Nimitz News

Nimitz Family and Friends,

As usual, last week was a very busy week. The end of the week didn’t go as planned; specifically our participation in the San Diego Parade of Ships. We thought we were going to be the center piece of the parade of ships, but we had an electrical distribution fault that occurred the night before and we needed to fix that discrepancy before we started this underway training period. The part was replaced and we are fully back in the game.

Last week, we had several ceremonies including, a Chief Warrant Officer commissioning, several retirements, several promotions and even a wedding. We also wished fair wind and following seas to about 20 personnel as they transferred to their next duty station. Each week, we gain and transfer about 20 personnel. It seems like a large number for one week, but it is the weekly normal for personnel gains and losses. A little out of the norm was that we gained about 40 Sailors this week. One of the reasons was that 20 additional Sailors who were in A school, in Pensacola FLA, were short toured due to the recent hurricane in the Florida panhandle. They missed about a week of classes and also missed their graduation, but we are glad they are here and welcome them to the crew.

A great deal of effort was expended last Tuesday and Wednesday thoroughly debriefing the Nimitz ‘04 PIA (Planned Incremental Availability). About 100 people, including 20 from Nimitz, met to analyze the Nimitz ‘04 PIA. We tried to gain insight on why we were so successful in many areas and also study the areas where we could do better. It doesn’t seem possible, but the Nimitz ‘06 PIA is being built now. It takes a lot of dedication to make one of these ship yard repair periods successful and I know the next one will be even more successful than the last one.

By design, this underway is not very demanding, but it is our last period where we can do unit level training. Starting in November, all of our events are Nimitz Strike Group coordinated events. We have to be very competent on the unit level so when we do Strike Group training, it is effective. Our missions over the next few underway periods will rapidly grow in complexity. Also, TSTA/FEP in November and COMTUEX in December are about three weeks – each. We will also rejoin the Nimitz / CVW-11 team for all future underway periods. With the eight squadrons of CVW-11 and Nimitz together, the total crew grows to 5,000. The last time we had all 5,000 aboard was our return from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Even the simple things need to be well run when we have 5,000 aboard. Examples of what we worry about are 18,000 meals a day, production of 400,000 gallons of fresh water, 25,000 incoming emails, keeping the soda machines full (20,000 per day), laundry for 5,000, etc. I know we will keep the service top-notch, but it is not a Ho Hum job preparing to run at 100%.

Once again, please consider attending the Team Nimitz meeting scheduled for Tuesday 12 October at 6:30 PM. Nimitz Family Support Group, "Team Nimitz" will hold the meeting at Murphy Canyon Chapel. I am very pleased that following our PIA, Team Nimitz has reenergized to support our families. Nimitz will be underway during the 12 October meeting, but special arrangements are in work to have CMC Penton and Chaplain Keane available as the guest speakers. We are also working on child care and it will be available, but I know you will need reservations for child care. Please email your reservations for child care to teamnimitz@yahoo.com by 8 October so we have the right number of child care providers onhand. There is a $3 charge per child. Team Nimitz is growing and as we get more operational (at sea time), it is an excellent network for activities and also a source of information.

With Greatest Respect,

Captain Bob Gilman