SEATTLE – As the USS Carl Vinson prepares to leave its home port in Bremerton, the USS John C. Stennis is sailing in to take its place, bringing with it thousands of sailors and their families from its former base in San Diego.
“With the Vinson leaving, they wanted to replace it with another carrier,” Navy spokeswoman Chief Petty Officer Jeri Robinson said, noting the Stennis is expected to remain at Naval Base Kitsap for about 10 years. Its strike group, however, will remain near San Diego.
The aircraft carrier has spent the past six years in San Diego, where it departed Wednesday for its four-day journey north to its new home at the Bremerton base.
The Nimitz-class carrier’s planned arrival today is part of a regular rotation throughout the fleet. During its first 10 months, the Stennis will be moved to a dry dock at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for maintenance and updates, Robinson said.
The Stennis, commanded by Capt. David Buss, brings with it more than 2,500 sailors, half of whom have families who have been moving to the Kitsap Peninsula since May.
Coordinating the move of so many people during the holidays and in the midst of a school year was a challenge, said Beth Wiruth, the carrier’s command ombudsman, who moved in August.
“It’s like moving a whole city. There’s over 6,000 people involved when you move the sailors and their families,” Wiruth said from her new housing at Naval Submarine Base Bangor about 10 miles north of Bremerton.
The long stay will be a welcome reprieve for Wiruth and her husband, Petty Officer 1st Class Scott Wiruth, an electronics technician who works on combat systems. The couple have moved five times in the 18 months they’ve been married, with him gone 70 percent of the time.
“I cannot wait to see that ship come around the bend,” said Wiruth, who last saw her husband in November when the Stennis returned from a five-month deployment in the western Pacific. Other families have yet to be reunited.
“For many of these families, this is homecoming,” she said.
The 1,092-foot Stennis recently participated in the Navy’s new Fleet Response Plan. Exercises this summer had seven of the Navy’s 12 carrier strike groups deployed simultaneously to test the feasibility of having multiple detachments at sea.
In early 2001, the new FA-18E Super Hornet flew test flights from the Stennis, and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., the carrier’s aircraft patrolled the skies over Los Angeles.
In November 2001, the ship and its air wing participated in combat operations in Afghanistan.
The carrier was commissioned on Dec. 9, 1995, and made its maiden deployment in 1998, traveling to the Arabian Gulf to enforce the United Nations no-fly zone in Iraq.
The carrier is named for the Mississippi senator who during his 45-year congressional tenure was a strong proponent of funding and strengthening the U.S. Navy.
The USS Carl Vinson, based at Bremerton since 1997, this month begins a six-month deployment in the western Pacific. In November, the aircraft carrier and its 3,200 sailors head for Newport News, Va., for a 31/2 -year refueling overhaul.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
