Long wait is over as Navy announces homecoming dates
By JACK DORSEY AND MATTHEW DOLAN, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 9, 2003
Last updated: 4:18 PM
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| Carrier Theodore Roosevelt. File photo.
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With the official announcement of a return date for the carrier Theodore Roosevelt, one of the largest Navy homecomings in Hampton Roads history is set for later this month. Ending weeks of speculation about the Roosevelt's date to return, Navy officials said Thursday that the Norfolk-based carrier will be home May 29 -- a week earlier than even the most optimistic rumors circulating among families of crew members.
The addition of the Roosevelt to the homecoming party means that 15 ships and more than 16,000 personnel are expected to return to Hampton Roads from May 22 to May 29. All participated in the war with Iraq.
Several ships and groups of personnel have returned from the Middle East in recent weeks, but this will be the first large-scale homecoming for the Hampton Roads military.
The Norfolk-based Harry S. Truman battle group will kick off the homecoming wave when its air wing returns to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach on May 22. The carrier group's 10 ships will come into Norfolk Naval Station the next day.
But only part of the Roosevelt battle group is returning this month. The air wing will fly into Oceana on May 28, with the carrier and the cruiser Cape St. George arriving in Norfolk the next day.
The battle group's other seven ships, with about 2,300 aboard, are being kept in the Mediterranean Sea for any unexpected contingencies that might arise from Operation Iraqi Freedom, officials said. The ships are expected home in July, completing about a six-month deployment.
Also expected home on May 29 is the three-ship Nassau amphibious ready group. Navy officials have not confirmed the date, but several family members said they were told the ships would be home that day.
The Truman battle group has about 8,100 sailors, Marines and pilots. The Roosevelt, its air wing and the Cape St. George crew total almost 6,300 personnel. The Nassau group has about 1,800 Navy personnel, and will be dropping off 2,000 Camp Lejeune-based Marines in North Carolina before heading home.
Not since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 have so many Hampton Roads-based ships been scheduled to come home in such a short time frame. The last homecoming approaching this magnitude was April 15-20 of that year, when 13 amphibious ships, the carrier America and some of its escorts returned.
The announcement of the Roosevelt's return date was welcome news for family members, who have been wrestling with the rumor mill for weeks.
``Awesome!'' said Sylvia Carbonell, 39, whose husband serves as a gas turbine engine electrician on the Cape St. George. ``It's been flip-flopping so often I didn't know what to think.''
If this latest news holds, Maximo Carbonell should be able to attend the June 8 high school graduation of 18-year-old Javier, his first-born.
``If the plans don't change again,'' his wife added.
Family members of the battle group's crew earlier had been told that the carrier would be home in early June, although one report was circulating that the return might be delayed until October.
Most battle group families missed a chance for an official goodbye before the deployment back in January. The carrier and its attendant ships left for the war straight from training in the Caribbean.
``Excited doesn't even cover it,'' said Eileen O'Hanlon, wife of the Roosevelt's commanding officer, Capt. Richard J. O'Hanlon.
O'Hanlon, an emergency-room nurse and mother of five, said she is used to the chaos of being married to a sailor sent overseas.
``I'm never surprised at anything anymore in the Navy,'' she said. ``I think it was hardest on the `newbies,' as I call the new spouses. Some thought that it was my husband, Rich, who controlled the date. But of course he didn't.''
Now that the return date has been confirmed, spouses such as Andrea Conti, 38, can swing into action.
Conti, a co-chair of the homecoming celebration and wife of Ensign David Conti aboard the Roosevelt, said the families ``couldn't start planning for the homecoming until it was official. Now we'll have to rush.''
A party for Roosevelt families scheduled for next weekend was to celebrate the halfway point in the deployment. They still plan to hoist a sign marking that event.
``Then we'll rip it down and put up `For the Final Fling,' '' O'Hanlon said.
Reach Jack Dorsey at 446-2284 or jdorsey@pilotonline.com Reach Matthew Dolan at 446-2322 or mdolan@pilotonline.com
