ABOARD THE USS EISENHOWER — While millions of Americans celebrate Thanksgiving with family and home-cooked meals, the 5,200 sailors aboard the USS Eisenhower are busy launching fighter jets to strike Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria.
The crew is spending their second Thanksgiving on duty, and will be carving their own roasted turkeys when their duties aboard the thousand-foot long American aircraft carrier allow. Some will spend part of the day flying over the Middle East, dropping precision munitions on IS militants.
“It’s not going to stop us from having a great Thanksgiving meal,” Capt. Paul C. Spedero, Jr. said. “We’re going to watch football when we can. It’ll probably be a little bit time-delayed but we’re going to do all the things that we can do and what we can expect to do with our families back home,” he said.
He estimates the carrier’s fighters have dropped nearly 1,100 bombs in the fight against IS since June, when the Eisenhower began operating in the Persian Gulf. Last Thanksgiving it was deployed off Virginia.
Rear Admiral James Malloy, commander of the Eisenhower strike group, said his forces are increasingly using precision munitions as IS militants hide and fight among civilians, including in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.
“They’re actually using civilians in military capacity to shield them, knowing that that would stay the hand of the coalition,” he said. “The power of the precision, responsive airstrikes that we provide is even more critical than before.”
Lt. Jennifer Sandifer, a 27-year old fighter pilot from Austin, Texas, plans to eat her turkey midmorning before donning a flight suit.
She’ll then climb up a metal ladder and make her way across the bustling flight deck, where engines roar and the air is thick with exhaust fumes. Mechanics and a ground crew there maintain jets for 17 pilots, including her single-seat F/A-18E Super Hornet.
She’ll taxi to the launch point where a catapult will connect to the fighter jet. A sailor known as a shooter will signal Sandifer when the catapult is ready and then she’ll give a final salute before roaring off the carrier going 0 to 145 mph in 2.5 seconds.
On Thanksgiving, as on any other day, she’ll fly 6-9 hours and strike targets identified by ground forces, perhaps in Mosul or the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State group’s self-styled caliphate.
Culinary specialist and petty officer first class Antonio Brown is organizing a feast consisting of 4,950 pounds of turkey, 1,050 pounds of ham, 1,200 pounds of beef, 648 pounds of shrimp, 7,000 portions of mashed potatoes, 400 pies and 200 cheese cakes.
