Carrier (2008–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Controlled Chaos - full transcript
This program was made possible
by the corporation for public
broadcasting and by contributions
to your PBS station from...
Subs rip, edit, and resnyc by
© VJ Me 2010
♪it's a long road to
paradise and, oh, I feel the pain
oh oh oh they tell me
things are different now
but I still hurt the same
haze gray and underway
a world away from you
and miles and miles of blue♪
It's a dangerous place.
We all know it.
We all have to deal with it.
We just all got to work as a team.
If you don't work as a team,
everything's gonna fall apart.
The whole ship, they all come
together to make it look easy.
It's really an incredible orchestra.
There's birds turning, jet blasts.
You've got the props that are turning.
That's probably the scariest thing.
It's just a superstitious thing,
but we never use the "C" word.
The "C" word meaning crunch,
you know, is when we impact two
aircraft together.
We don't eat Crunch candy bars,
and you never tell me to be
safe out on the deck.
Keep your head on a swivel,
constantly looking around.
Everything changes every 10 seconds.
As I like to say it, we
are trying to control chaos.
It's just high tempo up here, man.
Our blood runs about a
thousand miles an hour.
You ready?
Once you leave Hawaii, my
morale started to do this,
because they say, "oh, I
got "five more months to go."
I'm writing to my best friend.
I'm starting to get to a point
where I'm getting homesick.
I've been trying to become a
yeoman, which is in administration.
And I took the test, and I'm
just waiting for the results to
come back.
So I'm just hoping.
All right, "Nimitz,"
welcome back to your Tuesday edition
of your Red Devil fod walk-down!
Arr!
A little Black Sabbath coming at you.
If you're still at your work centers,
you still got time, babies.
Get on up on my flight
deck and walk that fod!
The fod walk is getting any
kind of pieces of debris and
stuff like that are on the flight deck.
You got to get out there
and pick it up every day.
Great.
On fod!
You'd be surprised at the
amount of damage a small screw
could do to a
multimillion-dollar jet engine.
Right now, we're transiting
to the Persian Gulf,
and we've got a limited amount
of time to get everybody ready.
Squadrons, the flight deck,
crew, the ship as a whole,
all of us are depending on
everybody else to do their job
and to do it right.
So when it comes time to do
it for real, everybody's got
their game face on and
they're ready to play.
Reset cat 3.
Tell them to reset it.
Tell 'em to set it.
Set that.
All right. Here we go.
Hand is out, thumb is up,
military power winds, crosswind.
Swoop, final. Ready?
520 to 4 light, light.
Winds crosswinds, thumb,
thumb, heading... steady.
Fire.
Oh, yeah.
The thrill of shooting planes.
It's pretty rowdy.
There's a sense of urgency;
It's dangerous.
And it's just mad physics.
I don't even know what else to say.
It's just violent, you know.
I'm lieutenant Lonnie Fields.
I'm the V-2 division officer.
I'm responsible for
managing over 200 people.
It's the largest division on the ship.
We do aircraft launch and recovery.
I went into the aerospace
industry because I wanted to
become an astronaut.
And I really didn't
even know how to do that.
You know, I said, all right,
you know, I'd get on a spaceship,
you know, kind of like
the mother ship connection.
I couldn't get a job back in
1995 in the aerospace industry,
and the military was knocking
on my door, and I was knocking
back, like, let's do it.
Taking tension.
Good stroke. Good hook... But
I chose to become a shooter
because I wanted to do something to
get me, you know, nice and dirty.
Man's out.
His thumb is up.
Military power winds...
I mean, this is it.
This is where it's at.
Fire.
This is the pointy end of the spear.
And we have a core.
You know, Scott Small, myself,
Brian Erickson, Dave Cummings,
and Ketrick Brooks, you know,
that's the core shooters right now.
This is the circle of trust.
You guys know about the
circle of trust, right?
You guys know about the circle of trust?
There's people that try to come
and invade the circle of trust,
but we know those people.
And we get 'em out!
We purge them, you know,
like the old-school days.
We purge them.
You know?
That's chaplain Dufour.
He's on the outskirts
of the circle of trust.
He's always trying to invade us.
He tries to come over like that,
and then I'll put Brooks over
here to block him.
And then you have some T.A.D.
Shooters that come over
like from the "Stennis."
And they get to marinate
in there just a little bit.
But you know what?
They're only here for a
temporary amount of time, and
we just kick their asses out.
Lonnie makes the rules.
We just live in his world.
A lot of times, it's just
Lonnie. It's just Lonnie.
You know, we talk about what
goes on up on the flight deck,
come back down here,
and have a good time,
build morale and then, boom,
we're back up on the deck plates
working it.
Here we go.
Taking tension, cat 4.
We'll bring the aircraft up.
He weighs a certain amount.
We factor the atmospherics in.
We set the catapult.
The pilot, he knows at that point
that he's behind a loaded gun.
And it's good... We're
ensuring that the deck is clear.
There's no small bodies running across
and that everything is good
in the air bosses' eyes as far
as at the deck level.
Salute. Final. Ready.
540... 540... I look
up, give one final sweep
of the deck, and I'll
hit the fire button.
Getting the shot off the
front of a carrier and going
from zero to 130 in a couple
of seconds, it's just amazing.
You get fired off that front end.
You just scream the whole way down.
♪Doing all right a little
jiving on a Saturday night
and come what may
gonna dance the day away
doing all right ooh a little
jiving on a Saturday night yeah
and come what may ooh gonna dance
the day away yeah♪
It's awesome.
Strapping on a big piece of
metal with a couple of giant
engines and going off and
flying as if you had wings
strapped onto your own arms.
It's a challenge.
It's exciting.
It's a rush.
The sheer capability of that
aircraft in your hands is just amazing.
The base price is about $57
million without all the toys.
I would say it's freedom.
It's a little bit of an escape.
Get off the boat, get above
the clouds, see the sun.
♪Ooh driver's seat yeah♪
A carrier landing is kind of like
having sex during a car accident.
There's a great reward to it, it
feels wonderful, but, man, is it
violent.
And when it's over,
it's over pretty quick.
If you want the truth, you
can consider me a spoiled brat.
I think I look at it every
day as I'm extremely fortunate.
I don't know anyone that once
you get in one wants to get out.
I'm Dave Fravor.
I am the CO of
VFA-41, the Black Aces.
I enlisted in the Marines November
of my senior year in High School.
I'd just turned 17.
I got recommended in boot camp
to go through a school called
NAPS which is the Naval
Academy prep school.
If you complete that
successfully, you can go to the
Naval Academy, which
is what happened to me.
I did my midshipmen's cruise
on-board the "USS Nimitz" and
stood up on vultures' row and
watched guys from VA35 and VF41...
Then decided I really want to do
that, and so I went to the Navy
so that I could fly jets off carriers.
No problems at all, sir...
20 years later, I'm back
on-board the "Nimitz"
and I'm the c-o of a squadron
that I watched fly 20 years ago.
Thank you again, sir.
Dude, this is no problem at all.
No problem at all.
Commander Fravor, he was prior enlisted.
He recognizes what we go through.
He's very supportive.
All the time, he's
always encouraging us.
He'll take his time.
And we'll crack smiles.
We can laugh, we can
make fun of each other.
And it's a real close atmosphere.
You always know it's him in the
airplane when he's on the catapult.
The yellow shirts love him.
He gets a lot of response up there.
The helmet's $60,000.
It's a little Mercedes on your head.
Ok. Time your light, Dell.
Time your light.
My executive officer,
Dell Bull, and I are
very good friends, and I think
that's important because when
the commanding officer and
the executive officer are that
close, I think it plays well
for the rest of the squadron.
Our leadership styles are very similar.
We're both fairly
emotional with our people.
And I try to be the bad cop, and Dave
always tries to be the good cop.
Sometimes we switch roles on
occasion, but we talk to each
other before we do that.
"Top gun's" on TV.
Live it. Be it.
Living the dream right there.
You can see it for the 23rd time.
This movie's the sole reason
why your job is so cool.
That's right.
The people that make it
through flight school and get
assigned to a squadron like
this, once you come in as a new
lieutenant and you're around
these type of people, you
become somewhat like those type
of people, and that's why we're
all the same in one way or the other.
If it weren't for this movie,
you'd be married to a troll.
That's [Beep] up, dude.
Hey, what's the deal?
Why do we come on-board a Navy ship
and have to pay for our own food?
Well, who do you think's
going to pay for it?
The Navy?
Taxpayers?
Yeah.
You're not getting a free
ride here in the Navy, partner.
You could have joined the Air Force.
They'd have paid for your
food, but then you would have
married another dude if you
had gone into the Air Force.
And you'd wear a scarf
for flight safety.
And since you know who your
parents are, you didn't qualify.
It's almost exactly like a fraternity.
A lot of camaraderie, a lot
of brotherhood, a lot of social
interaction, a lot
of like personalities.
We work hard, but we also play
really hard, like a college
fraternity probably would.
A lot of people live by the
work hard, play hard rule.
They work hard, they play hard.
They work hard, they play hard.
And that's sort of a shop motto.
Work hard, and I'll play hard,
and I'll drink whenever I want.
We have a philosophy
in the squadron that
you will work very hard but we
also promote playing very hard.
And the Black Aces play
as hard as they work.
And our motto is not
just work hard, play hard.
Mine is work hard, play harder.
It's all or nothing.
Work hard, play hard.
She was all upset.
That's why I let him beat
me today 'cause it ruined his
whole day, I could tell.
If you stop doing this so much, then
we could get out of the airplane.
He doesn't like to lose at anything.
There's no room for
individualism out here.
There's one cohesive unit.
That's why we all wear a uniform.
Eleven-three.
Eleven-eight.
"Do you love me, Dell?"
Yuke sucks at math.
I spend half my flight redoing his math.
What keeps you humble is
all your friends because
no one is going to let you
start gettin' too big for your
own head or start thinking that
you're better or more important
than you really are.
There's thousands of people
on this boat and if all of them
aren't doing their exact job at
the exact time, especially with
what I am familiar with, which
is flight deck operations,
you know, lots of bad
things can happen up there.
There's a lot of moving parts,
and a lot of those moving parts
are people.
People look on the flight deck and
say what a ballet it is, and it is.
To watch everyone integrate
and move just so smoothly and
safely and efficiently.
I'd say the whole ship's like that.
There's 20 ballets going on,
and we're all part of it, and
when it comes together
right, it's just awesome.
I had no idea what the "Nimitz," was.
I knew I was going to an
aircraft carrier, and I knew I
had no decisions about it.
I am Charles Laulis.
I'm an e-3 in the arresting
gear on the "USS Nimitz."
To tell you the truth, I was
18 years old, you know, and the
father was getting mad that
I was coming in too late.
You know, "join the Navy.
That would be the "best
thing you can ever do."
And then one night, we just
had a complete breakdown.
You know, "you came in too late,"
"you're not working."
So I just took it upon
myself, called the guy,
said, "yo, come and get me."
Four days later, I was
gone right out of Chicago.
Big deal about it.
I get there, walk up.
Master Chief Guerrera said,
"all right, this guy, V-1,"
"this guy, V-4."
You know "Laulis"... I'm
praying the V-1 for this time.
You know, "let's go, V-1.
"Hoorah."
He said, "V-2."
And I was, "ooh!"
That was it.
I knew I was in for it.
It's like, ohh, that's the gear dogs.
You're the deck monkeys, the
deck apes, grease monkeys.
You know, just the guys that roll
in grease, eat it all day long.
When a plane comes down, you've
got one guy that unhooks the
cable and tells him to retract it.
And you got another guy that
runs out and pushes the cable.
You wait for the next
one to come back in.
V-2 division is probably the
hardest working division on
this ship in terms of just
physical and mental exhaustion
day in and day out.
They work at least 18 hours every day.
I got to keep my mind on the game.
'Cause you know a bird
may drop the wrong way.
If I don't do what I have to
do, when the wire snaps, I get
chopped in half.
It is some crazy job.
And I hear that when a
cable snaps, you know it
makes a real high-pitched noise,
you know, right before it does.
But anything and everything
can happen up there.
I think that if it's going to
happen, it's going to happen.
You know, and if you make it,
then you make it, and if you
die, then, hey, that's
just the way it is.
You signed up for it.
Clear cable extensions...
People are surprised at the
crew's level of
professionalism and their
dedication and their willingness
to do really hard work
for not much compensation, really.
And you get asked, how
do you get 'em to do it?
And I don't know, frankly,
how we get 'em to do it.
Why they keep coming back and
why they keep doing the hard
stuff, I think, they
do it for each other.
You know, they do it for their buddies.
It's that mentality of,
we're all in this together.
The teamwork involved in making
this weapons system work is huge.
Our main mission is to make
sure that all the weapons are
here on the flight deck for
the squadrons so they have
everything to be able
to meet their mission.
The squadron ordies.
They belong to the squadron;
They're attached to the squadron.
They'll come over and check
their weapons, check the
aircraft, do a final q.a.,
make sure everything is
good to go and it's all
safe and ready for launch.
You're dealing with high explosives.
We deal with stuff that's
going to kill somebody, OK?
That's what it's designed for.
Cut and dry.
The deal is we don't want
that to happen on the deck.
Live bombs, live 1,000-pound bombs.
One thing happens to
that bomb and it goes off,
everything else is going to go.
The jet's going to go.
All the fuel in the jet's going to go.
It's going to catch other jets.
Missiles will start shooting
off because they're too hot.
They'll just shoot to other jets.
Those jets will blow up, and
it'll just be a chain reaction.
Bad enough we got to deal
with the [Beep] flight deck
with jets turning on
you, heat blasting on you.
Then you got to deal with the
ordnance side with the bombs
going off during [Beep] cook-off times.
Then you got [Beep] fuses that
if you hold wrong will [Beep]
blow your hands off.
That [Beep] can go off, and
then [Beep] you sitting there
burning at 3,000 degrees.
1, 2, 3.
My job is very dangerous.
Someone will be careless in
their job, and the next thing
you know, they're down
for the most minor thing.
It could be the foot or it
could be somebody's head.
Bring them up.
Everyone has to be a team player.
You have to set aside dislikes
and understand each other
because you never do know.
It may be that person that
you don't like that may
have to save your life.
First experience getting
trapped behind a cod.
Oh, it's crazy, man.
I thought I was going to blow away.
You're sure you're gonna know
what to do if you're back there
alone one day and that happens?
Get the [Beep] down and
hold onto something, dude.
All right?
It's no joke over there
between them cats, man.
Ok, we're gonna finish up
flight ops tonight at about 2200.
The air-wing and decks are doing great.
Stay focused.
I'm tired a lot.
I just don't sleep 'cause
they pound on my head at night.
That's the other thing.
You have to realize that
the ship never sleeps.
On a flight deck, they
have the catapults.
I mean, they're loud as hell.
The piston going through
the trough, "whoosh."
But right bellow where they
shoot them off is a person.
So I mean you got to imagine
at nighttime, you're trying to
sleep or even if you're
sleeping during the daytime,
you're sitting there
and all of a sudden, bam!
You know? Ha ha ha.
The vibration.
Can't sleep through that.
Aircraft come back
in at different times.
It's... Ow. Ow.
This is my first deployment.
I'm the first person in my
family to be in the military
and also the first person
in my family to fly.
My parents don't really
understand exactly what I do.
I called my mom one night, and she
said, "oh, where have you "been?"
I said, "I've been at work."
And she said, "what were you "doing?"
And I said, "I was flying.
That's what I do."
And she said, "you fly at night?
Is that safe?"
I was like, "yeah, if you knew
"what I was doing when I was... "
You know.
I'm excited.
I mean, I don't know any better.
I've been in the Navy almost
four years now, and this is the
first time I've actually
done something real.
Could you put up there "new problems"?
I'm lieutenant Laurie Coffey.
I'm a nugget, a term of endearment.
Nuggets are guys that
have not deployed before.
Generally, they're just out
of school, maybe in the first
year, year and a half or so.
"Okino Daito"?
I don't even know where that is.
That's the... The nugget experience?
I would summarize it as, keep
your eyes open, keep your mouth
shut kind of thing.
My name is Jeremy Newton.
I've only been in the
squadron for five months.
They usually say you're not
even a part of the squadron
until your six-month time.
It's a tough love atmosphere.
You mess up, you're gonna hear about it.
There's no two ways about it,
you're gonna hear about it.
You do well, you're gonna hear about it.
I guess you sailed in under
a lucky star, didn't you?
I didn't ruin it, man.
You know, everybody's in competition.
You know, we all get evaluated.
All the pilots in the squadron
have their names on this board.
And then as we grade their
pass, green is really good,
yellow is good, and browns
are a little below average,
but it's a hard job.
So, sure, this is added stress.
I'm in control I've got you glued
To train an F-18 fighter
pilot, cost of the tax dollars
is upwards of a million dollars.
If they're having a little
trouble, it might be beneficial
for a few extra flights
to keep them going.
Probably used to just wash your
hands of them and throw them out.
For a nugget, they get put
through a pretty rigorous
training schedule.
We really want to make
sure that all of our nuggets
are combat ready by the time we get
on station in the Persian Gulf.
See if I follow get down turn
around no control don't move
coat on watch out no control...
The skipper made it clear.
We're going to do this for
real here in a couple months.
And there's gonna be
marines on the ground.
And there's gonna be people
dying, and they're gonna
need you to have your bombs on
target and on time and accurate
in order to stop your buddies
on the ground from dying.
Everybody thinks about Iraq.
I don't know exactly what...
if we'll be dropping bombs, if
we'll be, you know,
just flying overhead.
I can't really get my mind
around the terror and the
terrorists and who they are
and why they are terrorizing us.
So I don't think about it a lot.
I leave that up to the politicians.
I'm in control I've got you
glued I want to ensure that when
this squadron is called, we
will hit the target exactly where
we're supposed to, when supposed to.
And if we don't do that, then
there's gonna be some issues.
I've got you glued I'm in control
all that you wanted was hello
304 on deck.
The pre-brief page.
Can you bring that up at all?
When Tasha told me the news,
we were just sitting down and
the Captain came on and he
announced that the results were back.
I said, "come on.
"Let's go find out."
She said, "no, I don't want to.
I didn't make it. I didn't make "it."
The questions that I saw on
the test, I came back and I
looked them up, and I'm like,
"dang, I got that one wrong!"
"Dang, I got that one wrong."
So I was like, man, forget it!
You know?
And so I didn't want to go down there.
So I said, "you know what?
"I'm going down there."
And I saw her name.
I was so excited.
But I was trying to play a trick
on her to tell her, "I'm sorry.
"You didn't make it."
That's not it... So I
came up to the berthing.
And I tried to tell her,
but she looked so sad.
I told you it could be hanging up.
This is right in your face.
She kind of played on me a little bit,
'cause she had a little look in her
eye and then she just came back.
I was like, "you made it!
"Congratulations!"
And she just broke up, jumped
up and down, and started crying
and fell out on the floor, crying.
And I'm just so proud of her.
I didn't believe it till I
went down and saw my name.
But I'm a Petty Officer. Petty.
That's the key word.
Not a "salute you," just a
petty, but I made it, so, hey.
Oh, she put my name on it.
Oh... I will now be a
leader, a working supervisor.
That's basically what I'll be.
And now I get to tell people what to do.
So I think I worked... I
worked damn hard for this.
More responsibility.
Yeah, I heard.
A lot more.
And everybody's gonna look up
at you like, you know better,
'cause now they expect you to know.
There's third-classes that are
out there who treat you like
and they forgot where they came from.
And I want to be the person that
knows, "hey, I remember how that
feels.
"I was once an airman."
You know?
And, you know, I'm gonna
make sure I'm a great leader.
That was a great day.
It's like when you walk across
the stage for High School.
It's like that feeling.
I have a picture of my grandmother
that inspired me to succeed.
When I was at her grave, I
just said, "grandma, I'm gonna
keep my promise and I'm gonna, you
know, make "something of myself."
So here I am.
I'm doing it, and I think
I'm doing a good job.
Ok, we're about 120
miles or so off of target,
a rock named Okino Daito
out here in the middle of the
Pacific and the air-wing's just
pounding the snot out of it all
day with live bombs and all
kinds of ordnance and just
having a blast over there,
literally and figuratively.
So, you know, it's a good day
for the air-wing, a big day,
doing some air combat maneuvering training...
How are you guys doing?
Good. How are you, sir?
I'm doing well.
Hello, sir.
My name's Brian Foster, Major,
United States Marine Corps.
This is my first cruise on
an aircraft carrier, and this
is my second flying
tour with the Red Devils.
The primary difference between
Navy and Marine pilots is
we've been through six
months of ground training.
I know those guys on the ground.
We have a common experience.
I can tell you after doing a
forward air controller tour in
Iraq that I have a newfound
respect and love for close-air
support, and that's because I've
been on the receiving end of it.
As we approach our roll-in,
we'll go ahead and tighten down.
My name's Justin Knox.
I'm a Captain in the
VMFA 232, the Red Devils.
Roll wing's level.
The squadron itself hasn't been
on a carrier in over 30 years.
So all these Marines that are in
the squadron, this is the first
time they've ever done
maintenance on a carrier.
And it's a completely different
ball game than it is back on
the shore.
We're trying to minimize
TFOAS, which is something
that's been an issue
each time you go flying.
A TFOA?
What's that?
What's a TFOA?
Things falling off aircraft.
We're definitely the red-headed
stepchildren of the air-wing
as the marines, but I
think we enjoy that role
and we take it with pride.
That's because they all want to be us.
You're killing me, Fister.
You're God damn killing me.
You know, obviously I've never
been in a Navy squadron, but
the marine squadrons
that I've seen tend to be
a little bit tighter, a little
bit more rowdy, a little bit more
rambunctious, I guess.
John Moss, another northern California
boy, his call sign's Fungus.
Call signs are not cool.
Call signs are the anti-Christ.
Call signs are things you do
when you're drunk or you do
something stupid in the jet.
My call sign is Fungus.
Stands for, "[Beep]
You, new guy, you suck."
Yoda, who's our grumpy old bear.
They don't really care much
about the pilots on this ship.
Do they, Johnny?
Not a whole lot.
Call him the Silver Back.
Pretty much the hairiest
guy I've ever met in my life.
There is a bombing range near
Yuma, Arizona, called Yodaville.
And I went out and managed
to drop a bomb square dead
center in the middle of a
fake little town that's been
built out there.
And I wasn't supposed to be
putting bombs right there,
but I was pretty stressed about
it as a new guy, so I got the
call sign Yoda.
Hey, dodo, don't give him any places
to hide his chips like last time.
Yeah, no kidding.
Let's do this thing.
Eric Jakubowski's call sign's The Big.
My last name's Jakubowski, so
the big Jakubowski, just like
the movie "The big Lebowski."
Come on, Fister.
Fister's one of our more
experienced pilots... Brian Foster...
And his is just a
play off his last name.
Uh, Fister... Foster.
Yeah... Fister?
String betting fool.
Dodo?
His call sign's pretty funny.
Unfortunately for him, he joined
the squadron literally right as
they were going off to war.
He didn't have any of his
qualifications or anything, so
he ended up spending most of
the war standing duty for the
squadron so we call him the dodo
bird, or the flightless bird.
That's how we roll!
What's funny is they don't
know everybody's name.
You go around the air-wing,
we'll know call signs and if
you said the guy's name, I'd
scratch my head and go, huh?
Another favorite call sign
in the squadron is Dahigi.
Dahigi got his call sign
'cause in Iraq he works a lot
of deals on the side, so "don't
ask how I got it" became his
call sign.
Some of them are funny;
Some of them are not funny.
From Drum Heller, it
devolved to Bung Holer.
And from there, my
call sign became Bung.
His last name is Hass, so
we had things like Inya.
They call me Sex.
'Cause my last name is Fravor.
Get it?
Favor.
Get it?
Actually, there's a
really good story to it.
I just can't tell you on camera.
This is what we're going to do today.
We're going to go out and
deploy the gun behind the ship.
We'll roll into our
15-degree dive and basically
fire bullets at the wake
that the ship's making,
and that's our target, so...
Basically evaluate how our runs
are going and determine
who's the better gunner.
Sorry. I already know that.
Oh, do you?
Do you, now, laddie?
When was the last time you
beat me in anything, Dodo?
Besides poker?
Ha ha!
I'll see you up there.
I grew up in the Midwest
in Columbia, Missouri.
All my family are
farmers back home, so...
I was the first one to move
away from Missouri, do something
different, and out of there.
My father's a dairy farmer,
and we never had a whole lot of
money, and my parents
struggled quite a bit.
So I'm a middle-class kid
living a dream, basically.
302 airborne.
Launch complete, launch complete.
Two Hornets.
They're gong to come in, and
they're gong to strafe the
wake, which means they're going
to shoot their 20-millimeter,
20 mike-mike cannon, at the wake
for target practice, if you will.
Oh, here they are right there.
302... Clear radar.
302.
Ok. Ok.
601.
Ok.
Should be at a little
bit more of an angle.
You know, like, a... Level off?
Yes. Yeah.
I didn't see any bullets that time.
Yes, sir, I saw them.
They were a little short.
Just short of the wake.
Channel 601.
Go ahead.
Battles, left alone.
You have control.
31/2 degrees, ISO,
targeting the two-wire.
Targeting the two-wire.
That is fun.
I don't care who you are.
That was really cool.
We dropped multiple twos,
and he came around, and I came
around, and I came around and
I came around raging around at
500 miles an hour.
That's pretty good [Beep].
I don't care who you are.
This is me.
This is me as dash two.
This right here is the Pipper that I
was trying to tell you all about.
The center is what we were
trying to put on the target.
Strafe the wake... Putting
the piper on the wake there.
There goes the bullets.
And we're off.
That's all she wrote.
My tape did not work.
Oh, you were talking some
good smack, and now we have no
tape to back it up.
I know who's better.
I don't need to prove it.
Very, very interesting.
I'd say it's a good team effort.
We both win.
'Tis true.
It's a good team effort.
I saw every run in the tower,
and you were short every time
and Fister was long every time.
You want to see it on the tape?
You want to see it on the tape?
What? I don't need to see it on the
tape 'cause I saw it in real life.
You can't see the wake
from where we were.
Yes, I could.
I could see the wake from where I
was and you were short every time.
The Captain was critiquing
your pattern, too.
Oh, was he, now?
What did he say, "we suck"?
No. I thought you guys were doing fine.
He was, you know, demonstrating
how he wanted the pattern
to be perpendicular to
the way the ship was going.
The strafing was fine.
It just wasn't, like, right nuts
on. So... It was good, though.
I mean, I thought it was good.
Man, I'll show you loading bombs,
standing for a good 12 long hours.
Did you see that thing where
it said "navy" and it said "the
dream" and it showed the guy
jumping out of the helo, and
then it said "the reality," and it
showed the guy washing the window.
Washing the window on the helo.
Out of any other shop in
the Navy, a group of ordies
is always the closest family.
What's missing from this table, dude?
Texas Pete.
Texas Pete.
All out, hear?
We stick together like
you wouldn't believe.
Yeah, we go... Every
place we go, we go out in
groups, and it's always
with somebody from our shop.
That's why people when they
see us, they tend to not get
close to us because they
just can't get in that group.
We tend to be protective of the girls.
Why am I going to... returning
to the intimacy class?
Because I foresee you finally
getting a steady boyfriend.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah. You got to learn the
difference between one of
those just "come here [Beep]"
And one of those, "come on, baby,
let's go and "make memories."
Yeah, they are very protective.
Probably makes my mom happy.
Dubai.
It's right down the street.
You been there before?
Oh, man, we're a mafia.
We run [Beep] on this boat, dude.
Does the ordie mafia exist?
Uh... Uh... Y'all didn't hear this
from me, but, yeah, it exists.
Buy me some Texas Pete, man.
We don't have it.
You got to look for some.
We don't have it.
You got to go ask somebody.
They got none on the boat.
They ain't got none in chief's mess?
None in first class?
Ski, best friend, he's one of
the coolest guys in the shop.
Marrero, he's a good guy.
He's married, you know, a father.
You let them steal your [Beep]?
Hodges.
Always the one who's smiling.
And the guy's happy
every time I see him.
Fourteen AOs, yeah, we
kind of bond like family.
See, they pretty much
all my family right now.
Everybody wants to be an ordie.
That's what they always tell us.
I'm taking that one.
I requested to come to VFA-41
mostly because I didn't want to
be the only female in the squadron.
What time did you get up this morning...
And I didn't want to first.
I was really confused.
Did you really get up at 4:30?
Yeah.
I was still confused.
I'm sorry to throw you.
I'd be lying to you if I said
I didn't have moments where we
just shake our heads
at the guys on the boat.
We say a lot to each
other without saying much.
But there's definite days
that you're glad you have
34 brothers and there's days
that you wish you had zero.
Come on, Alex.
You know you want to play.
You want to play?
No, I don't.
It's just different.
Guys are different.
Sometimes you don't want
to talk about sports and
flying and porn, you know?
All right. Welcome,
everybody, to the "Nimitz"
strike group eight-x tonight.
I learned from an early age,
you know, there's gonna be no
concessions for you based on
the fact that you're a girl.
If anything, you need
to be that much better.
Laurie is the first female
pilot in the hobos ever.
It's got to be a tough spot to be in.
I can't imagine being in
her shoes at this point.
You know, she's stuck in
a sea of testosterone 24/7.
I feel more like a pilot than
I feel like a woman because we
all do the same job and we all
strive to do it as well as we can.
I mean, I went to Naval
Academy, so since I was 18, I've
been, you know, at a 10:1 ratio.
And, you know, it's tough
to work in an all-male
environment just because...
Just the nature of it.
Critical to flying safety?
Right.
Laurie is, she's a physical specimen.
I mean, she's a fantastic athlete.
She is physically a large woman.
No, these are en route.
She's a stud.
She stands out as a stud first, the
fact that she's a woman, second.
She's got red hair, third, you know?
Throw those all together, and
she certainly, she stands out no
matter where she goes.
I mean, I was always very accepted
by guys because I was an athlete.
I could snowboard or I could
play basketball and I could
beat them at basketball.
And flying and being
a pilot's the same way.
If you can fly well, if
you can do your job well
you regardless of gender.
Come on.
I'm pretty sure that he did.
Come on.
Should I call your wife
and have her help you dress?
That would be nice.
Can I go on emergency leave for that?
Why don't you take off your
skirt, drop your purse, and get
you ass in the game, man?
You ready?
Finally.
Well, since we pulled out, I
guess your body kind of starts
to deteriorate.
I mean, just being up on the
flight deck, hydraulic fluid.
It's all oils and dirts and
grease that just don't leave
your skin or your pores.
It worked out there
better today anyway, man.
That was a [Beep] hot shot.
So everybody started
getting heat rash from their
sweat, you know, and working in grease.
I broke out with it.
I actually think it mutated
into a contact dermatitis.
My face, I guess you can see
where it's kind of like blotchy.
It swells up.
My forehead feels like
it's like a mosaic, dry.
You just start scratching
and trying to rip it off.
Itching feels great with it.
If I could do it, I'd
do it all the time.
So, I'd like to go to the
berthing, you know, somewhere,
somewhere where it is
cooler, you know, the working
conditions are less... are
a little bit less difficult.
Good morning.
On-board "Nimitz."
This is the XO.
It's time for cleaning stations.
Let's all hands get out and
about and clean up the ship.
Get the music on, the tvs on.
Let's get the ship
looking real, real good.
That is all.
That one's clear.
In primary, my responsibility
as the female up here is to
clean up after all the guys.
I let it sit there for, like,
a week to see if they are going
to throw it away, but they don't,
although we have four trash cans.
Although I just made third-class
petty officer, I'm still
cleaning up after people,
you know, just like when I
was an airman, and it seems
like now I'm doing it more.
But I'm supposed to be doing
it less, but I feel like if I
don't do it, who else is going to do it?
And you could ask somebody else
to do it and they'll just get
an attitude and don't want to do it.
So I just go ahead and do it.
But it really ticks me off to
clean up after other people.
I feel that the v-2 division
is a political game, like the
rest of the military.
Lieutenant Fields is our div-o.
He is the head honcho, I
guess, of the v-2 division.
I feel that personal
relationship kind of thing
between you and the man I
kind of hoped would have been
a little stronger.
Told him to move to ac-3...
Managing a whole bunch of
young aviation bo'sun's mates
is a good experience for me.
Are they rowdy? Yes.
They didn't get to become an
a-b because they were, you know,
valedictorian in High School.
Let's just put it that way.
But I will tell you
something about the a-b rate.
I mean, they have the
biggest heart, you know.
And I do what I can
to take care of them.
How you doing?
We need to get you in the rack?
No.
Chief work you too hard?
No, not too hard.
We just had some stuff last
night we had to be up here with.
All right, a-b 1.
Ok. All right. We'll see you.
Ok.
I was trying to strike
as an aircrewman, search
and rescue, you know, anything
to move into a better position.
It's like, "well, I'm sorry.
"You know, I can't let you go."
You know, so I kind of have a
personal problem with the guy.
You know, and haven't I worked,
haven't I been your horse for
long enough?
You working hard there, Laulis?
Yeah.
What you listening to...
I guess this day, I'm never
going to be able to find out,
you know, why the guy had to say
no, you know, but I'm
gonna look at it as
one of the guys that
helped ruin my career,
you know, here in the military.
When are you gonna come
see me about your stuff?
What, the air crew package, sir?
Yeah. I know you've been
wanting to talk to me.
I can see it in your eyes.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
I ran into l-t in the p-way and
he said, you know, "what's up
"with your air crew package,"
you know.
It's like, come on, man.
You know exactly how it's going.
You're the guy that said no.
Don't you remember?
It's like, why would you
ask me something like that?
If it's just one man that
could've gotten me, well, it was
you, you know, and you still denied it.
Airman Laulis, he wants to be an a-w.
Unfortunately, the rate
is closed up right now.
He had a little issue in the
past that's also preventing him
from striking that rate.
He had a career development board.
I mean, he's an awesome person.
They didn't recommend anything for him.
He'll have to wait a little bit
longer for one... the rate to
open up, and two... for that
thing in the past to clear.
What happened in my past,
you know, I got in trouble
for underage drinking.
I guess the day that happened,
you know, it was like, bam,
you're automatically
held back for 24 months.
I waited that time period out,
and I submitted and still got
turned down.
It depends on the liberty risk board.
They're the ones.
I mean first thing I did was...
You're powerless to the next
guy that's above rank than you.
They've got you.
I mean, it's "choose your
rate, "choose your fate."
That day that Master Chief
Guerrero said, "you're
v-2," you know, it was like,
that day I knew they had me.
You know, there's no
getting out from there.
There isn't.
And they'll do anything and
everything to keep you in...
Everything and anything.
I'm trying to figure out, I'm
trying to work the system, but
it's just not working for me.
You don't know how.
Teach me.
You don't know how.
Teach me.
What are you trying to do?
A normal boss you can argue with.
No. Chiefs, no, no, no, no.
That's what pisses a lot of
people off 'cause even though
the person's, like, stupid,
you know, or they might not be
right, it doesn't matter.
If you're higher rank,
you're higher rank.
Hello?
I just wanted to see
how things are going.
I miss the hell out of you.
That sounds so funny, though.
What sounds funny?
What you say.
What, "I miss the hell out of you"?
You miss the hell out of me?
That's funny.
Whenever I call, she
doesn't really say much.
It's like she's real shy to talk to me.
It looks like she doesn't know
who I am sometimes or something.
I don't know.
She doesn't have a lot in her
answers, and she just laughs a lot.
Ha ha.
But it's cute.
It's the way I remember her.
I just want things to work out, man.
I don't want to go home and
her just be, like, not even
know who I am, you know?
My worst fear is that there's
another guy involved, but, I
mean, I doubt that's going on
with her being pregnant and all,
but I don't know.
That's every guy's worst fear, man.
No, she's not bad.
You know how she is.
I know.
You know how I am, though, dude.
I know.
I worry.
I worry about everything.
I just hope I go back,
you know, the kid's born,
everything's fine, she moves
in with me, and we just pick up
where we left off, dude.
That's all I want.
Good evening, "Nimitz"
and air-wing eleven.
It's a great day for
flying out here today.
We'll continue with the flying.
We do this on the way across
here to keep the air-wing
and the deck and the air
ops folks all sharp and on
top of their game so when we get
into theatre, we'll be ready to go.
Be aware of the heat.
I want to make sure
everybody's hydrated and eating
the right stuff and you're
taking care of yourselves, as
we get acclimated to go to the
Arabian Gulf, where it's really
gonna be hot over there in
the middle of the summer.
I'm starving, man.
Today wasn't a bad day, dude.
I think it was all right.
I thought we had more to do.
What the hell is going on here?
I don't know.
It's complete chaos.
It's like the whole Navy...
Organized chaos, baby.
I know, man.
Aw, man, that's a big ball of grease.
Ha ha!
We're going too fast.
Too fast.
We're AOs.
We always walk fast.
I'm just anxious to
get... off the flight deck.
Subs rip, edit, and resnyc by
© VJ Me 2010
by the corporation for public
broadcasting and by contributions
to your PBS station from...
Subs rip, edit, and resnyc by
© VJ Me 2010
♪it's a long road to
paradise and, oh, I feel the pain
oh oh oh they tell me
things are different now
but I still hurt the same
haze gray and underway
a world away from you
and miles and miles of blue♪
It's a dangerous place.
We all know it.
We all have to deal with it.
We just all got to work as a team.
If you don't work as a team,
everything's gonna fall apart.
The whole ship, they all come
together to make it look easy.
It's really an incredible orchestra.
There's birds turning, jet blasts.
You've got the props that are turning.
That's probably the scariest thing.
It's just a superstitious thing,
but we never use the "C" word.
The "C" word meaning crunch,
you know, is when we impact two
aircraft together.
We don't eat Crunch candy bars,
and you never tell me to be
safe out on the deck.
Keep your head on a swivel,
constantly looking around.
Everything changes every 10 seconds.
As I like to say it, we
are trying to control chaos.
It's just high tempo up here, man.
Our blood runs about a
thousand miles an hour.
You ready?
Once you leave Hawaii, my
morale started to do this,
because they say, "oh, I
got "five more months to go."
I'm writing to my best friend.
I'm starting to get to a point
where I'm getting homesick.
I've been trying to become a
yeoman, which is in administration.
And I took the test, and I'm
just waiting for the results to
come back.
So I'm just hoping.
All right, "Nimitz,"
welcome back to your Tuesday edition
of your Red Devil fod walk-down!
Arr!
A little Black Sabbath coming at you.
If you're still at your work centers,
you still got time, babies.
Get on up on my flight
deck and walk that fod!
The fod walk is getting any
kind of pieces of debris and
stuff like that are on the flight deck.
You got to get out there
and pick it up every day.
Great.
On fod!
You'd be surprised at the
amount of damage a small screw
could do to a
multimillion-dollar jet engine.
Right now, we're transiting
to the Persian Gulf,
and we've got a limited amount
of time to get everybody ready.
Squadrons, the flight deck,
crew, the ship as a whole,
all of us are depending on
everybody else to do their job
and to do it right.
So when it comes time to do
it for real, everybody's got
their game face on and
they're ready to play.
Reset cat 3.
Tell them to reset it.
Tell 'em to set it.
Set that.
All right. Here we go.
Hand is out, thumb is up,
military power winds, crosswind.
Swoop, final. Ready?
520 to 4 light, light.
Winds crosswinds, thumb,
thumb, heading... steady.
Fire.
Oh, yeah.
The thrill of shooting planes.
It's pretty rowdy.
There's a sense of urgency;
It's dangerous.
And it's just mad physics.
I don't even know what else to say.
It's just violent, you know.
I'm lieutenant Lonnie Fields.
I'm the V-2 division officer.
I'm responsible for
managing over 200 people.
It's the largest division on the ship.
We do aircraft launch and recovery.
I went into the aerospace
industry because I wanted to
become an astronaut.
And I really didn't
even know how to do that.
You know, I said, all right,
you know, I'd get on a spaceship,
you know, kind of like
the mother ship connection.
I couldn't get a job back in
1995 in the aerospace industry,
and the military was knocking
on my door, and I was knocking
back, like, let's do it.
Taking tension.
Good stroke. Good hook... But
I chose to become a shooter
because I wanted to do something to
get me, you know, nice and dirty.
Man's out.
His thumb is up.
Military power winds...
I mean, this is it.
This is where it's at.
Fire.
This is the pointy end of the spear.
And we have a core.
You know, Scott Small, myself,
Brian Erickson, Dave Cummings,
and Ketrick Brooks, you know,
that's the core shooters right now.
This is the circle of trust.
You guys know about the
circle of trust, right?
You guys know about the circle of trust?
There's people that try to come
and invade the circle of trust,
but we know those people.
And we get 'em out!
We purge them, you know,
like the old-school days.
We purge them.
You know?
That's chaplain Dufour.
He's on the outskirts
of the circle of trust.
He's always trying to invade us.
He tries to come over like that,
and then I'll put Brooks over
here to block him.
And then you have some T.A.D.
Shooters that come over
like from the "Stennis."
And they get to marinate
in there just a little bit.
But you know what?
They're only here for a
temporary amount of time, and
we just kick their asses out.
Lonnie makes the rules.
We just live in his world.
A lot of times, it's just
Lonnie. It's just Lonnie.
You know, we talk about what
goes on up on the flight deck,
come back down here,
and have a good time,
build morale and then, boom,
we're back up on the deck plates
working it.
Here we go.
Taking tension, cat 4.
We'll bring the aircraft up.
He weighs a certain amount.
We factor the atmospherics in.
We set the catapult.
The pilot, he knows at that point
that he's behind a loaded gun.
And it's good... We're
ensuring that the deck is clear.
There's no small bodies running across
and that everything is good
in the air bosses' eyes as far
as at the deck level.
Salute. Final. Ready.
540... 540... I look
up, give one final sweep
of the deck, and I'll
hit the fire button.
Getting the shot off the
front of a carrier and going
from zero to 130 in a couple
of seconds, it's just amazing.
You get fired off that front end.
You just scream the whole way down.
♪Doing all right a little
jiving on a Saturday night
and come what may
gonna dance the day away
doing all right ooh a little
jiving on a Saturday night yeah
and come what may ooh gonna dance
the day away yeah♪
It's awesome.
Strapping on a big piece of
metal with a couple of giant
engines and going off and
flying as if you had wings
strapped onto your own arms.
It's a challenge.
It's exciting.
It's a rush.
The sheer capability of that
aircraft in your hands is just amazing.
The base price is about $57
million without all the toys.
I would say it's freedom.
It's a little bit of an escape.
Get off the boat, get above
the clouds, see the sun.
♪Ooh driver's seat yeah♪
A carrier landing is kind of like
having sex during a car accident.
There's a great reward to it, it
feels wonderful, but, man, is it
violent.
And when it's over,
it's over pretty quick.
If you want the truth, you
can consider me a spoiled brat.
I think I look at it every
day as I'm extremely fortunate.
I don't know anyone that once
you get in one wants to get out.
I'm Dave Fravor.
I am the CO of
VFA-41, the Black Aces.
I enlisted in the Marines November
of my senior year in High School.
I'd just turned 17.
I got recommended in boot camp
to go through a school called
NAPS which is the Naval
Academy prep school.
If you complete that
successfully, you can go to the
Naval Academy, which
is what happened to me.
I did my midshipmen's cruise
on-board the "USS Nimitz" and
stood up on vultures' row and
watched guys from VA35 and VF41...
Then decided I really want to do
that, and so I went to the Navy
so that I could fly jets off carriers.
No problems at all, sir...
20 years later, I'm back
on-board the "Nimitz"
and I'm the c-o of a squadron
that I watched fly 20 years ago.
Thank you again, sir.
Dude, this is no problem at all.
No problem at all.
Commander Fravor, he was prior enlisted.
He recognizes what we go through.
He's very supportive.
All the time, he's
always encouraging us.
He'll take his time.
And we'll crack smiles.
We can laugh, we can
make fun of each other.
And it's a real close atmosphere.
You always know it's him in the
airplane when he's on the catapult.
The yellow shirts love him.
He gets a lot of response up there.
The helmet's $60,000.
It's a little Mercedes on your head.
Ok. Time your light, Dell.
Time your light.
My executive officer,
Dell Bull, and I are
very good friends, and I think
that's important because when
the commanding officer and
the executive officer are that
close, I think it plays well
for the rest of the squadron.
Our leadership styles are very similar.
We're both fairly
emotional with our people.
And I try to be the bad cop, and Dave
always tries to be the good cop.
Sometimes we switch roles on
occasion, but we talk to each
other before we do that.
"Top gun's" on TV.
Live it. Be it.
Living the dream right there.
You can see it for the 23rd time.
This movie's the sole reason
why your job is so cool.
That's right.
The people that make it
through flight school and get
assigned to a squadron like
this, once you come in as a new
lieutenant and you're around
these type of people, you
become somewhat like those type
of people, and that's why we're
all the same in one way or the other.
If it weren't for this movie,
you'd be married to a troll.
That's [Beep] up, dude.
Hey, what's the deal?
Why do we come on-board a Navy ship
and have to pay for our own food?
Well, who do you think's
going to pay for it?
The Navy?
Taxpayers?
Yeah.
You're not getting a free
ride here in the Navy, partner.
You could have joined the Air Force.
They'd have paid for your
food, but then you would have
married another dude if you
had gone into the Air Force.
And you'd wear a scarf
for flight safety.
And since you know who your
parents are, you didn't qualify.
It's almost exactly like a fraternity.
A lot of camaraderie, a lot
of brotherhood, a lot of social
interaction, a lot
of like personalities.
We work hard, but we also play
really hard, like a college
fraternity probably would.
A lot of people live by the
work hard, play hard rule.
They work hard, they play hard.
They work hard, they play hard.
And that's sort of a shop motto.
Work hard, and I'll play hard,
and I'll drink whenever I want.
We have a philosophy
in the squadron that
you will work very hard but we
also promote playing very hard.
And the Black Aces play
as hard as they work.
And our motto is not
just work hard, play hard.
Mine is work hard, play harder.
It's all or nothing.
Work hard, play hard.
She was all upset.
That's why I let him beat
me today 'cause it ruined his
whole day, I could tell.
If you stop doing this so much, then
we could get out of the airplane.
He doesn't like to lose at anything.
There's no room for
individualism out here.
There's one cohesive unit.
That's why we all wear a uniform.
Eleven-three.
Eleven-eight.
"Do you love me, Dell?"
Yuke sucks at math.
I spend half my flight redoing his math.
What keeps you humble is
all your friends because
no one is going to let you
start gettin' too big for your
own head or start thinking that
you're better or more important
than you really are.
There's thousands of people
on this boat and if all of them
aren't doing their exact job at
the exact time, especially with
what I am familiar with, which
is flight deck operations,
you know, lots of bad
things can happen up there.
There's a lot of moving parts,
and a lot of those moving parts
are people.
People look on the flight deck and
say what a ballet it is, and it is.
To watch everyone integrate
and move just so smoothly and
safely and efficiently.
I'd say the whole ship's like that.
There's 20 ballets going on,
and we're all part of it, and
when it comes together
right, it's just awesome.
I had no idea what the "Nimitz," was.
I knew I was going to an
aircraft carrier, and I knew I
had no decisions about it.
I am Charles Laulis.
I'm an e-3 in the arresting
gear on the "USS Nimitz."
To tell you the truth, I was
18 years old, you know, and the
father was getting mad that
I was coming in too late.
You know, "join the Navy.
That would be the "best
thing you can ever do."
And then one night, we just
had a complete breakdown.
You know, "you came in too late,"
"you're not working."
So I just took it upon
myself, called the guy,
said, "yo, come and get me."
Four days later, I was
gone right out of Chicago.
Big deal about it.
I get there, walk up.
Master Chief Guerrera said,
"all right, this guy, V-1,"
"this guy, V-4."
You know "Laulis"... I'm
praying the V-1 for this time.
You know, "let's go, V-1.
"Hoorah."
He said, "V-2."
And I was, "ooh!"
That was it.
I knew I was in for it.
It's like, ohh, that's the gear dogs.
You're the deck monkeys, the
deck apes, grease monkeys.
You know, just the guys that roll
in grease, eat it all day long.
When a plane comes down, you've
got one guy that unhooks the
cable and tells him to retract it.
And you got another guy that
runs out and pushes the cable.
You wait for the next
one to come back in.
V-2 division is probably the
hardest working division on
this ship in terms of just
physical and mental exhaustion
day in and day out.
They work at least 18 hours every day.
I got to keep my mind on the game.
'Cause you know a bird
may drop the wrong way.
If I don't do what I have to
do, when the wire snaps, I get
chopped in half.
It is some crazy job.
And I hear that when a
cable snaps, you know it
makes a real high-pitched noise,
you know, right before it does.
But anything and everything
can happen up there.
I think that if it's going to
happen, it's going to happen.
You know, and if you make it,
then you make it, and if you
die, then, hey, that's
just the way it is.
You signed up for it.
Clear cable extensions...
People are surprised at the
crew's level of
professionalism and their
dedication and their willingness
to do really hard work
for not much compensation, really.
And you get asked, how
do you get 'em to do it?
And I don't know, frankly,
how we get 'em to do it.
Why they keep coming back and
why they keep doing the hard
stuff, I think, they
do it for each other.
You know, they do it for their buddies.
It's that mentality of,
we're all in this together.
The teamwork involved in making
this weapons system work is huge.
Our main mission is to make
sure that all the weapons are
here on the flight deck for
the squadrons so they have
everything to be able
to meet their mission.
The squadron ordies.
They belong to the squadron;
They're attached to the squadron.
They'll come over and check
their weapons, check the
aircraft, do a final q.a.,
make sure everything is
good to go and it's all
safe and ready for launch.
You're dealing with high explosives.
We deal with stuff that's
going to kill somebody, OK?
That's what it's designed for.
Cut and dry.
The deal is we don't want
that to happen on the deck.
Live bombs, live 1,000-pound bombs.
One thing happens to
that bomb and it goes off,
everything else is going to go.
The jet's going to go.
All the fuel in the jet's going to go.
It's going to catch other jets.
Missiles will start shooting
off because they're too hot.
They'll just shoot to other jets.
Those jets will blow up, and
it'll just be a chain reaction.
Bad enough we got to deal
with the [Beep] flight deck
with jets turning on
you, heat blasting on you.
Then you got to deal with the
ordnance side with the bombs
going off during [Beep] cook-off times.
Then you got [Beep] fuses that
if you hold wrong will [Beep]
blow your hands off.
That [Beep] can go off, and
then [Beep] you sitting there
burning at 3,000 degrees.
1, 2, 3.
My job is very dangerous.
Someone will be careless in
their job, and the next thing
you know, they're down
for the most minor thing.
It could be the foot or it
could be somebody's head.
Bring them up.
Everyone has to be a team player.
You have to set aside dislikes
and understand each other
because you never do know.
It may be that person that
you don't like that may
have to save your life.
First experience getting
trapped behind a cod.
Oh, it's crazy, man.
I thought I was going to blow away.
You're sure you're gonna know
what to do if you're back there
alone one day and that happens?
Get the [Beep] down and
hold onto something, dude.
All right?
It's no joke over there
between them cats, man.
Ok, we're gonna finish up
flight ops tonight at about 2200.
The air-wing and decks are doing great.
Stay focused.
I'm tired a lot.
I just don't sleep 'cause
they pound on my head at night.
That's the other thing.
You have to realize that
the ship never sleeps.
On a flight deck, they
have the catapults.
I mean, they're loud as hell.
The piston going through
the trough, "whoosh."
But right bellow where they
shoot them off is a person.
So I mean you got to imagine
at nighttime, you're trying to
sleep or even if you're
sleeping during the daytime,
you're sitting there
and all of a sudden, bam!
You know? Ha ha ha.
The vibration.
Can't sleep through that.
Aircraft come back
in at different times.
It's... Ow. Ow.
This is my first deployment.
I'm the first person in my
family to be in the military
and also the first person
in my family to fly.
My parents don't really
understand exactly what I do.
I called my mom one night, and she
said, "oh, where have you "been?"
I said, "I've been at work."
And she said, "what were you "doing?"
And I said, "I was flying.
That's what I do."
And she said, "you fly at night?
Is that safe?"
I was like, "yeah, if you knew
"what I was doing when I was... "
You know.
I'm excited.
I mean, I don't know any better.
I've been in the Navy almost
four years now, and this is the
first time I've actually
done something real.
Could you put up there "new problems"?
I'm lieutenant Laurie Coffey.
I'm a nugget, a term of endearment.
Nuggets are guys that
have not deployed before.
Generally, they're just out
of school, maybe in the first
year, year and a half or so.
"Okino Daito"?
I don't even know where that is.
That's the... The nugget experience?
I would summarize it as, keep
your eyes open, keep your mouth
shut kind of thing.
My name is Jeremy Newton.
I've only been in the
squadron for five months.
They usually say you're not
even a part of the squadron
until your six-month time.
It's a tough love atmosphere.
You mess up, you're gonna hear about it.
There's no two ways about it,
you're gonna hear about it.
You do well, you're gonna hear about it.
I guess you sailed in under
a lucky star, didn't you?
I didn't ruin it, man.
You know, everybody's in competition.
You know, we all get evaluated.
All the pilots in the squadron
have their names on this board.
And then as we grade their
pass, green is really good,
yellow is good, and browns
are a little below average,
but it's a hard job.
So, sure, this is added stress.
I'm in control I've got you glued
To train an F-18 fighter
pilot, cost of the tax dollars
is upwards of a million dollars.
If they're having a little
trouble, it might be beneficial
for a few extra flights
to keep them going.
Probably used to just wash your
hands of them and throw them out.
For a nugget, they get put
through a pretty rigorous
training schedule.
We really want to make
sure that all of our nuggets
are combat ready by the time we get
on station in the Persian Gulf.
See if I follow get down turn
around no control don't move
coat on watch out no control...
The skipper made it clear.
We're going to do this for
real here in a couple months.
And there's gonna be
marines on the ground.
And there's gonna be people
dying, and they're gonna
need you to have your bombs on
target and on time and accurate
in order to stop your buddies
on the ground from dying.
Everybody thinks about Iraq.
I don't know exactly what...
if we'll be dropping bombs, if
we'll be, you know,
just flying overhead.
I can't really get my mind
around the terror and the
terrorists and who they are
and why they are terrorizing us.
So I don't think about it a lot.
I leave that up to the politicians.
I'm in control I've got you
glued I want to ensure that when
this squadron is called, we
will hit the target exactly where
we're supposed to, when supposed to.
And if we don't do that, then
there's gonna be some issues.
I've got you glued I'm in control
all that you wanted was hello
304 on deck.
The pre-brief page.
Can you bring that up at all?
When Tasha told me the news,
we were just sitting down and
the Captain came on and he
announced that the results were back.
I said, "come on.
"Let's go find out."
She said, "no, I don't want to.
I didn't make it. I didn't make "it."
The questions that I saw on
the test, I came back and I
looked them up, and I'm like,
"dang, I got that one wrong!"
"Dang, I got that one wrong."
So I was like, man, forget it!
You know?
And so I didn't want to go down there.
So I said, "you know what?
"I'm going down there."
And I saw her name.
I was so excited.
But I was trying to play a trick
on her to tell her, "I'm sorry.
"You didn't make it."
That's not it... So I
came up to the berthing.
And I tried to tell her,
but she looked so sad.
I told you it could be hanging up.
This is right in your face.
She kind of played on me a little bit,
'cause she had a little look in her
eye and then she just came back.
I was like, "you made it!
"Congratulations!"
And she just broke up, jumped
up and down, and started crying
and fell out on the floor, crying.
And I'm just so proud of her.
I didn't believe it till I
went down and saw my name.
But I'm a Petty Officer. Petty.
That's the key word.
Not a "salute you," just a
petty, but I made it, so, hey.
Oh, she put my name on it.
Oh... I will now be a
leader, a working supervisor.
That's basically what I'll be.
And now I get to tell people what to do.
So I think I worked... I
worked damn hard for this.
More responsibility.
Yeah, I heard.
A lot more.
And everybody's gonna look up
at you like, you know better,
'cause now they expect you to know.
There's third-classes that are
out there who treat you like
and they forgot where they came from.
And I want to be the person that
knows, "hey, I remember how that
feels.
"I was once an airman."
You know?
And, you know, I'm gonna
make sure I'm a great leader.
That was a great day.
It's like when you walk across
the stage for High School.
It's like that feeling.
I have a picture of my grandmother
that inspired me to succeed.
When I was at her grave, I
just said, "grandma, I'm gonna
keep my promise and I'm gonna, you
know, make "something of myself."
So here I am.
I'm doing it, and I think
I'm doing a good job.
Ok, we're about 120
miles or so off of target,
a rock named Okino Daito
out here in the middle of the
Pacific and the air-wing's just
pounding the snot out of it all
day with live bombs and all
kinds of ordnance and just
having a blast over there,
literally and figuratively.
So, you know, it's a good day
for the air-wing, a big day,
doing some air combat maneuvering training...
How are you guys doing?
Good. How are you, sir?
I'm doing well.
Hello, sir.
My name's Brian Foster, Major,
United States Marine Corps.
This is my first cruise on
an aircraft carrier, and this
is my second flying
tour with the Red Devils.
The primary difference between
Navy and Marine pilots is
we've been through six
months of ground training.
I know those guys on the ground.
We have a common experience.
I can tell you after doing a
forward air controller tour in
Iraq that I have a newfound
respect and love for close-air
support, and that's because I've
been on the receiving end of it.
As we approach our roll-in,
we'll go ahead and tighten down.
My name's Justin Knox.
I'm a Captain in the
VMFA 232, the Red Devils.
Roll wing's level.
The squadron itself hasn't been
on a carrier in over 30 years.
So all these Marines that are in
the squadron, this is the first
time they've ever done
maintenance on a carrier.
And it's a completely different
ball game than it is back on
the shore.
We're trying to minimize
TFOAS, which is something
that's been an issue
each time you go flying.
A TFOA?
What's that?
What's a TFOA?
Things falling off aircraft.
We're definitely the red-headed
stepchildren of the air-wing
as the marines, but I
think we enjoy that role
and we take it with pride.
That's because they all want to be us.
You're killing me, Fister.
You're God damn killing me.
You know, obviously I've never
been in a Navy squadron, but
the marine squadrons
that I've seen tend to be
a little bit tighter, a little
bit more rowdy, a little bit more
rambunctious, I guess.
John Moss, another northern California
boy, his call sign's Fungus.
Call signs are not cool.
Call signs are the anti-Christ.
Call signs are things you do
when you're drunk or you do
something stupid in the jet.
My call sign is Fungus.
Stands for, "[Beep]
You, new guy, you suck."
Yoda, who's our grumpy old bear.
They don't really care much
about the pilots on this ship.
Do they, Johnny?
Not a whole lot.
Call him the Silver Back.
Pretty much the hairiest
guy I've ever met in my life.
There is a bombing range near
Yuma, Arizona, called Yodaville.
And I went out and managed
to drop a bomb square dead
center in the middle of a
fake little town that's been
built out there.
And I wasn't supposed to be
putting bombs right there,
but I was pretty stressed about
it as a new guy, so I got the
call sign Yoda.
Hey, dodo, don't give him any places
to hide his chips like last time.
Yeah, no kidding.
Let's do this thing.
Eric Jakubowski's call sign's The Big.
My last name's Jakubowski, so
the big Jakubowski, just like
the movie "The big Lebowski."
Come on, Fister.
Fister's one of our more
experienced pilots... Brian Foster...
And his is just a
play off his last name.
Uh, Fister... Foster.
Yeah... Fister?
String betting fool.
Dodo?
His call sign's pretty funny.
Unfortunately for him, he joined
the squadron literally right as
they were going off to war.
He didn't have any of his
qualifications or anything, so
he ended up spending most of
the war standing duty for the
squadron so we call him the dodo
bird, or the flightless bird.
That's how we roll!
What's funny is they don't
know everybody's name.
You go around the air-wing,
we'll know call signs and if
you said the guy's name, I'd
scratch my head and go, huh?
Another favorite call sign
in the squadron is Dahigi.
Dahigi got his call sign
'cause in Iraq he works a lot
of deals on the side, so "don't
ask how I got it" became his
call sign.
Some of them are funny;
Some of them are not funny.
From Drum Heller, it
devolved to Bung Holer.
And from there, my
call sign became Bung.
His last name is Hass, so
we had things like Inya.
They call me Sex.
'Cause my last name is Fravor.
Get it?
Favor.
Get it?
Actually, there's a
really good story to it.
I just can't tell you on camera.
This is what we're going to do today.
We're going to go out and
deploy the gun behind the ship.
We'll roll into our
15-degree dive and basically
fire bullets at the wake
that the ship's making,
and that's our target, so...
Basically evaluate how our runs
are going and determine
who's the better gunner.
Sorry. I already know that.
Oh, do you?
Do you, now, laddie?
When was the last time you
beat me in anything, Dodo?
Besides poker?
Ha ha!
I'll see you up there.
I grew up in the Midwest
in Columbia, Missouri.
All my family are
farmers back home, so...
I was the first one to move
away from Missouri, do something
different, and out of there.
My father's a dairy farmer,
and we never had a whole lot of
money, and my parents
struggled quite a bit.
So I'm a middle-class kid
living a dream, basically.
302 airborne.
Launch complete, launch complete.
Two Hornets.
They're gong to come in, and
they're gong to strafe the
wake, which means they're going
to shoot their 20-millimeter,
20 mike-mike cannon, at the wake
for target practice, if you will.
Oh, here they are right there.
302... Clear radar.
302.
Ok. Ok.
601.
Ok.
Should be at a little
bit more of an angle.
You know, like, a... Level off?
Yes. Yeah.
I didn't see any bullets that time.
Yes, sir, I saw them.
They were a little short.
Just short of the wake.
Channel 601.
Go ahead.
Battles, left alone.
You have control.
31/2 degrees, ISO,
targeting the two-wire.
Targeting the two-wire.
That is fun.
I don't care who you are.
That was really cool.
We dropped multiple twos,
and he came around, and I came
around, and I came around and
I came around raging around at
500 miles an hour.
That's pretty good [Beep].
I don't care who you are.
This is me.
This is me as dash two.
This right here is the Pipper that I
was trying to tell you all about.
The center is what we were
trying to put on the target.
Strafe the wake... Putting
the piper on the wake there.
There goes the bullets.
And we're off.
That's all she wrote.
My tape did not work.
Oh, you were talking some
good smack, and now we have no
tape to back it up.
I know who's better.
I don't need to prove it.
Very, very interesting.
I'd say it's a good team effort.
We both win.
'Tis true.
It's a good team effort.
I saw every run in the tower,
and you were short every time
and Fister was long every time.
You want to see it on the tape?
You want to see it on the tape?
What? I don't need to see it on the
tape 'cause I saw it in real life.
You can't see the wake
from where we were.
Yes, I could.
I could see the wake from where I
was and you were short every time.
The Captain was critiquing
your pattern, too.
Oh, was he, now?
What did he say, "we suck"?
No. I thought you guys were doing fine.
He was, you know, demonstrating
how he wanted the pattern
to be perpendicular to
the way the ship was going.
The strafing was fine.
It just wasn't, like, right nuts
on. So... It was good, though.
I mean, I thought it was good.
Man, I'll show you loading bombs,
standing for a good 12 long hours.
Did you see that thing where
it said "navy" and it said "the
dream" and it showed the guy
jumping out of the helo, and
then it said "the reality," and it
showed the guy washing the window.
Washing the window on the helo.
Out of any other shop in
the Navy, a group of ordies
is always the closest family.
What's missing from this table, dude?
Texas Pete.
Texas Pete.
All out, hear?
We stick together like
you wouldn't believe.
Yeah, we go... Every
place we go, we go out in
groups, and it's always
with somebody from our shop.
That's why people when they
see us, they tend to not get
close to us because they
just can't get in that group.
We tend to be protective of the girls.
Why am I going to... returning
to the intimacy class?
Because I foresee you finally
getting a steady boyfriend.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah. You got to learn the
difference between one of
those just "come here [Beep]"
And one of those, "come on, baby,
let's go and "make memories."
Yeah, they are very protective.
Probably makes my mom happy.
Dubai.
It's right down the street.
You been there before?
Oh, man, we're a mafia.
We run [Beep] on this boat, dude.
Does the ordie mafia exist?
Uh... Uh... Y'all didn't hear this
from me, but, yeah, it exists.
Buy me some Texas Pete, man.
We don't have it.
You got to look for some.
We don't have it.
You got to go ask somebody.
They got none on the boat.
They ain't got none in chief's mess?
None in first class?
Ski, best friend, he's one of
the coolest guys in the shop.
Marrero, he's a good guy.
He's married, you know, a father.
You let them steal your [Beep]?
Hodges.
Always the one who's smiling.
And the guy's happy
every time I see him.
Fourteen AOs, yeah, we
kind of bond like family.
See, they pretty much
all my family right now.
Everybody wants to be an ordie.
That's what they always tell us.
I'm taking that one.
I requested to come to VFA-41
mostly because I didn't want to
be the only female in the squadron.
What time did you get up this morning...
And I didn't want to first.
I was really confused.
Did you really get up at 4:30?
Yeah.
I was still confused.
I'm sorry to throw you.
I'd be lying to you if I said
I didn't have moments where we
just shake our heads
at the guys on the boat.
We say a lot to each
other without saying much.
But there's definite days
that you're glad you have
34 brothers and there's days
that you wish you had zero.
Come on, Alex.
You know you want to play.
You want to play?
No, I don't.
It's just different.
Guys are different.
Sometimes you don't want
to talk about sports and
flying and porn, you know?
All right. Welcome,
everybody, to the "Nimitz"
strike group eight-x tonight.
I learned from an early age,
you know, there's gonna be no
concessions for you based on
the fact that you're a girl.
If anything, you need
to be that much better.
Laurie is the first female
pilot in the hobos ever.
It's got to be a tough spot to be in.
I can't imagine being in
her shoes at this point.
You know, she's stuck in
a sea of testosterone 24/7.
I feel more like a pilot than
I feel like a woman because we
all do the same job and we all
strive to do it as well as we can.
I mean, I went to Naval
Academy, so since I was 18, I've
been, you know, at a 10:1 ratio.
And, you know, it's tough
to work in an all-male
environment just because...
Just the nature of it.
Critical to flying safety?
Right.
Laurie is, she's a physical specimen.
I mean, she's a fantastic athlete.
She is physically a large woman.
No, these are en route.
She's a stud.
She stands out as a stud first, the
fact that she's a woman, second.
She's got red hair, third, you know?
Throw those all together, and
she certainly, she stands out no
matter where she goes.
I mean, I was always very accepted
by guys because I was an athlete.
I could snowboard or I could
play basketball and I could
beat them at basketball.
And flying and being
a pilot's the same way.
If you can fly well, if
you can do your job well
you regardless of gender.
Come on.
I'm pretty sure that he did.
Come on.
Should I call your wife
and have her help you dress?
That would be nice.
Can I go on emergency leave for that?
Why don't you take off your
skirt, drop your purse, and get
you ass in the game, man?
You ready?
Finally.
Well, since we pulled out, I
guess your body kind of starts
to deteriorate.
I mean, just being up on the
flight deck, hydraulic fluid.
It's all oils and dirts and
grease that just don't leave
your skin or your pores.
It worked out there
better today anyway, man.
That was a [Beep] hot shot.
So everybody started
getting heat rash from their
sweat, you know, and working in grease.
I broke out with it.
I actually think it mutated
into a contact dermatitis.
My face, I guess you can see
where it's kind of like blotchy.
It swells up.
My forehead feels like
it's like a mosaic, dry.
You just start scratching
and trying to rip it off.
Itching feels great with it.
If I could do it, I'd
do it all the time.
So, I'd like to go to the
berthing, you know, somewhere,
somewhere where it is
cooler, you know, the working
conditions are less... are
a little bit less difficult.
Good morning.
On-board "Nimitz."
This is the XO.
It's time for cleaning stations.
Let's all hands get out and
about and clean up the ship.
Get the music on, the tvs on.
Let's get the ship
looking real, real good.
That is all.
That one's clear.
In primary, my responsibility
as the female up here is to
clean up after all the guys.
I let it sit there for, like,
a week to see if they are going
to throw it away, but they don't,
although we have four trash cans.
Although I just made third-class
petty officer, I'm still
cleaning up after people,
you know, just like when I
was an airman, and it seems
like now I'm doing it more.
But I'm supposed to be doing
it less, but I feel like if I
don't do it, who else is going to do it?
And you could ask somebody else
to do it and they'll just get
an attitude and don't want to do it.
So I just go ahead and do it.
But it really ticks me off to
clean up after other people.
I feel that the v-2 division
is a political game, like the
rest of the military.
Lieutenant Fields is our div-o.
He is the head honcho, I
guess, of the v-2 division.
I feel that personal
relationship kind of thing
between you and the man I
kind of hoped would have been
a little stronger.
Told him to move to ac-3...
Managing a whole bunch of
young aviation bo'sun's mates
is a good experience for me.
Are they rowdy? Yes.
They didn't get to become an
a-b because they were, you know,
valedictorian in High School.
Let's just put it that way.
But I will tell you
something about the a-b rate.
I mean, they have the
biggest heart, you know.
And I do what I can
to take care of them.
How you doing?
We need to get you in the rack?
No.
Chief work you too hard?
No, not too hard.
We just had some stuff last
night we had to be up here with.
All right, a-b 1.
Ok. All right. We'll see you.
Ok.
I was trying to strike
as an aircrewman, search
and rescue, you know, anything
to move into a better position.
It's like, "well, I'm sorry.
"You know, I can't let you go."
You know, so I kind of have a
personal problem with the guy.
You know, and haven't I worked,
haven't I been your horse for
long enough?
You working hard there, Laulis?
Yeah.
What you listening to...
I guess this day, I'm never
going to be able to find out,
you know, why the guy had to say
no, you know, but I'm
gonna look at it as
one of the guys that
helped ruin my career,
you know, here in the military.
When are you gonna come
see me about your stuff?
What, the air crew package, sir?
Yeah. I know you've been
wanting to talk to me.
I can see it in your eyes.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
I ran into l-t in the p-way and
he said, you know, "what's up
"with your air crew package,"
you know.
It's like, come on, man.
You know exactly how it's going.
You're the guy that said no.
Don't you remember?
It's like, why would you
ask me something like that?
If it's just one man that
could've gotten me, well, it was
you, you know, and you still denied it.
Airman Laulis, he wants to be an a-w.
Unfortunately, the rate
is closed up right now.
He had a little issue in the
past that's also preventing him
from striking that rate.
He had a career development board.
I mean, he's an awesome person.
They didn't recommend anything for him.
He'll have to wait a little bit
longer for one... the rate to
open up, and two... for that
thing in the past to clear.
What happened in my past,
you know, I got in trouble
for underage drinking.
I guess the day that happened,
you know, it was like, bam,
you're automatically
held back for 24 months.
I waited that time period out,
and I submitted and still got
turned down.
It depends on the liberty risk board.
They're the ones.
I mean first thing I did was...
You're powerless to the next
guy that's above rank than you.
They've got you.
I mean, it's "choose your
rate, "choose your fate."
That day that Master Chief
Guerrero said, "you're
v-2," you know, it was like,
that day I knew they had me.
You know, there's no
getting out from there.
There isn't.
And they'll do anything and
everything to keep you in...
Everything and anything.
I'm trying to figure out, I'm
trying to work the system, but
it's just not working for me.
You don't know how.
Teach me.
You don't know how.
Teach me.
What are you trying to do?
A normal boss you can argue with.
No. Chiefs, no, no, no, no.
That's what pisses a lot of
people off 'cause even though
the person's, like, stupid,
you know, or they might not be
right, it doesn't matter.
If you're higher rank,
you're higher rank.
Hello?
I just wanted to see
how things are going.
I miss the hell out of you.
That sounds so funny, though.
What sounds funny?
What you say.
What, "I miss the hell out of you"?
You miss the hell out of me?
That's funny.
Whenever I call, she
doesn't really say much.
It's like she's real shy to talk to me.
It looks like she doesn't know
who I am sometimes or something.
I don't know.
She doesn't have a lot in her
answers, and she just laughs a lot.
Ha ha.
But it's cute.
It's the way I remember her.
I just want things to work out, man.
I don't want to go home and
her just be, like, not even
know who I am, you know?
My worst fear is that there's
another guy involved, but, I
mean, I doubt that's going on
with her being pregnant and all,
but I don't know.
That's every guy's worst fear, man.
No, she's not bad.
You know how she is.
I know.
You know how I am, though, dude.
I know.
I worry.
I worry about everything.
I just hope I go back,
you know, the kid's born,
everything's fine, she moves
in with me, and we just pick up
where we left off, dude.
That's all I want.
Good evening, "Nimitz"
and air-wing eleven.
It's a great day for
flying out here today.
We'll continue with the flying.
We do this on the way across
here to keep the air-wing
and the deck and the air
ops folks all sharp and on
top of their game so when we get
into theatre, we'll be ready to go.
Be aware of the heat.
I want to make sure
everybody's hydrated and eating
the right stuff and you're
taking care of yourselves, as
we get acclimated to go to the
Arabian Gulf, where it's really
gonna be hot over there in
the middle of the summer.
I'm starving, man.
Today wasn't a bad day, dude.
I think it was all right.
I thought we had more to do.
What the hell is going on here?
I don't know.
It's complete chaos.
It's like the whole Navy...
Organized chaos, baby.
I know, man.
Aw, man, that's a big ball of grease.
Ha ha!
We're going too fast.
Too fast.
We're AOs.
We always walk fast.
I'm just anxious to
get... off the flight deck.
Subs rip, edit, and resnyc by
© VJ Me 2010