THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, September 13, 1995 TAG: 9509130421
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
Set up 24,000 folding chairs on a pier? No problem. Lease a car with plenty of legroom for actor Charlton Heston? Easy. Fly 3,500 feet of purple and white taffeta bunting to the aircraft carrier George Washington cruising off the coast of Normandy? A piece of cake.
For more than a decade, partners Jim Milligan, 63, and Joe Hundley, 43, have been catering to the ceremonial needs of the Navy in Hampton Roads. When it's time for a change of command, an air show, a ship's commissioning or a VIP visit, people call Milligan or Hundley, both nicknamed ``Omar the Tent Man.''
They are the Norfolk Navy Public Works Center's ceremonial coordinators, and their territory covers events at naval installations from Cheatham Annex in Williamsburg south to Northwest Naval Security Group Activity in Chesapeake.
That meant 344 military ceremonies in 1994.
``We're maxed out at five a day,'' said Milligan, a former builder who has been the ceremonial coordinator since 1982. ``In one day this week we're setting up for the Public Works Center change of command, commissioning of the submarine Tucson, Admiral Moses' change of command, plus one on the submarine Narwhal, and one other event.
``We're like a big wheel, and it takes every little spoke to make it go,'' he said.
Milligan and Hundley's ``wheel'' provides everything except the catering for ceremonies, and they even set up and decorate the tables for that.
Their core group from the Public Works Center consists of only about 10 people; but they work closely with other support departments from the center, including wharf builders, decorators and sound technicians.
They also depend on help from Norfolk Naval Base's port operations and police departments. Milligan said that, while the team can ``work on a short fuse, we still need a minimum of two days to set things up.''
Setting things up means everything from hiring vendors who erect tents to tacking nonskid matting on ramps. Finding electrical outlets for caterers' coffee pots in the middle of a parking lot. Hanging 100-foot by 200-foot welcome home banners from cranes for returning battle groups. Meeting presidents, movie stars and generals' wives.
Milligan decorated the aircraft carrier Kennedy in 1986 for the ceremony in which President Reagan relighted the Statue of Liberty after its restoration. The team provided the pomp and circumstance for President Clinton when he was in Norfolk last fall for the last deployment of the carrier Eisenhower. And they met Jean MacArthur, widow of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, when they decorated the Chrysler Museum's courtyard for a ceremony in 1990, dedicating a wing of the museum to the general's wife.
Ceremonies are generally held outdoors - year-round - in grassy fields, on ships' decks, in parking lots. Walls can be tacked to tent canopies, in case of rain or cold weather, and heat can be blown in. But the crew doesn't air-condition tents; they just hope for a breeze on steamy days.
It can take a day or two, or longer, to set up all the platforms and tents and sound equipment for an event. Disassembly is much quicker: A parking lot or ship's deck is usually back to normal within three hours of the last guest's departure.
Hundley said he and Milligan treat the preparations for every military ceremony equally. No event is too small for their strict attention to detail.
``A retirement ceremony is just as important to that guy as it is to this admiral,'' Hundley said as he set up for Adm. Paul D. Moses' change of command last week.
Hundley had a frightening initiation into the world of ceremony coordination when he was responsible for his first event more than 10 years ago. He and his crew spent all morning decorating the bow of a ship berthed at a Norfolk Naval Base pier. Then they went to lunch.
When they came back, the ship was gone.
``Actually, what they had done was turn the ship around, so it looked completely different, with no decorations,'' Hundley laughed. ``But I didn't know what was going on. When I found out, we just started all over again and decorated the other end.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
GARY C. KNAPP
Partners Jim Milligan, 63, left, and Joe Hundley, 43, treat the
preparations for every military ceremony equally, no matter what the
size.
by CNB