On one side of the fast-moving carrier, a distant oil fire illuminated the sky on the other, the constellation Orion lit the heavens.Īdm. I don't know if everyone understands that, because we get so fired up when we get back."īy the time later waves of warplanes left for Iraq, the night sky was alive with stars and the fading red lights of the departing jets. Reflecting on his job, Marston said, "I've got no desire to kill anybody, but if there's a job to do. "We did a lot of planning to the point of driving ourselves crazy." Frank Marston, 28, of Portland, Maine, after returning from his mission. "We're going for 100 percent strikes, and we were very successful," said Lt. The last of the planes were returning at dawn this morning. One by one, the fighters generated a blast wave of heat, smoke and noise as they shot off the runway, their rear engines glowing red. local time Friday, the first of waves of F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets took off, shortly after a brilliant sunset over the Gulf had turned to black. We are standing by to carry on."Īround 5:30 p.m. "The intensity is about what we expected - not overwhelming," he said of Iraqi air defenses. He said the Enterprise had suffered no losses or aircraft damage in three nights of strikes. "We'll have double our pleasure," joked Dawson. The Enterprise will be joined today by the USS Carl Vinson battle group. The crew "is very focused on what we're doing out here.Our comfort level is very high." James Cutler Dawson Jr., commander of the Enterprise battle group. "The morale is very high," said Rear Adm. Besides the carrier, the Enterprise battle group includes two destroyers, two cruisers, two submarines and a frigate, which among them have launched 200 cruise missiles. Well over 100 sorties have been flown in the last three nights from the 4 1/2-acre flight deck of the carrier, with its complement of 73 aircraft and a vast arsenal of precision-guided munitions. "Once you get strapped in, that's when you start to feel at ease." "The waiting is the worst," said Taylor, 27, as he killed time in the "Gunslingers" room aboard the USS Enterprise, which spends its days tracing continuous great circles in the calm, green waters of the Persian Gulf under hazy blue skies. Jon Taylor, flying his first combat mission early Thursday morning, that was when the stomach-gnawing anticipation began. The briefing, identifying the targets in Iraq, took place three hours before takeoff.
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