THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 28, 1996 TAG: 9606280445
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 181 lines
Loose ends abound in these dwindling hours. Robert Hallstein hustles down a narrow passageway lined with rubber hoses and dungaree-clad sailors, a list of those unfinished tasks in mind.
He zig-zags through tunnels of steel and exposed piping, sidesteps a blue-flamed blowtorch, squeezes past a forklift laden with warm soda. Shouts and grunts and the whine of machinery fill the air.
Through one hatch he hurries, then another, new shouts surrounding him now, new rumbles and gratings. Then Hallstein bursts through a third hatch and onto the sunlit, humid hangar deck of the aircraft carrier Enterprise.
It is busy with cranes swinging pallets of equipment, food and supplies aboard a ship that juts nearly a quarter-mile into Norfolk's Elizabeth River. For at the week's end - at noon today - the Enterprise and its roughly 5,500 souls will back into the river and head across the Atlantic.
The nuclear-powered carrier will leave port on its first major deployment in nearly six years, following the most extensive overhaul in Navy history.
Accompanied by a dozen smaller ships, it will project American presence into two of the world's hottest hot spots, the shell-pocked former Yugoslavia and the Persian Gulf.
And it is Hallstein's job, as command master chief - the senior enlisted man aboard - to help ensure that the Big E is ready.
``On a smaller ship, you have a chance to have closer relationships with people,'' the 37-year-old CMC says, striding briskly across the yawning hangar deck.
``But here, it's crazy. Everybody just sees me running around the ship.''
The Enterprise had been in the yards for so long that when Hallstein got his orders to report aboard earlier this year, he assumed he was bound for Newport News Shipbuilding.
It was October 1990, before the fighting started in Desert Storm, when the carrier turned up the James River for refueling. What followed was a massive facelift that affected all 3,500 of the ship's spaces, boosted its brains and brawn with state-of-the-art electronics, essentially turned a gray-haired flattop into a modern factory of war.
Today, all that work is put to the test.
The crew, average age 19, is scrambling to prepare the ship for departure as Hallstein weaves from one meeting to the next, from one last-minute problem to another.
The magnitude of the effort is made clear with a glance at the provisions rolled aboard: The Enterprise leaves the pier with 870 pounds of American cheese, 990 pounds of cottage cheese, 3,360 big cans of smooth peanut butter, and 2,280 two-pound jars of grape jelly.
Lockers are packed with 930 cans of tuna, each weighing more than four pounds, and half a ton of king crab legs. Cooks struggling to serve 12,000 to 15,000 meals per day won't take long to whiz through the 5,000 50-pound bags of whole potatoes they've stored.
Nor the 7,312 pounds of hot dogs.
Nor the 300 pounds of ground thyme.
Nor the maximum load of 25,876 bayou-style stuffed chicken breasts.
``When you load it, it puts it in perspective,'' Hallstein says. ``It's all loaded by hand.'' He steps around a sailor unpacking cases of salsa. ``Wonder how much of that stuff we're taking on.''
The sailor, sweating, shoots an exasperated glance the CMC's way. ``Too much!'' he hollers.
By 10:24 a.m., when Hallstein enters a small classroom deep in the ship's innards, his day is five hours old. He's been aboard since an hour before the Enterprise's 6:30 a.m. muster, checking off his tasks on a scribbled list that never stops growing. He'll stay aboard until the evening's waning hours.
Fourteen sailors await him in the classroom, all new arrivals to the Enterprise crew. One of Hallstein's myriad duties is to welcome them aboard.
``Whether this is your first ship, your second, or your third, you're going to see that this ship is different,'' he tells them. ``The Enterprise is a different ship.''
He scans the young faces before him. ``What makes the Enterprise different from every other nuclear-powered aircraft carrier?''
Several men speak up: ``The reactors.''
``How many are there?''
``Eight,'' they chime - four times the number on the other nuclear carriers, a relic of the ship's late-1950s design.
``That's right,'' the CMC nods. ``And because we have eight reactors, we give up something.'' He pauses. ``Space. We give up space.
``Quarters are a little more cramped aboard the Enterprise. It's something we need to keep in mind, that we're all living a little more closely together.''
The men nod. They've seen their accommodations: cream-colored metal racks stacked three high, shouldered against the small lockers in which they'll stow all of their belongings for the next six months.
``I want to talk for a moment,'' Hallstein continues, ``about responsibility.
``Anywhere you go, in Hampton Roads or San Diego or anywhere else as a sailor, you're going to hear, `Welcome.' You're welcome because you're employed, because you're an employee of the government, because you're an employee of the United States Navy.
``When it becomes a problem, and where the responsibility comes in, is if you don't remember that.''
The speech is a warning against getting into financial trouble, an all-too-easy trap for new sailors who've never had a regular paycheck, let alone credit. The ship actually teaches its younger arrivals how to balance a checkbook.
``When a guy is getting collection letters, his mind is somewhere else,'' the CMC says. ``It isn't here. And when you're walking around those jet engines on the flight deck, I want you here.
``OK, any other questions? Comments?''
They stare back at him.
He grins. ``One more thing. If you have a choice between taking your peacoat and cramming those 42 cans of tuna into your locker to get you through the first three months, you better bring your peacoat.
``Because if you've never been to Naples, Italy, in the winter, standing watch, you don't know cold.''
Naples is on the itinerary for the cruise starting today, as are some of the Navy's other frequent ports of call in the Med. It will be the first trip to the center of the ancient world for many aboard the ship.
The deployment will be far from the Enterprise's first to the region, however. Since its 1961 commissioning, the carrier many times has rumbled through the Med's sparkling waters, along with those of seas around the globe. Its history coincides with some of the Navy's most memorable moments: Enterprise was in the Caribbean for the Cuban Missile Crisis, in the Atlantic for the recovery of astronaut John Glenn's Friendship 7, off the coast of Vietnam.
And each deployment has started with wrenching goodbyes on the ship's pier, an experience sure to be repeated this morning. Hallstein, whose 15th wedding anniversary falls next month, will part with his wife and three children. He'll do it while thousands of other farewells happen at the same time.
The trip will mark a parting of a different sort, as well. The hangar deck, empty now, will begin filling with jet fighters and bombers when the air wing begins joining the Enterprise off the Virginia Capes later today.
Among those jets will be the A-6 Intruder, a noisy, snub-nosed, cicada-like workhorse that can take a battering and carry an awesomely heavy payload. The Enterprise's deployment is the A-6's last; the plane will be retired upon the ship's return.
One sailor isn't waiting that long to leave the country's service. He saunters into Hallstein's tiny office on the carrier's main deck, discharge papers clutched in his hand. ``I'm shipping out,'' he announces.
Hallstein looks up from his to-do list of three days before, with only a few duties marked as completed. ``Where you going?''
The man sheepishly crosses the short span of blue tile between the door and the CMC's Navy-gray steel desk. ``Dallas,'' he says, looking around. Fat pipes snake up the walls and swarm the ceiling. The walls are plain steel bulkheads. One bears a message: ``Attitude is everything!''
``Why you checking out?'' Hallstein asks, his tone one of curiosity, not challenge.
The sailor chuckles, shakes his head, seems at a loss, finally blurts out: ``It's time to go.''
Hallstein nods. ``Let me ask you one question,'' he says, taking the man's paperwork, ``and then I'll give you this back.
``If you could change one thing aboard the Enterprise - if you could be C.O. for a day - what would that one thing be?''
The man doesn't know it, but the CMC asks every departing sailor this question; he's found that some problems he hears about - not many, but some - are a snap to fix.
The sailor ponders the question, eyes rolled toward the ceiling. ``The working hours,'' he says.
``What would you change about them?''
``Well, it'd be good to have them, like, 8 to 3.''
``8 a.m. to 3 p.m.?''
``Yeah,'' the man says.
Hallstein nods, signs the paperwork, watches the man leave. This is not one of the problems that would be easy to fix: Hours are long on deployment, very long. Sailors sleep on their feet in slack periods, catnap through the thudding and clangs and hisses of shipboard landings and takeoffs.
``Well,'' Hallstein sighs to himself. ``Jiminy.''
He glances down at his list. So much to do.
And heads for the door. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
With the carrier Enterprise looming overhead, trucks line up to load
their cargo.
VICKI CRONIS photos
The Virginian-Pilot
Command Master Chief Robert Hallstein talks to new sailors in a
small classroom deep in the Enterprise's innards. One of his
countless duties is warning rookies of hazards ranging from credit
problems to failing to pack a peacoat.
INSIDE: A full-page tracking chart of the Enterprise's Mediterranean
seployment/A8 by CNB