Sailors scrawl messages on bombs, roast 3,000 pounds of turkey for Thanksgiving

By HRVOJE HRANJSKI
Associated Press Writer

ABOARD THE USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT – The exhausted crew of this aircraft carrier prepared to celebrate Thanksgiving far from home, with cooks ready to roast turkey for 5,500 and crew members decorating bombs with messages to their targets in Afghanistan.

"To Osama bin Laden, from VF102-Ordies. Happy Thanksgiving," Aviation Ordnanceman 3rd Class Joe Wolfe scrawled on the side of a 500-pound laser-guided bomb Wednesday on the Roosevelt in the northern Arabian Sea.

Wolfe said life was hectic as ever for crew repairing aircraft round-the-clock and launching them on strikes over Afghanistan – targeted in a U.S.-led military campaign that began after the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.

"They keep me busy enough that I don't think about it," said Wolfe, 30, of Rock Springs, Wyo. "I mean, Thanksgiving came real quick and time passes real quick."

Strikes against targets in Afghanistan are not stopping for the holiday – bin Laden, the top suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attack in the United States, is still at large and the weakened Taliban still hold parts of Afghanistan.

The carrier's crew won't get much of a break, but they will have a feast. When it left its home port of Norfolk, Va., on Sept. 19, the Roosevelt was carrying another important cargo along with its warplanes and bombs: 3,000 pounds of frozen turkey.

Starting Thursday evening, the ship's chefs will pop the 20-pound birds in giant ovens for about 4 to 6 hours, said Petty Officer James Hodge, 34, a manager in the second galley.

The crew of 5,500 men and women, Navy and Marines, will enter the galleys of the huge ship in two seatings Friday morning. The first will sit at the tables at 3 a.m. local time. They will be replaced by those who worked the night shift at 6 a.m.

The chefs will also prepare 1,600 pounds of baked ham in pineapple sauce and 2,300 pounds of roast boneless rib-eye beef, as well as tomato soup, roast potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, canned carrots and cornbread dressing.

The dessert menu includes pumpkin pie, cherry pie, minced meat pie, lemon meringue and ice cream.

It is a massive effort to prepare the banquet, but the mess staff of 300 is not daunted.

"We're used to it," said Hodge, 34, of Philadelphia.

Crew members said that being away from home for more than two months is the hardest part of their mission, but that the mission's goal is what keeps them going.

The pace of the airstrikes is so intense that most of them have little time for more than a quick check of e-mail or a phone call back home before they lie down to sleep after their shifts, dog tired.

"It's always hard to be away from your family, no matter whether it's holidays or not," said a Marine F/A-18C Hornet pilot, identified only by his call-sign Squeeze.

"We kind of consider ourselves a family out here," said the 45-year-old pilot from Beaufort, S.C. "We're obviously standing very busy, which makes for the time going a lot faster."

Seven Miami Dolphins cheerleaders arrived on the carrier Wednesday to help the crew forget the war for a night with a performance in a hangar bay. The women are on a tour of all three U.S. battle groups in the northern Arabian Sea.

The other two groups are led by the carriers USS Carl Vinson and the USS Kitty Hawk.

APNP-11-21-01 1311CST