thedrifter
10-01-07, 03:33 PM
Sailors and Marines welcomed home with open arms
By Eleanor Yang Su
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 1, 2007
From the moment he stepped off the Nimitz aircraft carrier and reached his wife and two young children yesterday, Airman Scott Gilley bestowed kisses nonstop.
“Are you happy? Did you miss me? You love me? I love you,” Gilley said, cradling his 2-year-old daughter, Jade.
Gilley pulled his wife and 6-month-old son, Luke, close for a group hug, and then held one child in each arm as he kissed them repeatedly.
Gilley was one of about 5,500 sailors and Marines who returned aboard the Nimitz, which spent the past six months deployed in the Middle East and Asia. The crew helped provide security in the Arabian Gulf, built community relations in India and Singapore, and carried out exercises with other branches of the military near Guam.
In April, the Nimitz left with four support ships – the cruiser Princeton and the destroyers Higgins, John Paul Jones and Pinckney – as part of an effort to double the Naval forces in the Middle East. The support ships returned yesterday to Naval Base San Diego with 700 Navy personnel.
The Nimitz sailors and Marines were greeted by thousands of family members and friends yesterday, under blue skies at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado.
Messiel Castillo and nine members of her family slept in their cars overnight to be the first in line when the service members stepped off the ship. The family drove the previous night from Pomona, in Los Angeles County, and after a brief sleep, arrived on the base before 6 a.m.
“We're so proud of him,” Castillo, 18, said of her brother, Seaman Hugo Castillo, 21. “He said some days, the temperature was up to 120 degrees, and he had to work 17 hours a day.”
While most of the sailors and Marines did not engage in direct combat, senior officers said they helped support ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pilots flew from the aircraft carrier over Iraq and Afghanistan to show the military's presence and launch strikes, Rear Adm. Terry Blake said.
On port visits in India and Asia, the sailors and Marines strengthened relations by visiting orphanages and schools and cleaning up beaches.
“We want people to see the good will of Americans,” said Blake, the commander of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. “I consider every sailor to be an ambassador.”
Blake said there were no casualties and the carrier returned with all its equipment.
As the 1,100-foot-long aircraft carrier pulled up to the pier, several young mothers fussed over infants waiting to be held by their fathers for the first time.
Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher Murray, 21, held his 10-day-old son as his fiancee, Angelina Franks, stood by smiling. The baby appeared tiny in his bulging arms.
“I can't even explain how I feel,” Murray said. “You can only see so much in the pictures. This is better.”
Gilley, an aviation ordnanceman airman, called the six-month deployment “possibly the worst experience ever” because of his distance from home.
“I'm a really family-oriented person, and being so far away from my kids affected me profoundly,” said Gilley, who has served three years in the Navy.
Gilley said he plans to pack in plenty of tickle fights with his daughter and family trips to the beach before his next deployment in January.
Eleanor Yang Su: (619) 542-4564; eleanor.su@uniontrib.com
Ellie
By Eleanor Yang Su
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 1, 2007
From the moment he stepped off the Nimitz aircraft carrier and reached his wife and two young children yesterday, Airman Scott Gilley bestowed kisses nonstop.
“Are you happy? Did you miss me? You love me? I love you,” Gilley said, cradling his 2-year-old daughter, Jade.
Gilley pulled his wife and 6-month-old son, Luke, close for a group hug, and then held one child in each arm as he kissed them repeatedly.
Gilley was one of about 5,500 sailors and Marines who returned aboard the Nimitz, which spent the past six months deployed in the Middle East and Asia. The crew helped provide security in the Arabian Gulf, built community relations in India and Singapore, and carried out exercises with other branches of the military near Guam.
In April, the Nimitz left with four support ships – the cruiser Princeton and the destroyers Higgins, John Paul Jones and Pinckney – as part of an effort to double the Naval forces in the Middle East. The support ships returned yesterday to Naval Base San Diego with 700 Navy personnel.
The Nimitz sailors and Marines were greeted by thousands of family members and friends yesterday, under blue skies at North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado.
Messiel Castillo and nine members of her family slept in their cars overnight to be the first in line when the service members stepped off the ship. The family drove the previous night from Pomona, in Los Angeles County, and after a brief sleep, arrived on the base before 6 a.m.
“We're so proud of him,” Castillo, 18, said of her brother, Seaman Hugo Castillo, 21. “He said some days, the temperature was up to 120 degrees, and he had to work 17 hours a day.”
While most of the sailors and Marines did not engage in direct combat, senior officers said they helped support ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pilots flew from the aircraft carrier over Iraq and Afghanistan to show the military's presence and launch strikes, Rear Adm. Terry Blake said.
On port visits in India and Asia, the sailors and Marines strengthened relations by visiting orphanages and schools and cleaning up beaches.
“We want people to see the good will of Americans,” said Blake, the commander of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. “I consider every sailor to be an ambassador.”
Blake said there were no casualties and the carrier returned with all its equipment.
As the 1,100-foot-long aircraft carrier pulled up to the pier, several young mothers fussed over infants waiting to be held by their fathers for the first time.
Marine Lance Cpl. Christopher Murray, 21, held his 10-day-old son as his fiancee, Angelina Franks, stood by smiling. The baby appeared tiny in his bulging arms.
“I can't even explain how I feel,” Murray said. “You can only see so much in the pictures. This is better.”
Gilley, an aviation ordnanceman airman, called the six-month deployment “possibly the worst experience ever” because of his distance from home.
“I'm a really family-oriented person, and being so far away from my kids affected me profoundly,” said Gilley, who has served three years in the Navy.
Gilley said he plans to pack in plenty of tickle fights with his daughter and family trips to the beach before his next deployment in January.
Eleanor Yang Su: (619) 542-4564; eleanor.su@uniontrib.com
Ellie