By Dan Force

Twenty-five years ago, this evening…September 10th, 2001…I was onboard the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), in our homeport, Naval Station Mayport/Jacksonville, Florida, for my regular duty day. That meant that I’d be spending the night on the ship with the rest of the duty section. The ship was scheduled to get underway at slack tide early the next morning, September 11th, and head south to the Puerto Rican Operations Area (PROA) for routine pre-deployment training for the ship’s upcoming deployment in early 2002.

We were scheduled to be gone on this training cruise for about three weeks. As such, I had said my goodbyes to the family before going to the ship the morning of the 10th. After the regular workday, and some dinner in the Chiefs’ Mess, I was trying to rest before going on watch for the midnight-to-0400 Officer Of the Deck (OOD) watch on the ship’s quarterdeck. As it was our last night in port before being at sea for three weeks, besides the regular duties of the watch, much of it was consumed with dealing with many of my carefree, inebriated shipmates returning from liberty.

Upon being relieved from that OOD watch, I finally got into my rack for some real sleep in the Chiefs’ berthing compartment around 0500. As standard practice, since I’d stood that early morning watch, I would be allowed to sleep in, and wouldn’t have to report “in person” for the sailing muster before getting underway at around 0815. Another person from my work center would check to make sure I was in fact onboard the ship.

After just a few hours of sleep, I was awoken by another one of the people from my work center. The ship had ‘just’ gotten underway. It was still being maneuvered by tugboats in the turning basin at Naval Station Mayport. “Chief, you need to come up to the work center. We’re being attacked!” he said. You can imagine what went through my head. Was I dreaming? Unfortunately I wasn’t. Well, before even making it out of the Mayport turning basin, the ship received immediate orders from the highest levels of government to forgo our training in the PROA, and proceed posthaste to the vicinity of New York City and “protect the approaches to the American homeland.” As a telecommunications specialist for the Intelligence community, we began receiving classified “eyes only” and compartmented codeword message traffic that we weren’t normally cleared for. We didn’t have protocols, or instructions in place for handling this particular intelligence. Those first several days after the attacks were restless for most everyone onboard. We barely had email for the crew in those days, and that had to be shut down. While most Americans were huddled with their families and loved ones, we had no way of communicating with our families. Most of the ship’s families found out that we were redirected to NYC from the CNN news crawler at the bottom of the screen. Working in the communications center, we were privy to what was happening. We didn’t have TV at sea, and most of the crew didn’t know much of anything.

We would remain stationed off the coast of NYC for the next two or three weeks. At that time, we were directed to proceed to the PROA to complete the pre-deployment training. Three weeks later, when we returned to Mayport, no longer carefree as we were before. It was a completely different world than the one we left early on September 11th.

Twice during my three years stationed on the JFK, prior to 9/11, in the summer of 2000, and earlier in 2001, the JFK participated in NYC’s Fleet Week. Although it was just stateside liberty, in NYC, it was an awesome experience. During our time in NYC, the sailors and the NYPD and FDNY had an unwritten “understanding.” On-duty police and fire would offer sailors a ride to anywhere in Manhattan, any time of day, for no charge. In turn, police and firefighters could show up at the ship any time during our visit, and they would be given a personal tour of the ship by ‘someone’ in the duty section. It was a good deal, and worked out well. Many of the ship’s company, and police/firefighters became well acquainted “Friends of the JFK.”

In the attacks, many of those same police and firefighters who had befriended the crew just a couple of months earlier, lost their lives. I would retire from the Navy at the end of December 2001, and leave the JFK. As I departed, there was a plan afoot to name each of the shipboard firefighting stations around the ship honor of one of those police and firefighters who had walked the decks of the ship just months earlier.

Station HYPO Side Note:

After completing pre-deployment training, followed by three weeks in Mayport, Florida, the JFK immediately proceeded to the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of operations, where she commenced major combat operations.