She's been aboard five months. It is different.''
The Daleys, with three children at home - ages 2, 8 and 10 - have set up a plan for baby sitters during the day and before and after school.
Like the Mitchell-Simmons family, they will depend on family members for help while they continue their Navy jobs at home.
The Eisenhower's crew includes 16 women officers, 26 women chiefs and 198 enlisted women below chief's rank. Its air wing has 15 women officers, 15 women chiefs and 115 enlisted women below chief. That amounts to 385 to date, with 23 more women scheduled to join the crew during its deployment.
Except for the sight of fathers seeing their daughters and wives off to sea, the Navy's waterfront in Norfolk appeared as it usually does when sailors and Marines leave their homes.
There was near silence as families escorted the sailors toward the ship, helping to carry belongings, televisions, radios, musical instruments and even a fishing rod.
The quiet embraces for husbands and wives, friends and families cast a pall over the Navy's waterfront as nine of the 14 ships in the Eisenhower battle group prepared to get under way.
Watery eyes gave way to floods of tears as the time neared for the ships to leave. Women and children, walking back to their cars, cried openly, knowing this first day apart would last another 180 days, past the Christmas season and New Year's, but hopefully end before Easter in mid-April, the time the ships are due home.
To help boost morale during the deployment, the Eisenhower hopes to take advantage of a new satellite telephone system the crew can use to make less expensive calls home.
``We have a way for every sailor to communicate back to the U.S. virtually around the clock,'' said the Eisenhower's commanding officer, Capt. Mark Gemmill.
Eight telephone hookups aboard the ship, connected through a satellite to commercial telephones ashore, will allow continuous use of the system, Gemmill said. Sailors and Marines will be able to buy telephone cards, in increments of $15 and up, to make the connections.
The cost will be about $1 per minute, compared with about $10 per minute under a similar but older system tried earlier on other ships.
``It's significantly different from the days when a spouse had a problem, sent a letter, and a week to 10 days lapsed. Then, you'd write an answer and sometimes as much as a month would pass to get an answer,'' Gemmill said.
``This will make it a lot nicer and should remove a lot of the fear of the unknown that really degrades the quality of life and morale,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Kimberly Palmer, 7, leaves Pier 12 Thursday as her mother - aboard
the carrier Eisenhower - begins a six-month deployment in the Med.
Photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Jerome Smith, 13, hugs his mother, Fe, at the Norfolk Naval Station
Thursday as the carrier Eisenhower, carrying her husband, Chief
Petty Officer Richard Smith, deploys.
KEYWORDS: WOMEN IN THE MILITARY U.S. NAVY DEPLOYMENTS by CNB