Sailors see
the world, but still
miss home

Quality of life is a big
issue for those who have
families at home

---

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

Navy Petty Officer Dustin Paredes re-enlisted for another five-year hitch in February.

But whether the 23-year-old Los Angeles native sticks it out in the Navy and makes it a career may depend on the number of days he has to spend at sea away from friends, relatives and family.

"My family still comes first," says the systems control communications operator on the nuclear carrier USS John C. Stennis.

"I now have sons who are 1 and 3 years old ... I might stay if they would cut down the underway time."

Even with easy access to e-mail and satellite pay phone service while deployed at sea for six months, Paredes said that it is still the time away from friends and families -- a quality-of-life issue that the Navy and other military services must deal with.

The 1,092-foot Stennis steamed into Pearl Harbor Tuesday for a rare one-of-a-kind mission -- the launch pad for Disney's $140 million blockbuster "Pearl Harbor."

It's three-football-field-long flight deck has been converted into an massive outdoor theater with seating for 2,000 for tomorrow's premiere.

On Tuesday, the movie will again be screened for selected military personnel in Hawaii and another showing is planned for Navy personnel when the Stennis returns to San Diego at the end of the week.

Although the 97,000-ton carrier arrived at Pearl Harbor last week without an accompanying airwing of 80 jets and assorted aircraft and 2,500 sailors and aviators, Lt. Cmdr. Kurt King, Stennis' assistant combat direction center officer, said the six-day cruise from San Diego was used to perform operations that would have been done off the coast of California

It was all part of routine work to prepare the carrier for its third six-month western Pacific deployment since it was commissioned in 1995.

"We are always training," said King. "We take any underway as an opportunity to train. There is nothing better than to be at sea operating the equipment."

Just two weeks ago the Stennis, one 12 carriers in the Navy's arsenal, was operating off the coast of Southern California helping combat jet pilots maintain their qualifications.

The Stennis returned to its San Diego home port July 3, 2000 after its second western Pacific-Persian Gulf deployment and it's not scheduled to undergo another six month deployment until January.

As part of the training that goes into the January deployment, the Stennis battle group -- which will eventually be made up of six surface combatant ships, an attack submarine, a supply ship -- will work together for the first time in August. The Aegis cruiser USS Port Royal and the nuclear attack submarine USS Asheville -- both based in Pearl Harbor -- will be part of that battle group.

Because of the Navy's current desire to improve the quality of life of is sailors like Paredes, the time Stennis is underway has been drastically cut back, King said.

"That is one of the reasons why the battle group only trains as a group twice before it deploys," King said.

Petty Officer Thomas Bossard, an 18-year Navy veteran, says he finds underway times like the trip from San Diego as productive since these training opportunities can involve the entire carrier.

One of Bossard's jobs at sea is to be the ship's fire marshall. He commands 70 sailors and "we drill three to four times a day learning to fight fires in all of the ship's spaces."

"We try to make the drills more intense and more realistic. We even use smoke generators."

Fire is a ship's major concern. "There's no place to run," Bossard said, "You're surrounded by water and when a space goes up in flames, the temperature of the metal walls climbs 200 degrees every minute."

King said other underway exercises include taking the ship to "general quarters" to simulate being attacked and seriously damaged as all sections turn out "to restore the ship to fighting condition."

But King acknowledged that for the 2,500 members of the Stennis' ship's company, there will be ample time for them to enjoy the islands.

Among those seeking liberty in Hawaii was Petty Officer Ryan Tenpenny who was one of many of the Stennis' sailors at the phone banks near Hotel pier trying to convince her husband to catch a flight from San Diego to join her for a Hawaiian vacation before the Stennis leaves on May 25.