During a Tiger Cruise with her Navy lieutenant daughter in the USS Nimitz (CVN-68), a Navy wife recalls the day she bid farewell to Lieutenant Barton S. Creed.
The Bay Area had been teeming with tourists, scurrying residents, and flower children when we arrived with an old friend who had made the trip with us from our home base at Naval Air Station, Lemoore, California. All of them seemed untouched by the war. They were off to tour, to work, or to "turn on," and I was sending my husband off to fight against communism a half-world away. These business-as-usual activities spinning around us were stark counterpoints to the images coming out of Vietnam on the nightly news.
I never had seen a vessel as imposing as the Ranger. She grew larger as we approached, and more foreboding. I remember thinking that she was the immediate enemy, not the North Vietnamese. After passing through security, I was allowed to go with Bart, a Navy lieutenant, into the bowels of the massive, seagoing airbase docked in Oakland. We found our way to his quarters-a cold, gray-bare cubicle with bunks, a desk, a couple of chairs, storage lockers, and little room for anything else. I shivered at the thought that such a barren place would be his home for many months to come. He, however, seemed energized by the reality that he was on his way to do what he had been trained to do.
We spent mere moments in his quarters before taking a quick tour of the carrier's innards. We peeked in the ready room, the operations center of an aviation unit. There I saw high-backed seats facing front and a blackboard where the squadron's commanding officer would spend hours briefing his pilots. It was a warmer place, in my mind.
Up and down ladders, from deck to deck, Bart led me. Abruptly, we entered the hangar deck, where huge elevators lowered aircraft for maintenance between flights. The smell was chemical and metallic, and it seemed to emanate from the eerie orange glow of the lights. I felt transported into a surreal dimension from which I was feeling a nagging urge to retreat.
Perhaps Bart sensed my unease. He led me out of the confinement and back onto the pier. We talked briefly about taking care of ourselves, about our son and daughter—neither yet two years old—and whatever other farewells sailors and loved ones have said since navies began plying the waters of the world. He circled me gently with his big, sturdy arms and told me he loved me. I responded in kind, all the while choking back tears. We clung to each other but realized simultaneously that the length of the embrace would not soften our uncoupling. Our fingers lingered on each other's arms and then tip to tip. I turned and walked away. An optimist by nature, I nevertheless felt alarm. No one would see it, though. I would go home to my babies and nurture them until he returned, the triumphant warrior. That was in October 1970.
On a March afternoon in 1971 we received word that Bart had been shot down over Laos. Though alive on the ground and able to radio his position, he acknowledged he was injured. The last words heard from him were: "Get me out now. They are here." Three rescue attempts under intense fire were futile. On the last attempt the helicopter crew noted that the enemy had laid out Bart's parachute in an entrapment maneuver used frequently to lure rescue craft closer to make them better targets. Bart was missing in action.
In May 1996, I received an invitation to go aboard a carrier again—this time to participate in what the Navy calls a Tiger Cruise. The cruises welcome relatives (but not spouses) of the crew members to come aboard as their ships return to the continental United States. I was invited by my daughter—Bart's daughter—and the Navy to cruise on the aircraft carrier Nimitz for her home leg (Honolulu-to-San Diego) after six months in the western Pacific. She had taken my daughter and her shipmates to the Middle East and into the Straits of Taiwan, where they were part of a confrontation with the Chinese government as it flexed its muscles in intimidation, aimed at disrupting free elections in Taiwan. When the Nimitz reached Hawaii, some of her personnel flew back to the mainland to prepare for her arrival, leaving empty beds for about 1,000 people.
My daughter, Lieutenant Judith Page Creed, had graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1992. She had hoped to fly, but a minor physical anomaly made her ineligible. Instead, she trained as an aircraft division officer for the F/A-18 Hornet, the airplane she originally had hoped to pilot. Her stepfather, a Marine Corps colonel, had been an F-4 Phantom pilot who transitioned into flying the Hornet. Her brother, Captain Scott Creed, U.S. Marine Corps, a Naval Academy grad too, was flying at the time in the backseat of the Marines' two-seat version of the F/A-18. Our family seemed invested in that particular flying machine. I took a triple hit each time I saw the McDonnell Douglas ad with the words: "Who will bring them home? McDonnell Douglas will." I put a lot of trust in that company's quality control.
Page was coming home after her first tour of sea duty, and she wanted to share the experience with me. She adored her stepfather—a term she never used; he was just Dad—and he had become her hero. Through the cruise, however, she also gained a new appreciation for her natural father by sharing a unique experience with him. It was at a different time and place, but she lived, as Bart had, life on board a carrier. I think Page wanted me to find some healing in the modern counterpart of the ship that had taken Bart from me those many years ago.
Page also wanted me to see her as a professional naval officer, not as my one and only little girl. At six feet tall, she was hardly anybody's little girl. The next thing I knew, my husband had made flight arrangements to Hawaii and back from California. On 9 May 1996 my plane touched down in Honolulu, and Page was there with her usual, full-faced grin, ready to lead me off to one of the greatest adventures of my life.
The following morning, it was too early to be up, so I sat on the floor for a few moments and gazed out at a motionless, street-lit city. A flood of emotion poured through me as I remembered the still-raw pain of Bart's loss when I had been in Hawaii last. I had visited Honolulu in 1972 to work through some of my grief, and I had stayed with a couple who had been squadron mates to us. It had been a bittersweet trip. Tears welled, but they were not altogether sad tears, because I realized how far I had come from all that pain. Now what I felt was a gentle ache in my heart for memories of a good man lost. And here I was again, with his daughter who had turned out so fine, as did his son, in a place where, before, I had been sure the pain would never go away.
It was pitch dark at Pearl Harbor when we arrived pierside to board the Nimitz that night. She appeared benevolent, not at all menacing like the Ranger had seemed when Bart had gone aboard. Page took my heavy suitcase up the gangway and toward the first set of many ladders we would have to climb to the hangar bay and to Page's quarters. A card identifying me as a Tiger participant was given me to wear at all times, I suppose so that the crew would know to kick me out of places I should not be.
Up another ladder, and we finally were on the deck—right under the flight deck—where Page resided. Then we had to walk down passageway after passageway, stepping over and through paper-clip-shaped human-body-size openings until at last we reached her room.
As she opened the door with her magnetic card, I caught my first glimpse of my accommodations for the next six days. Lord, it was small! I never expected the quarters Page shared with Annette, another Navy lieutenant, to be spacious. But the tiny, compact box appeared hardly large enough for one. Annette quickly helped me find niches for my things. Next came figuring where to put the cot, which was secured in a little bundle with nylon straps. I undid the straps and a piece fell out. The three of us took turns trying to figure out how to unfold it and make it stand. Finally, like a raft inflating on its own, it popped into place and actually resembled a cot. I never figured out what to do with the piece on the floor, so I left it there. It was not a comfortable cot, but it was horizontal and almost as long as I was.
We literally crawled into bed, Page first to the top bunk, stepping on my cot to get there. Annette slid over the cot and rolled into her bunk. Both of them, I might add, volunteered their bunks to me, but I took great pride in being a hearty soul and would not hear of it. I have no memory of slumber that first night.
At 0630 I was grateful to get up. Page and I stowed the fully upright cot on top of her bunk; we didn't dare disassemble it. We then dressed for breakfast, my first meal in the Nimitz. I memorized the way to the air wing's officer wardroom, which would become an important and frequent destination.
The food. David, my husband, had warned me that it was good, plentiful, and fattening. He knew whence he spoke. At every meal I promised myself I would eat light and healthy. At every meal I lost my resolve and pigged out.
After breakfast, Page led me to the her squadron's ready room. It had the VFA-146 Blue Diamond insignia on the door. I would take that path through the maze several times every day. We had come aboard the night of 10 May, but we were not due to sail until late morning on the 11th. At about 1100 on the 11th, the movement—almost imperceptible—began, as tugs nudged and turned the Nimitz. I went to the massive flat flight deck just as we slipped into Pearl Harbor, one of the world's most overwhelming natural and man-made memorials to the aftermath of war.
Soon after lunch, I chose to go to the ready room and listen to the commanding officer, Commander Ray Zack, call sign "Razor," give a brief. He introduced Lieutenant Marc Pritchard, "Stitch," who talked to us about the F/A-18 and the arms it carried. "The mission of VFA-146 is to kill people and blow up all their toys." The military mission is not for the faint-hearted.
Following Marc, Lieutenant Kevin McLaughlin, "Proton," outlined the entire cruise calendar and shared his impressions of the confrontation between mainland China and the carriers Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) and Nimitz in the Taiwan Straits. The specter of the awesome power of two nuclear-propelled aircraft carriers, laden with the latest in airborne technology and sitting off the Chinese coast, did exactly what it was intended to do. The Chinese roar subsided.
We were about to head back to the room to attempt sleep again, when Proton stopped us in the corridor. He asked if Page and I would like to watch the stars through night vision goggles—eyewear that literally turns night into day. Fatigued as I was, I suspected I could not miss this special opportunity. Proton, his dad, his brother, Stitch, Page, and I all sat there with our feet dangling over the nets that would catch us if we fell overboard.
The horizon became clear. The stars became brilliant-set diamonds in a bright sky as I had never seen it before. The Milky Way was transformed into a bracelet of glittering gems reflected in the sea. It took my breath away. Lounging on the bow of a powerful aircraft carrier under the peaceful cover of night, suddenly I felt the extraordinary juxtaposition of peace through strength.
As I got to know Page's squadron mates, I realized she was among a truly remarkable group, mostly male. This was the first gender-integrated cruise for the Nimitz. The assimilation of women was working well in some respects and not well in others. When it seemed to fail, it had nothing to do with discrimination but more with the differences in the psychological and pathological makeup of men and women and the nature-driven propensities of the two sexes being in cramped quarters for long periods. Some women, just like some men, handled it better than others. But when they did not handle it well, the manifestations of the reactions, female compared to male, were different.
From the beginning, all of Page's squadron mates told me she was a terrific person and a fine officer. They never said "fine female officer," just "fine officer." I knew why. Page had no feminist agenda, just an overwhelming determination to be the best and most professional officer possible. The standards set for men were the standards she would uphold. She understood that men and women are different. She wanted to be allowed into the military experience, but once inside, she had no agenda to mold it for her comfort. She knew its rules, regulations, and codes had been written in blood and that they were gender-blind to enhance the survivability of U.S. service people.
Page is a strong advocate for women being assimilated in ships. I did not agree with her totally, then or now. The military workplace—especially in a deployment scenario—is completely unlike a typical civilian workplace, and comparisons are absurd. Page had observed that when men—in the close, stressful, confining existence of a carrier—got angry or frustrated, they tended to get it out and over with. Women tended to internalize irritants and then release them in what she described as "nuclear explosions." She believed, however, that with appropriate training in understanding innate gender differences, men and women could work consistently in a mutually respectful way. Divisive gender stereotypes had to be replaced with an appreciation for human differences, as long as those differences never took men or women outside the strict disciplines of military professionalism.
My question about women in combat was not whether they could do it. Page could. Many young women could. My query came from a visceral repugnance to women becoming warriors and made me wonder instead if women should. Violence against women seems to be the number one topic on the movies of the week. Why, then, would some endorse a concept that presupposes a mission in which that is acceptable? Most military women do not want to go into combat, but the military is not a smorgasbord where members get to choose what they will or will not do. It would collapse from the inside if that were the case. In my mind, it is an all-or-nothing proposition—combat for women, not women serving in the military. And I am on the side of "nothing" when it comes to women fighting wars of the physical sort. Page confided to me that she was not even sure how she felt on the issue, that there probably was a cut-off point for women's involvement. I hope someone can figure out soon what that point is, so everyone can quit rattling around, lest our military teeth fall out.
The third day was Mother's Day. We made our way to the forecastle, where a church service was held and a special luncheon was served. For once we skipped a food segment and instead went topside to watch an exhibition in which guns mounted on the sides of the ship fired strafing rounds. The gunners were remarkably accurate.
We then trekked again to the wardroom, but not to eat. I got into a lengthy conversation with one of the pilots about reduced defense budgets, retention, training, and women in battle units. We talked about civilian misconceptions surrounding the military, especially relating to the Navy in the wake of Tailhook. The young man was open—sometimes a dangerous thing in a politically charged military—and sincere. Like most with whom I talked, he valued service women who had a true sense of dedication. Those women, like their male counterparts, were working diligently and professionally in a selfless purpose. They were not the disgruntled ones who seemed to spend more time talking to the press than they did learning and doing their jobs. The distorted pictures those few women paint are seized instantly by a scandal-loving press, rabid women's-rights advocates, and naive civilians who must believe that a male entering the military must first pass a test certifying him as a cretin and swine. To the contrary, I found the men on board the Nimitz to represent the pinnacle of gentlemanly behavior, strong character, and unquestionable integrity. To say they have been given a bad rap is the understatement of the century.
Late in the afternoon, Page and I were working out in the tiny gym that had been fashioned in what appeared to be a leftover compartment amidships where nothing else would fit. Stitch and the squadron commander entered, their eyes searching for Page. As they approached her I saw them delivering news, and their faces were sullen.
"No! No! No!" I heard Page yell. I thought surely she had received news of the death of a dear friend. But she kept exercising, which would have been out of character for her in the face of tragedy. When my treadmill stopped, I asked what was wrong. She had not exactly lost a friend, she told me. She had lost an airplane. A freak accident with a crane had left one of the squadron's best jets with its structural integrity destroyed. In a way only the squadron members could know, they all had in fact lost a friend. Their equipment, particularly their aircraft, became almost living entities to them.
Page took me to meet the young sailors who worked in her division. Her specialty was corrosion control, fighting the never-ending onslaught of sea-inspired rust. I was struck by the fact that the pilots put their lives in the hands of hundreds of people every time they took off. I also was in awe of the technical knowledge crammed into the heads of those young sailors—some only 19 years old. The responsibility they bore was extraordinary, and they bore it magnificently.
Back in the ready room Lieutenant Commander Tom Downing, "Trim," joked that the contents of my journal probably would reveal that I was describing "jet jocks" as immature little boys, obnoxious and out of control. I laughed, because I had surmised years before that fighter pilots were suspended in eternal adolescence. I meant that as an endearing description, however, not a derogatory one. I always theorized that those who can maintain a childlike wonder at any age are the most blessed. Being with the Blue Diamonds convinced me further that these men/boys had to view life from the perspective of walking on the edge. They valued every moment of levity and honed incisive humor to an art as a counterpoint to the seriousness of what they really do for a living. There are times when such irreverence is misunderstood by those who would never choose their way of life. Largely, I found them to be extremely spiritual, smart, decent people with a sense of purpose most of us could never fathom.
On the maintenance deck, a static display enlightened the Tigers about the types and missions of aircraft on board. Lieutenant Brian Gray, a crew member of an EA-6B Prowler, knew my son Scott from flight school in Pensacola, Florida. Somewhat apologetically, he explained the aircraft's electronic warfare mission—its capability to jam enemy radar that might lock on our aircraft. It was not, he said, as exciting an aircraft as the F/A-18 or the F-14. But I found a certain venerable dignity in the more dated Prowler, and I was in awe of the courageous crew people on an airplane older than my adult children. Their mission is critical and difficult, and it should not be a thankless one. I desperately wanted them to know that.
At the F/A- 18 display, I donned a helmet and climbed up to see the cockpit. A technology ignoramus, I felt completely overcome by what I saw. I also felt a burgeoning pride in my immediate family. They knew this airplane. They flew it or they fixed it. And they became incredible people to me.
The next day, an air show for the Tigers was on the schedule. I stood mesmerized by the scores of crew people, men and women, scattering over the deck seeming to know exactly where to go and what to do. It is nothing short of miraculous that sailors could put such energy and expertise into the same functions day in and day out, always knowing that the slightest misstep could kill a shipmate, or themselves.
We were thrilled as an F/A-18 came streaking by, piloted by Stitch, and broke suddenly from straight-and-level flight to a dazzling high-performance climb, almost straight up. The collective gasp from the several thousand spectators captured only minimally the chill of awe that started in the small of one's back and radiated through the top of one's head. We were impressed with every demonstration of aerobatics, but I felt particular concern when I heard that the EA-6B was in a holding pattern and would not perform. It had lost its hydraulics. I knew enough to understand the possible dangers.
In a spectacular finale, all the aircraft flew slowly over the flight deck, with the last pulling an American flag. The power of that vision, connected to my personal history with the military and with naval aviation in particular, brought tears of supreme pain and pride. I had loved the Navy, the traditions of naval aviation, and two men who had been integral parts in it. Now, I also loved it for the son and daughter who had chosen it for their profession.
I rushed from the flight deck to the ready room to watch the video recording the return of the EA-6B, the first craft brought on board after the finale. I sat amazed by the stability of the black speck on the TV screen as it approached the stem. Not seeming to understand it was handicapped, the guppy-like jet sat down perfectly, and its tailhook caught the arresting wire in a performance that was remarkable in its ordinariness. I sighed. That evening I found out that Bryan had been on the flight. I sought him out to tell him how glad I was they got back safely. He did not admit fear during the flight, but as other air crews gathered around to talk nonchalantly about the day's episode, I could tell it was a time-honored way for aviators to cover nerves. Maybe lessons could be learned, if not technical ones, then ones of human performance. During the moments when no words were spoken there was a well-modulated, totally silent prayer of thanks.
In the few hours before sunset we walked up to the flight deck again. This time there would be a visitor, not from the air but from the sea. Our eyes trained to the leeward side of the bow. Nothing but water was visible. Then I caught sight of a slender protrusion slicing through the Water. The sea began to separate and roil. The conning tower was first to peek over the inky water. Slowly, the black-shelled nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Portsmouth (SSN-707) shed her coat of sea foam to break the surface. She became our fierce, feisty-yet-shy escort. She did not linger in the limelight with us. Just as she came, she went, slipping silently into the cover of the sea. I appreciated the unique sight.
I remember no more of 14 May. Who needed more? On the 15th, all of the aircraft and most of the aviators were leaving (except for the helicopters and their crews, who would go the last day, and a few pilots who would remain until San Diego and the offloading). During my few days on board, all of Page's squadron had become mine, too, so a tinge of sadness edged my farewells. Confinement had bred kinship, and I would never see most of this special family again. I felt a hint of jealousy for the wives or husbands who would run to hug their returning warriors. I grieved that no reunion occurred at the end of Bart's Vietnam tour, but I remembered the intense thrills of David's homecomings after long deployments in Asia. The sailors and pilots who remained on board took it in stride, because as the first wave left, it marked their ever-nearing reunions as well. With my camera and rolls of blank film, I made my last climb to Vulture's Row to capture the exodus. I stayed until the last F/A-18 from Page's squadron was out of sight.
In the late afternoon I joined Proton's dad for several brisk turns around the flight deck. Mr. McLaughlin was a former Marine pilot who flew for a major airline. We yearned for days past, versus the political climate that has so distorted the military culture as we knew it and that has forged an institution trying to survive the onslaught of those who never did, and never will, understand how it functions best. We both agreed the clock could not and should not be turned back. We hoped the issues could be resolved and integrity restored in the eyes of the outside world, not for us, but for our children and grandchildren, especially the ones who might choose to serve.
It was time for me to carry out an order from my Marine husband at home. David wanted me to pay my respects to the commanding officer of the Marine unit on board. Page knew him and told me how fine he was. When I introduced myself, his respectful courtesy was punctuated by "Ma'am" each time he spoke to me. Unlike a few of the sailors (no fat pilots, though) who had eaten too much and exercised too little, as I had, all of the Marines were not just fit, they were recruiting-poster fit. I told the young captain—probably about the age of my older son—how proud I was as I heard everyone on board extol the standards of excellence upheld by his Marine contingency. He smiled broadly and thanked me.
Page's old roommate had left most of her gear on board, so Page had to pull double duty and pack for two. The senior maintenance officer sent two young sailors to help Page with the absent lieutenant's gear. Everyone was bone-tired, but jovial. They were smelling the end of cruise, and the aroma was sweet. Such good people, I thought to myself. Diligent, dedicated, decent. If there were monsters here, they were masters of deception. This was the message I wanted to take home to those who asked, if they cared. And if not, I wanted to make them care.
After breakfast the next morning, I watched the helicopter squadron take off and head toward San Diego. The commanding officer was an old salt, a prototypical Navy man. He loved the old Navy but defended the new as well. Some traditions were worth hanging onto for dear life, and some could be relinquished without irreparable harm, he said. He had faith in its new course. But I was sure I heard a wistful quality in his words.
His squadron flew by the Nimitz in one final salute. The American flag trailed behind the last chopper, and at almost the same time, we caught a glimpse of the jut of California land named Point Loma. To the sailors on board the Nimitz, they were all home. It was the soil that connected them to Pennsylvania and to Nevada and to Louisiana. It was as simple and as complex as that. And it was why they went out to sea in the first place to do what they did.
At the pier, young wives held toddlers that had been infants when their fathers left in the late fall of 1995. Parents who sent children to sea awaited seasoned adults—or so they hoped. Friends stood with bottles of champagne to toast months of separation from a best pal. I recognized Jim, a friend of Scott's who had promised to meet us there. And nearer to the pier I spotted a sign with big red letters that read "LT PAGE CREED, VFA 146." Holding the sign was Bill Leslie, who, along with his wife Em, had hosted me in Hawaii in 1972. Bill had been the operations officer in Bart's squadron, and Em told me later that being there for Page's homecoming was important to him. There had been unfinished business, Bill thought. Bart should have returned home in the Ranger but never did. So Bill felt compelled as a former shipmate to give Page the homecoming her father never had.
For me, too, the end of Page's cruise was symbolic and comforting. My short time with her at sea made Bart's loss seem less removed from my realities. I had, in a small way, shared what had been his realities up until a few hours before he was gone on a day in March 1971.
Remembering grief had no place on this day, I wanted to do what sailors home from the sea always do. We walked, grinning, into the hugs of Bill, Em, and another Navy friend, Barb Wood, who had come to greet us. We met a man who had seen Bill's sign and wondered if Page Creed was related to Bart Creed, a man with whom he had served in the Ranger. He was moved to find she was his daughter.
The Leslies took me to lunch and then to the hotel. Jim and Bryan had taken Page with them for the afternoon with the promise that the four of us would have dinner and savor some San Diego night life—three young folks and an old woman who was young at heart, dancing the night away at Croce's in the Gaslight District. That would be our fulfillment of the tradition.
As I walked into the hotel room filled with comforts beyond those at home—wretched excess, actually, after the quarters in the Nimitz—I felt elated. I had never felt higher on the Navy. I had never felt higher on life. Then I flicked on the television, and the first words I heard were that Admiral Jeremy M. Boorda, Chief of Naval Operations, had committed suicide. I was deeply saddened and stunned. I knew the entire Navy would observe moments of silence in his honor and endure months of questioning why. I regretted that I had not been able to share what I saw of his Navy with him.
I knew the Boorda family faced unfathomable grief and pain. I knew, too, that they would have the love and support of their extended Navy family to help them through. And I hoped the pain someday would be a gentle ache for a good man lost.
But I had a mission I had to carry out this night. The Navy would go on. Life would go on. Those were the real lessons—written in blood—I learned in my years as a Navy and Marine Corps wife. I hummed "Anchors Aweigh" for a few moments, throwing in a bar or two of "The Marine Hymn." Then I put on my dancin' shoes.
Mrs. Percy is a writer, working on a book from her Virginia home.