No Higher Honor (14 page)

But there was another feeling, too: eagerness, an adrenaline trickle. It was a natural feeling of a naval officer in his twelfth year of service, especially one who had spent two solid years preparing himself, his ship, and his crew for a fight. The time had come to ride his warship into harm's way. “This is basically what I'm getting paid for,” he said. “I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I'm not going to say I'm not afraid. But it's a healthy fear, a respect.”
⁴⁴

The family gathered in the early morning darkness, and Palmer asked God to see them through their six-month separation. Then they climbed into the Caprice station wagon—little Rachel squeezed between her brother and sister in the backseat, her parents holding hands in front—and drove the five minutes to the naval station.

At the pier, Palmer embraced his wife and hugged his children. Then, as dawn broke, he turned and strode toward the gray form of his ship, dark against the cloudless sky.

Around him, shipmates were saying their own farewells. Most of the crew was already aboard ship; they were young and single, most from towns and cities far from Rhode Island, and had no one to see them off. Such was the final addition to the crew, Christopher Pond, a hull technician third class. Pond had slipped aboard just hours earlier—2:00
AM
, as a matter of fact—and had received surprising news from the petty officer on duty at the quarterdeck. “You still have four more days of leave left,” the petty officer said, fingering a date on Pond's transfer documents. “I would take it if I were you.”
⁴⁵

Pond had listened in disbelief. His orders had said nothing about his new ship's imminent departure or its destination. A native of Lebanon,
Pennsylvania, the nineteen-year-old was just back from a two-year tour aboard a support ship moored near the Italian island of Sardinia. The hull technician was still readjusting to life on American soil, and the idea of setting off on a six-month deployment before lunch arrived as something of a shock. For a moment, he was tempted to take his hard-earned leave and let the navy worry about getting him to the
Roberts
after it departed. Then he shrugged.
Better to stay aboard than be shuffled around the world trying to catch up to my ship
, he thought.

At 9:00
AM
a navy band played “God Bless America,” and the frigate moved away from the pier. A small clot of family and friends waved as the ship headed out into the blue-gray Narragansett Bay. Moments later, another frigate pushed away from an adjacent pier:
Roberts
's squadron-mate USS
Simpson
(FFG 56). One after the other, the warships passed beneath the long suspended span of the Jamestown Bridge, south past the rocky Dumplings, and out toward the Atlantic Ocean.

Left behind on the Newport pier was Aquilino. For eighteen months the commodore of Surface Group Four had guided and supported the
Roberts
as it proceeded from a newly commissioned watercraft to a deploying warship. Now he could only watch the frigate go with a mixture of pride, concern, and envy. Later that afternoon, he sent a message out to the departing ship, wishing them Godspeed as they headed for the closest thing the navy had to a front line.
⁴⁶

Three years of training had forged the
Roberts
's two hundred and fifteen sailors into a fighting team. Thousands upon thousands of hours of preparation had honed their skills. But drills couldn't compare to duty in the Gulf, where the action lasted not hours but days and weeks. And thoughts of
Bridgeton, Sea Isle City
, and
Stark
hung like specters in the salt air.

USS
Samuel B. Roberts
(FFG 58) being outfitted in the dry dock at Bath Iron Works in Maine, ca. summer 1985.
Courtesy General Dynamics Bath Iron Works

Lt. Gordan Van Hook, chief engineer (left), and Lt. Eric Sorensen, damage control assistant, in officers' country aboard the
Roberts
, ca. 1986.
Courtesy Eric Sorensen

Map of the Persian Gulf; (inset) the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States.
Courtesy Nathan Levine

An artist's conception of the mine blast, which occurred in the central Persian Gulf about 4:50 PM local time, 14 April 1988.
Chris Stopa

Side view of the USS
Samuel B. Roberts
shows mine damage.
Courtesy Nathan Levine

Cutaway of the
Roberts
shows fire, flood, and smoke damage.
Courtesy Nathan Levine

The mine blast punctured the aft bulkhead of Auxiliary Machine Room 2, allowing seawater to pour in from the inundated main engine room. This photo shows one of the extendable steel shoring members the crew used to brace unorthodox soft patches on the bulkhead, and illustrates the cramped conditions in which the AMR2 damage control effort took place.
Courtesy Eric Sorensen

An unidentified sailor stands amid a tangle of fire hoses used to extinguish the blaze and to drain the ship.
Courtesy Eric Sorensen

This I-type shoring was installed in the center passageway aft of the quarterdeck on 15 April 1988. The shoring, which used the final bits of wood available after the damage control effort, was an attempt to stabilize the ship amid fears that it might break up during the tow to Dubai, UAE.
Courtesy Eric Sorensen