Seattle Post-Intelligencer
March 28, 2002

Whidbey Air Squadron Back From Afghan Duty

Record deployment without a port call left crews anxious

By David Fisher, Seattle Post-Intelligencer Reporter

WHIDBEY ISLAND NAVAL AIR STATION -- They left home Sept. 19, eight days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

They flew home yesterday to hugs, balloons and kisses.

While most of the pilots and air crews of Whidbey's Electronic Attack Squadron 137 rushed for wives, girlfriends and children, and a small knot mixed welcome-home gin and tonics from a friend's cooler, their commanders outlined a picture of their trip to war.

There were the 159 straight days at sea aboard the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt -- a modern-day military record for the longest stretch without a port call.

There were the 249 combat missions, some as long as seven hours in the air, and the countless hours back aboard ship fixing, refueling and checking.

The numbers outline a fatigue that is beginning to work its way into the intense air war in the Middle East.

Stretches at sea have been long for every ship involved, forced by the pace of the war and the Arabian Sea's great distance from safe ports of call. The flights over landlocked Afghanistan have been long as well, straining flight crews and machines alike.

Mixed with the anxieties back home, it's putting an odd cast on six-month Navy deployments that used to be routine.

January "lasted about five months" while the tired 188-member squadron toiled through its last days in the sweltering Arabian Sea, said Cmdr. Gary Peterson, the squadron's commanding officer. But the crew also left home with the horror of the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 burned into their minds.

"It was challenging," Peterson said. "At the same time, it was so rewarding and meaningful, I really didn't have to pump the guys up. They all knew why we were there."

Back home, the fear factor wasn't much higher than it usually is, despite the wartime conditions, said Peterson's wife, Mary. But the worries for the future have risen because the war and its future are so unknown

Where will it go next? How long will their loved ones be gone?

"That's why the anxiety level is high, because none of the spouses know," she said.

The Navy's Whidbey-based electronic attack plane, the EA-6B, jams enemy radar, missile systems and communications.

It's considered indispensable on missions over potentially hostile territory.

Cheers rang out as the squadron's four planes buzzed low under a sodden sky and paraded up the tarmac to a hangar filled with family and friends.

Like a lot of people in a Navy town, Rebecca Huffman, 22, is an old veteran of Navy deployments, despite her young age. Her father was in the Navy. She grew up with it.

She snuggled little Austin Huffman, 8 1/2 months, in his baby carrier while they waited for Airman Kevin Huffman to land with the rest of the squadron's enlisted crew.

His dad had only 2 1/2 months to get to know him before the six-month cruise started. And he missed three weeks of that for training.

"I don't think you ever get used to it," Rebecca Huffman said. "But I know the drill."

Lt. Cmdr. Chris Rentfrow threw his arms around his 7-year-old daughter, Melissa, and kissed his wife, Kathy, and his youngest, Kaitlin, 4.

"This is great," Kathy Rentfrow, a veteran of three deployments, said. "It's an unbelievable feeling when they come home."