Parents spend time on carrier

Barlow Family. Submitted Photo

Bill and Becky Barlow of Crescent City recently got the opportunity to spend two days aboard the USS Eisenhower with their daughter Stephanie, who is stationed on the aircraft carrier as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy.

Bill works at Pelican Bay and Becky is a teacher at juvenile hall, and both volunteer with our local Coast Guard Auxiliary. Stephanie is a Crescent City native.

Becky submitted these pictures and the highlights of their experience.

July 28: Met the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower in Mayport, Fla. Watched it arrive about noon, offload about 500 people, load supplies and board over 1,000 “tigers”(parents/sib­lings/child­ren of sailors) and left the port by 4 p.m. Very quick turn around.

Barlow Promotion. Submitted Photo

Later that evening, we watched the USNS Laramie come alongside to refuel. It took about three hours all together to hook-up, fuel and break away. The carrier took on 1 million gallons of jet fuel (even though they were almost home, they have to be prepared for emergencies).

After watching the hook-up, we went to Steph’s squadron’s “ready room” and watched her do an “unclassified” brief in which we learned exactly what they were doing for the five months they were gone and where they were. Very enlightening. That was Steph’s job as an Intel Officer, collecting information from the hawkeyes and briefing the fighter pilots. Most days she was doing about 15 briefs.

The rest of the time, we were free to go to most parts of the ship and see and talk to the men/women on duty about their jobs, etc.

Docking Salute. Submitted Photo

At about 10 a.m. we went on the flight deck and watched the sailors getting ready to man the rails as they got close to Norfolk, Va. Tigers were allowed to stay on top as we came into port. A very exciting look at the military at work.