ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN – The end will really be the end for Navy Chief Mark Lind on Tuesday when his warship arrives in Everett at the finish of an almost 10-month-long deployment.
Lind will take his second shot at retiring, stepping away from a Navy career that started Dec. 29, 1981.
As members of his team of electronics technicians gathered for their daily muster Monday morning, Lind started saying his good-byes.
“There will come a day when I miss all of this,” he told his shipmates.
“Right now, I can’t wait to get home.”
The Lincoln, now 75 miles off the coast of Oregon, was just south of Portland, Ore. shortly before 10 a.m.
The carrier was expected to pass by the Oregon-Washington border at 10:30 a.m. (PST).
The carrier will arrive at Naval Station Everett Tuesday morning.
There were more than just fond farewells for Lind Monday.
Capt. Kendall Card, skipper of the world’s biggest warship, thanked Lind for his service aboard the ship and personally pinned the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal on his chest during a short ceremony in one of the Lincoln’s aircraft hangars.
The medal was marked with a gold star, signifying the third time the sailor has received the honor.
Card said he was disappointed that he couldn’t be at the chief’s retirement ceremony, but said he understood. Lind wants to have his retirement party at home in Duluth, Minn. So his wife, Martha, and children can be there.
No matter where it was, Lind deserved a proper send-off, Card said.
“This way of life is difficult enough to leave without some kind of closure,” Card said.
An electronics technician chief from Duluth, Minn., Lind was instrumental in spearheading the videoconferencing system on the Lincoln.
The high-tech setup allows families back home to see and talk to their loved ones on the Lincoln, including for dads aboard the Lincoln to see their kids who have been born while they were gone. Lincoln battle group commander Rear Adm. John M. Kelly also used the system to communicate with the Navy’s senior leadership and Fifth Fleet during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The award was presented in a book-like binder, the citation for the medal on one side, a photograph of the Lincoln taken as it entered the Persian Gulf on Sept. 11, 2002, with the crew on the flight deck spelling out “Ready Now.”
The message was a response to the president’s call to the military to be ready after the country was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.
It was the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC that convinced Lind he needed to continue serving his country.
“After Sept. 11, I made a decision to go back to the Navy, specifically asking for the Lincoln,” he recalled. “I knew that the Lincoln would be deploying.”
Now with Iraq liberated, and the deployment and his Navy life coming to a close, Lind has mixed emotions.
“It’s bittersweet. This is going to be the highlight of my career,” he said.
After the homecoming on Tuesday, also his wife’s birthday, Lind will drive home to Minnesota with “my two best fishing partners,” his father, Morrie, and his brother, Chris. They will meet the ship in Everett Tuesday, then drive east through the Rockies, making a stop at Yellowstone.
The trip will start soon.
The Lincoln will arrive in Everett Tuesday morning.
By then, the ship will have been gone for 290 days, the longest deployment for a carrier since the USS Midway spent 327 days at sea in 1973.
Anticipation for the welcome home is growing on the ship.
Cmdr. Ronald Horton, the executive officer of the Lincoln, told the crew over the ship’s 1MC intercom system early Monday that the celebration in Everett would be big.
Horton said he hoped many sailors would show up for the parade later this week with their families.
Look for him in the crowd, he told his shipmates.
“I’ll be the guy with all the confetti in my hair,” Horton said.
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