USS Portland, Crew of 320 Returns Home (Ship Homecoming Dates)

Region prepares for returns
By MEREDITH KRUSE AND JON GLASS, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 19, 2003
Last updated: 1:24 PM

New guestbook: Welcome home your servicemember
Related: Program prepares sailors for return
Full Homecoming Guide

Community celebrations for returning troops will be short on speeches and long on gratitude.

Officials in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, homes to the biggest military presences in South Hampton Roads, are working on a mammoth ``thank you'' for the 16,000 service members who will return between Thursday and May 29.

In Norfolk, ``welcome home'' signs, banners and billboards will appear throughout the city, said Terry Bishirjian, the city's director of communications.

City officials also have ordered bumper stickers and lapel pins, which will be distributed by the Navy. By Thursday, some will be available for the public at the Norfolk City Hall information booth.

In lieu of a ceremony, Norfolk will incorporate salutes to the military in several summer festivals, including Afr'Am Fest, Harborfest and the July 4 celebration, Bishirjian said.

In Virginia Beach, a ``real robust welcome'' for the carrier Harry S. Truman's air wing squadrons has been planned, said Ira M. Agricola of the Chamber of Commerce.

For the fly-in Thursday at Oceana Naval Air Station, there will be banners, goody bags, food, beer and champagne and local elected officials -- but no speeches, Agricola said.

``We support the wives and dependents and then get out of the way,'' Agricola said. ``The last thing they want is a bunch of speeches.''

Roughly 700 officers and enlisted personnel, including F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Hornet pilots and crews, will return to Oceana, said retired Navy Capt. J.B. Dadson, the city's military liaison official. The three returning air wing squadrons are the VF-32 Swordsmen, the VFA-37 Bulls and VFA-105 Gunslingers.

The chamber is throwing a hangar party in Norfolk for E-2 Hawkeye crews, Agricola said.

City and chamber organizers are approaching this homecoming like any other, Dadson said: ``Something just to let them know we appreciate them.''

Service members' involvement in Operation Iraqi Freedom and their return as war heroes have driven up community contributions to the event, Agricola said.

``The magnitude of support has increased about 50 percent over a normal six-month deployment,'' Agricola said. ``Normally, we have to go out and beat the bushes.''

Among the donated items are coupons for free dinners, movies and concerts and all sorts of goods, from toiletries to food.

Expect to see business marquees and schools around Oceana with signs greeting their hometown heroes, Agricola said.

Such a massive homecoming will mean more traffic. Norfolk officials are meeting with the Navy to figure out how to ease congestion, said Ronald E. Keys, the city's director of emergency operations.

Reach Meredith Kruse at 446-2164 or meredith.kruse@pilotonline.com

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Navy releases its list of late additions of returning ships
The Virginian-Pilot
© May 20, 2003
Last updated: 10:01 PM

NORFOLK -- The Navy has added the guided-missile destroyer Winston Churchill to its list of ships returning in the carrier Theodore Roosevelt strike group on May 29.

The Churchill joins the carrier, cruiser Cape St. George, frigate Carr and fast combat-support ship Arctic returning to the Norfolk Naval Station on that day. Also returning on May 29 are the amphibious ships Nassau, Austin and Tortuga.

The late addition now means 17 ships and more than 16,000 military personnel are scheduled back from Operation Iraqi Freedom in an eight-day span from Friday to May 29.

The return of the remaining units in the Roosevelt strike group will be announced as information becomes available.

The carrier Harry S. Truman will return on Friday with eight of its escorts: the cruiser San Jacinto; destroyers Oscar Austin, Mitscher, Donald Cook, Briscoe and Deyo; the frigate Hawes and oiler John Lenthall.

Gibraltar a glad sight on ships' route home
By DENNIS O'BRIEN, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 7, 2003
Last updated: 1:35 AM

The Bataan during a previous deployment. File photo.

More homecoming news / With the troops reports

ABOARD THE BATAAN -- The Mediterranean's calm, aqua seas washed into the white-capped, bright-blue Atlantic -- the meeting of two waters and the passing of another landmark.

To the right, barely visible on a misty Friday morning, was the Rock of Gibraltar.

``It's a breathtaking sight, really,'' said Lance Cpl. Craig Peterson of Chesapeake, Great Bridge High School Class of '99. ``It's a place in the world you don't often get to see, especially when you're 22.''

For most of the crew of the Bataan, however, the importance of the rock was what lay beyond it: liberty. After 147 days away from land, the sailors were more than a little excited about a port call.

The crews of the Bataan and four other ships in Amphibious Task Force East will go ashore soon for R&R at locations that could not be disclosed for security reasons, but one ship in the task force will not be joining them.

The Kearsarge, a Norfolk-based amphibious assault ship, will miss the port call as it was diverted to provide additional extra for the president on his recent trip to Egypt and Jordan.

The Kearsarge had been scheduled to be the first to have liberty, on the island nation of Malta last week. But instead, the 3,000 sailors and Marines aboard stayed behind in the Red Sea, and it just recently passed north through the Suez Canal as it catches up with the rest of the task force.

Aboard the Kearsarge during its emergency duty were 400 combat veterans from the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment. Marine Corps CH-53s and Cobra attack helicopters stood ready on the flight deck.

``Our mission was to provide security and support to the president as he visited Sharm el-Shehk, Egypt, and Aqaba, Jordan,'' said 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade spokeswoman Capt. Kelly Frushour. ``We were to be prepared to provide a means for emergency extraction, provide early warning of airborne threats and provide emergency offshore medical care.''

``There was no more important mission in the world at the time than the mission to support the president of the United States,'' said Brig. Gen. Richard F. Natonski, commander of the 2nd MEB, which during the war fought as Task Force Tarawa.

Though miffed that their liberty port was nixed, Kearsarge Capt. Terrence McKnight said the men and women aboard understood that their ship and Marines were needed and rallied to plan the mission.

``The reaction from the crew was mixed,'' McKnight said. ``Some were a little upset that we were not going to get a well-deserved port visit after a long time at sea. Others did not really care as long as we returned to Norfolk on time.''

All six ships of Amphibious Task Force East -- which also includes the Saipan, Ashland, Gunston Hall and Ponce, which were spread throughout the Mediterranean -- are expected to be home in Hampton Roads by June 26.

Friday's passing through the Strait of Gibraltar was less spectacular than the task force's first visit on Jan. 28, when the ships were headed to war in the Persian Gulf. That day, visibility was better and the crew could drink in panoramic views of both Europe and Africa -- the latter continent's chocolate Atlas Mountains of Morocco on one side, the limestone cliffs of Spain and the ``Paramount Pictures''-looking rock on the other.

This time, the mist enshrouded all but the rock and a few peeks at the Iberian Peninsula, and few of the Bataan's 3,000 salty sailors and Marines made the multi-ladder trek up to Vulture's Row for the view.

Snapshot attempts were futile, but some sailors shot away anyway, relishing the experience, particularly those who have never seen the rock before, such as 2nd Class Petty Officer Angela Bowman, 23, who only joined the Bataan's crew in May. She spent her first four years in the Navy at a shore command in Charleston, S.C.

``I have never been anywhere in the world before,'' said Bowman, a Shreveport, La., native, ``and in one month I have been to Naples, Greece, Bahrain, the Suez and now we're passing Spain. It's awesome.''

But most, such as Petty Officer 1st Class Bill Goterba, 36, of Chesapeake, shrugged off the passage.

``If you count both ways, this is my eighth time through,'' said Goterba, a computer network tech. ``All it means to me is we're in the Atlantic and one step closer to home.''

And liberty.

Staff writer Dennis O'Brien is with the Marines and sailors of Task Force Tarawa on their way back from Iraq.

Jun 11, 2003
Coast Guard forces return from Iraq war
SONJA BARISIC
Associated Press Writer

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NORFOLK, Va. (AP) _ About 350 U.S. Coast Guard members who normally rescue boaters, chase drug smugglers or do marine patrols returned Wednesday from an unusual assignment supporting the war in Iraq.
The crews of the 378-foot cutter Dallas and four 110-foot patrol boats arrived at Norfolk's downtown waterfront in the morning. Several hundred family members and friends cheered from the pier on the Elizabeth River.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge later thanked the returning Coast Guard forces for doing what was "absolutely critical ... to the success of the entire effort."
"I am proud to remind the country that you have been in the homeland security business for a long, long time," Ridge said during an afternoon ceremony. "You're not new to the mission."
As Ridge looked on, the cutters were presented with citations for meritorious service by Adm. Thomas Collins, commandant of the Coast Guard.
The patrol boats left more than four months ago in the first deployment of Coast Guard patrol boats to a potential combat zone since the Vietnam War, Coast Guard officials said. The four smaller boats were carried overseas on a freight ship, but they sailed back to the United States, marking the first time 110-foot patrol boats have made a trans-Atlantic crossing.
"We usually patrol and don't go very far off shore, maybe 12 miles off the coast. So this was very unusual," said Petty Officer 3rd Class John Savastano, the assistant navigator of the patrol boat Bainbridge Island from Sandy Hook, N.J. "To cross the whole Atlantic is a lot."
Savastano stood on the deck of the patrol boat and hoisted his 11-month-old son Joshua into the air.
"It feels so good just to see them together again," said Savastano's wife, Irene. "There's a lot he missed out on in the first year."
Vice Adm. James Hull, commander of the Coast Guard's Atlantic Area Command based in nearby Portsmouth, said the Coast Guard's involvement in force protection and escort duties helped the Navy and highlighted the Guard's role as an armed service.
"The Coast Guard is a small part of a very big effort over there," Hull said. "I don't want to exaggerate our role, but the Navy needed us over there for these particular parts and we were part of the team."
The Dallas, based in Charleston, S.C., deployed Feb. 8 to work with the Navy's Sixth Fleet in the Strait of Gibraltar. In the months leading up to the war, the high-endurance cutter helped protect U.S. ships from terrorist threats.
Before the war, the Dallas moved farther east. During the first three days of military operations in Iraq, the Dallas was the only surface ship protecting two aircraft carriers north of the Suez Canal, said Cmdr. Karl Gabrielsen, the cutter's executive officer. Most of the other Navy ships in the area had Tomahawk missiles and other missile systems on board and had to get in position to fire, Gabrielsen said.
"While they were doing that, we were pretty much the only ship in the vicinity" of the Norfolk-based USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Harry S. Truman, he said.
The Dallas did "plane guard" duty, standing ready to rescue any downed aviators, and the cutter's aircraft warning lights helped fliers home in on the Roosevelt's bobbing flight deck.
"The Coast Guard's normal mission is basically search and rescue and marine patrol, kind of nice things," said Lt. Cmdr. Bob Mankowsky, a helicopter pilot aboard the Dallas. "To go out there and be ready to stop terrorists was a different mission."
The Dallas did not encounter terrorists, but the Coast Guard learned a lot during the deployment that will help with its mission of homeland security, Mankowsky said.
"We've shown what a ship needs to do be able to do to work with the Navy," he said. "The Dallas plugged right into the Navy, worked right with them."
The Bainbridge Island and the three other returning patrol boats _ the Pea Island and Knight Island from St. Petersburg, Fla., and the Grand Isle from Gloucester, Mass. _ were among 11 cutters sent overseas to support military operations.
The patrol boats were sent to the Mediterranean Sea. Had a front opened up in Turkey, they would have protected ports there, the Coast Guard said. Instead, they ended up doing a lot of training.
The ships will be in southeastern Virginia for a couple weeks so extra mounted guns and other equipment they were retrofitted with for the wartime assignment can be removed. The crews then will sail the ships to their home ports.
Other Coast Guard forces, including about 350 people, remain in the Persian Gulf.
Four 110-foot cutters have been patrolling the Khawr 'abd Allah waterway, southern Iraq's main lifeline for humanitarian aid. Coast Guard boarding officers have been checking wrecked ships along the waterway, including wrecks where they have found drawings of American warships, to make sure they can't be used as observation posts or platforms for attack.
The patrol boats and parts of three port security units made up mostly of reservists also have been assigned to protect oil platforms and other critical installations.
___=
On the Net:
U.S. Coast Guard: USCG

RTD

Photo: Arleigh Burke, Coast Guard ships return

Fleet hospital team home from battle line
By MATTHEW DOLAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 11, 2003
Last updated: 10:44 PM

NORFOLK -- When the Navy goes to war, you might expect its doctors and nurses to stay at sea.

In fact, the Navy's ``fleet hospitals'' are boots-on-the-ground medical complexes set up close to the front lines to treat the wounded almost immediately.

Eight members of Fleet Hospital Three returned Tuesday morning at the Norfolk International Airport, having worked closer to the battlefield in Operation Iraqi Freedom than any of their colleagues before.

The 300-member hospital team, based in Pensacola, Fla., spent three months in Kuwait and Iraq as part of the war effort. The risk of attack, especially from incoming missiles, was ever present, sailors said.

``We had to go to the bunkers 42 times,'' said Cmdr. Karen DiRenzo, an emergency room nursing supervisor at Portsmouth Naval Medical Center and casualty receiving supervisor for Fleet Hospital Three.

After the Navy recently decided to slim down its fleet hospital teams to make them more mobile, these sailors became the first to construct and operate an Expeditionary Medical Facility in a war zone, officials said.

After leaving northern Kuwait in late March, the 116-bed standing facility opened April 1 at Camp Viper near Jalibah in southern Iraq.

Within hours, its doctors and nurses were treating the war's injured inside tents and large shipping containers. DiRenzo said not a single American service member died in their care. By May 5, the fleet hospital admitted 478 patients and treated another 410 through its outpatient services.

``In years past, we used to use casualty-receiving hospital ships. They are very robust,'' said Capt. Martin L. Snyder, the head of the surgery department at Portsmouth Naval and commanding officer of Fleet Hospital Portsmouth.

``But our battlefields are moving farther and farther away from our ships. In Afghanistan, it was 800 miles to the coast,'' Snyder said. ``If we are truly to be as far forward as we can, we need to be lighter.''

His fleet hospital, also known as Fleet Hospital 15, deployed to northern Kuwait earlier this year. Nearly 270 sailors from Fleet Hospital 15 returned home May 5.

Fleet Hospital Three stretched across nine acres in Iraq. Its medical personnel included specialists not found among the battlefield hospital corpsmen and shock trauma physicians who labor at the scene of the wounded.

``A lot of the injuries came from accidents,'' DiRenzo said. ``Marines were just exhausted and sometimes they would just drive off the road, especially since they had to travel at night.''

The wife of a Coast Guard lieutenant commander and mother of two in Suffolk, DiRenzo also praised her colleagues, who were drawn from across the country and forced to gel into one makeshift unit.

``Everyone came together to get a very hard job done,'' she said.

News researcher Jake Hays contributed to this report.

Reach Matthew Dolan at mdolan@pilotonline.com or 446-2322.

Arleigh Burke to arrive home today
By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot
© June 11, 2003
Last updated: 6:50 PM

The guided missile destroyer Arleigh Burke

Guestbook: Welcome home the troops
Full Homecoming Guide

NORFOLK -- The guided missile destroyer Arleigh Burke is coming home today about midmorning from a marathon, history-making combat cruise in the Middle East.

``We are a bit young, to be honest, to really appreciate what we accomplished on this cruise,'' Cmdr. William C. ``Clay'' Harris, commanding officer of the Burke, said by satellite telephone as the ship neared home. ``That probably won't hit us for another 20 to 30 years.''

The Burke was part of the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which has been arriving home in shifts since May 29. Two other ships from the same strike group -- the cruiser Anzio and destroyer Porter -- return July 3.

Also returning today will be five Coast Guard cutters, including four that left Hampton Roads in early February, riding piggy-back on the deck of a commercial cargo ship.

Since leaving Norfolk on Jan. 7, the Burke has steamed more than 35,000 miles, remaining under way 92 percent of the time, including a 90-day period from late February to late May.

Its crew of 338 provided air, surface and sub-surface surveillance for U.S. and coalition forces operating in the Mediterranean and Red seas, the Gulf of Aden and northern Arabian Gulf.

``We escorted merchant ships and naval auxiliaries that were carrying personnel and war material to and from Southwest Asia,'' Harris said. ``We boarded ships suspected of transporting, or supporting, al Qaeda, Taliban, or Iraqi regime figures, and we participated in counter-piracy operations.''

And, by the way, the Burke fired 26 Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets inside Iraq during the height of combat operations.

``It was one for the history books,'' Harris, a 1982 graduate of Hampden-Sydney College said. ``We all know people who have been doing this for 25 to 30 years, or even longer, who never had the opportunity to do some of the things we did.''

For Petty Officer 1st Class Shawn Louie, 29, a fire controlman on the Burke, responsible for some of its armament, the deployment was ``exciting'' and a ``great place to be.''

Serving earlier on an aircraft carrier and an oiler, the close-knit crew made this deployment exceed all his expectations.

``And the food was better,'' he said.

The returning Coast Guard ships will be led into downtown Norfolk by the 378-foot cutter Dallas, homeported in Charleston, S.C. The other four -- all 110-foot patrol boats making their first Atlantic Ocean crossing -- are the Pea Island and Knight Island, based in St. Petersburg, Fla.; the Bainbridge Island, from Sandy Hook, N.J., and the Grand Isle, from Gloucester, Mass.

Welcoming them at Norfolk's Town Point Park will be Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Vice Adm. James Hull, commander of the Coast Guard's Atlantic Area Command.

Reach Jack Dorsey at jdorsey@pilotonline.com or 446-2284.

The amphibious assault ship Bataan approaches its berth at Norfolk Naval Station on Wednesday as Petty Officer 3rd Class Johnny E. McMurrin Jr., a line handler from the Wasp, stands at attention. Photo by Martin Smith-Rodden / The Virginian-Pilot.

Photos: Families greet the Bataan

Tiger Cruise starts / Photos: Early arrivals Tuesday
Full Homecoming Guide

NORFOLK -- Nearly six months ago, they cut their holiday leave short, packed seabags and shipped out for war.

On Wednesday, the sailors aboard the Bataan, Ashland, Ponce and Gunston Hall came home to resume the lives they put on hold to do the nation's bidding.

The weather, notoriously stormy for recent homecomings at the world's largest Navy base, cooperated. Clear skies and warm, if not, hot temperatures in the upper 80s greeted the sailors who manned the rails of the ship.

The Bataan pulled into the pier just after 9 a.m. and the crowd of several hundred, once sleepy, came to life with cheering and clapping.

``I was more worried now than after 9/11,'' said Kim DeBeau, wife of Master Chief Petty Officer Lawrence DeBeau. ``We just didn't know what to expect when he got over there.''

Kim DeBeau had an Expedition limousine to carry her husband home and a new pool to test out once he got there.

``But he'll have to build the deck,'' she joked. ``And I want it done by 4th of July!''

Farther down the sidewalk, Jessica Paine held a sign with a message for her boyfriend, Petty Officer 3rd Class Jon Cox.

``Your princess,'' the sign read, ``is waiting.''

Continue+photos

http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/vaapwire/MGB6UBIFDHD.html

More sailors return home to Virginia

SONJA BARISIC
Associated Press Writer Jun 25, 2003

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NORFOLK, Va. (AP) _ More than 2,200 sailors who left in freezing January weather as America prepared for war with Iraq returned Wednesday to sunshine and warm welcomes.

The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan arrived at Norfolk Naval Station around 9 a.m., and was followed shortly afterward by the amphibious transport dock ship USS Ponce. Sailors in crisp white uniforms stood along the edges of the Bataan's deck as relatives and friends cheered from the parking lot near the pier.

"It didn't really hit me until this morning that she was coming back," Matt Flint, 28, of Virginia Beach, said as he waited for his wife, Petty Officer 2nd Class Gretchen Flint. Their 17-month-old daughter, Kiersten, sat in a stroller, clutching an American flag.

"Then she wrote me an e-mail this morning saying, 'I'll see y'all in a bit,' and it just got me right here," said Flint, a Marine Corps staff sergeant, as he touched his hand to his chest.

After the Bataan docked, Petty Officer 1st Class Michelle Piland, 34, of Waterbury, Conn., knelt on one knee and hugged her 5-year-old daughter Makayla.

"To see this face again, words just can't express," Piland said as tears streamed down her face. "I prayed to God every day that we would make it back safely."

Petty Officer 2nd Class Larry Askew, 25, of Barberton, Ohio, was supposed to have been one of the sailors returning Wednesday, but he left the Bataan in April to attend his aunt's funeral. So he went to the Navy base to let his shipmates know how proud he was of them.

"I haven't seen them in two months," Askew said. "I'm glad everybody made it home safe. They did a good job."

The amphibious dock landing ships USS Ashland and USS Gunston Hall also came home Wednesday, docking at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in nearby Virginia Beach.

All four ships were part of the seven-ship Amphibious Task Force East, which supported the war on terrorism and the Iraq war. The ships, carrying about 5,000 sailors, 7,000 combat Marines and tons of heavy equipment and aircraft, formed what the Navy called the largest amphibious task force in decades.

The returning ships were among the last to come home of the Virginia-based ships deployed to support the Iraq war. The four ships, plus the amphibious assault ship USS Saipan, dropped off nearly 6,000 Camp Lejeune-based Marines in North Carolina on Sunday.

The Saipan is to arrive in Norfolk on Thursday with more than 1,200 sailors aboard.

Another ship in the task force, the USS Kearsarge, had its homecoming plans disrupted because of the civil war in Liberia. It was supposed to return with the Saipan, but was ordered to the coast of Liberia to monitor the situation and be ready to help rescue U.S. citizens.

The Kearsarge was cleared to head home after a cease-fire agreement was signed in Liberia and now is expected to arrived in Norfolk on Monday with its 1,200 sailors, after depositing more than 1,200 Marines in North Carolina.

A seventh ship in the task force, the USS Portland, returned to Little Creek in April, becoming the first Navy ship to come back from the Iraq war. The Portland, with its crew of 320 sailors, delivered about 320 combat Marines to Kuwait. The amphibious dock landing ship returned a bit early because a high-pressure turbine went bad.

Still more Navy homecomings are ahead for Virginia.

On Friday, the rescue and salvage ship USS Grapple, with more than 100 sailors aboard, is to return to Little Creek. The Grapple deployed on Feb. 18 and supported dive and salvage missions in the northern Persian Gulf.

On July 3, the guided missile cruiser USS Anzio and the guided missile destroyer USS Porter, carrying a total of about 750 sailors, will return to Norfolk. Both ships left in January with the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt's strike group and operated in the Mediterranean Sea during the war. Four other ships in that group returned to Norfolk on May 29.

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On the Net:

USS Bataan: http://www.bataan.navy.mil/

USS Ponce: http://www.ponce.navy.mil

USS Ashland: http://www.ashland.navy.mil/

USS Gunston Hall: http://www.gunston-hall.navy.mil/

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More sailors return home to Virginia aboard four ships
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