Enterprise departs for Mideast

From Navy Times

Enterprise departs for deployment to Mideast

Group just returned in November

By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer

Posted : Saturday Jul 7, 2007 17:14:21 EDT

NORFOLK, Va. — As the towering aircraft carrier Enterprise slowly pulled away from the pier for at least a six-month deployment to the Middle East, Lori Kaiser, 18, was not happy about her high school sweetheart going away for so long.

Somewhere on board was her boyfriend, Machinist’s Mate 3rd Class Dexter Ledbetter, but the ship is huge, and when it leaves the pier, she can only see a handful of sailors manning the rails.

“I don’t know what to think,” she said. “He kind of got me prepared as much as he can. He said he’d call every once in a while. As often as he can. But it gets expensive.”

This morning, Enterprise left Norfolk for a regular deployment after coming home from its last cruise in November. Over the next few days, it will be joined by its air wing and other ships of the strike group.

Meanwhile, Kaiser, a hairstylist, will try to keep herself busy with a second job, probably as a waitress.

“I am pretty upset,” she said without showing it.

Or course, Kaiser was not the only one saying goodbye. Many loved ones could be seen crying, others waving, as the ship left. When the strike group finally forms up in the Atlantic before crossing to the Mediterranean and beyond, it will consist of more than 8,000 sailors aboard eight ships: Enterprise, cruiser Gettysburg, destroyers Arleigh Burke, Stout, James E. Williams and Forrest Sherman, attack submarine Philadelphia and the combat support ship Supply.

Rear Adm. Dan Holloway, commander of Carrier Strike Group 12, told reporters on the pier before Enterprise departed that the strike group’s purpose will be to provide options for national leadership while conducting maritime security operations. The carrier John C. Stennis and the amphibious assault ship BonHomme Richard are now in the Persian Gulf, and the carrier Nimitz is in the Indian Ocean, according to the Navy.

Although it seems like Enterprise just returned from deployment, “Enterprise was the right ship for this time,” Holloway said.

For Kaiser, this was her first farewell from the pier. But Jessica Mattison has been through it before with her husband, Aviation Ordnanceman Airman Matthew Mattison.

She will “stay busy and get a job,” to make the time speed by; but six months apart still takes getting used to.

“It’s still new every time,” she said.