- SAN DIEGO (UPI) --
Tears and long faces were in abundance on Saturday morning as about 400
well-wishers, with their emotions bubbling to the surface, watched the
aircraft carrier USS Constellation slowly set sail from its home port in
San Diego Bay on a six-month mission that will include duty in the Persian
Gulf region.
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- A banner reading "Okay, Let's Roll" hung from
the fantail of the huge ship as powerful tugboats pushed it back from its
berth at North Island Naval Air Station and pointed it towards the Pacific.
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- It was the beginning of a voyage that should have the
battle group and its 72 aircraft in the Gulf region and in position to
launch air strikes and cruise missiles before Christmas.
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- "The president said inaction is not one of the options,"
said Rear Adm. Barry Costello, the commander of the six cruisers, destroyers
and frigates that serve as the Constellation's escorts.
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- "If the president needs us, we'll be there."
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- Costello and other Navy officers in the battle group
would not discuss the possibility of a U.S. attack on Iraq or any other
targets.
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- But the looming chance that war could break out was considered
a near certainty, and the fact that the 41-year-old "Connie"
would undoubtedly be in the thick of it was on the minds of those present
for its sendoff.
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- "We expect to go into harm's way and we expect to
make America proud," the admiral boasted.
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- The Constellation is scheduled to relieve the carrier
Abraham Lincoln, now in the Gulf, and will take part in air operations
and intercept merchant ships that may be smuggling fuel and other cargo
in violation of U.N. sanctions against Iraq.
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- Although the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan is
largely over, the Constellation's preparations for deployment were accelerated
last summer and its departure date was moved from early 2003 to Saturday.
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- "The president told us a year ago to be ready, and
we're ready," the carrier's skipper, Capt. John Miller, told United
Press International.
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- The United States has been prodding the U.N. Security
Council into adopting a resolution that would require Iraq to submit to
U.N. weapons inspections or face a military response. While such a resolution
was still pending on Saturday, the Constellation's crew and the loved ones
they left behind were anxious about the coming deployment.
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- "This is his fifth WestPac," Nancy Metzger
said after her husband boarded the carrier, her voice cracking in emotion
that gave away the shellacking her heart was taking.
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- "There is something about this one that is making
me a little more nervous."
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- WestPac deployments have long been a fact of life for
the thousands of Navy and Marine Corps families in the San Diego area,
and Saturday's scene at North Island was one that has been repeated for
decades.
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- Spouses, sweethearts, parents and children began showing
up at the pier at the break of dawn as the crew reported for duty at 5
a.m. PST. Most would wait the full four hours until the Constellation began
to slowly move away under a cloudless Southern California sky.
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- "It's impressive," declared Mary Grace, who
lives near North Island and came to watch the spectacle on the advice of
her daughter, Kate, who recently completed Navy boot camp and was assigned
to the carrier Harry S. Truman.
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- "My daughter is getting ready to go out in December,"
said the proud Grace. "I'm going to be in Norfolk when she gets back."
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- Women ranging in age from their teens to middle age choked
back tears while waving or talking in English or Spanish on cellular telephones
to their sailors and Marines as they lined up along the flight deck among
the FA-18 Hornet strike jets and other types of planes and helicopters.
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- Little kids glumly stared at the huge ship that would
take their dads -- and in some cases their moms -- out to sea for Thanksgiving,
Christmas and the better part of the school year. Some held hand-lettered
signs assuring their fathers that they were loved while others fidgeted
with boredom or shed the coats and sweatshirts they had worn in the earlier-morning
chill.
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- "Wave girls, wave," one mother urged as she
and her three children shifted around for a better view.
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- One young sailor headed for the gangway with a fresh
lipstick print on his cheek while a medley of patriotic and popular songs
blared from the carrier's speakers; the Billy Joel ballad "New York
State of Mind" seemed to generate the most tears as the stern reality
of a possible war loomed.
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- Jackie Davis, whose husband is a crewman on the North
Island-based carrier Nimitz, comforted her friend Patricia Hill, who broke
down in tears even though her husband has been on a whopping 15 WestPac
cruises.
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- "Whenever he goes out, it's a whole different WestPac,"
Davis said. "But WestPacs are always the same. It's hard every time."
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- Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All
rights reserved.
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