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Bringing War Home: Staring down the barrel of a cannon while holding a broom

A logo shows camoflauged letters that read, "Bringing War Home."

The Navy’s crash and salvage teams work on-board aircraft carriers. The red-shirted crash crewmen focus on emergency response. They run toward the danger. From clearing safe routes to fighting fires and rescuing trapped personnel — they do it all.

Robert Hawthorne served in the Navy from 2003 to 2007. As a crash and salvage team member, he worked on-board the USS John C. Stennis. Hawthorne held onto his hat and flight deck jersey — a red turtleneck. He pulled the items from his basement so people can see them, learn about them, and remember the crash and salvage teams.

Robert Hawthorne: There’s still dirt stains on it from the soot, the exhaust and our elbows rubbed into it. The wear marks of, you know, just having it being folded so many times and creased. And you can realize that somebody actually was serving this country at this point in time and wearing that down, and that hopefully will touch somebody and maybe you decide to say, 'Hey, maybe I should step up and serve, too.' And if that happens, then maybe is was all for it. It was worth it.

We were the fire and rescue. So if anybody were to have a situation, even if the SEALs, if anything were to happen to SEALs, crash and salvage were the people that rescued them. So they gave us a certain amount of respect as well, and therefore everybody else did. So this jersey is very special.

Katie White: What's your first memory of this? Putting it on?

Robert Hawthorne: That was actually a pretty good moment.

The crash shack was our workspace. We had just finished stenciling a few of them. So everybody was eager to put one on just to see how it fit. I can still smell the paint fumes in that space when we were doing it, and everyone was just so stoked to have it on — a piece of pride. I mean — cause you had to earn that jersey. You had to earn the hat, too — become a qualified crewman, go through a special review board by our senior personnel, and go through certain procedures. What would happen if this kind of fuel fire were to happen? What would happen if this kind of crash were to happen? What if the jet was hanging over the side? What kind of procedure would be done?

You had to know all that stuff and basically have a general knowledge of what person had to do that job. Even though if you're a junior person who may not be able to operate that equipment, you still had to know basically what they had to do. Earning that jersey and earning that hat right there was a moment of pride in my life.

Katie White: I've heard that you had a cool story about being on deck with a broom with an approaching ship?

Robert Hawthorne: Yeah. So yeah, we were actually out in the Persian Gulf during the surge campaign, and we were coming in for our first port visit. And we were traveling through the Straits of Hormuz through Iranian waters. But we were trying to do it silently because we didn't want to bug them. And we were just really trying to just clean up the ship.

So everybody on deck was outside with a large bristle broom, and there was just sudsy water everywhere because we're just scrubbing everything down trying to make it look pretty. As we were doing it, we see a ship off portside coming up off the horizon. Doesn't look like one of ours. But it could be an allied ship - we don't know.

All of a sudden we see this Iranian flag. Cannons are pointed right at us and we're just holding brooms. And we're like, 'What's going on?'

So I'm sitting there in charge of a few people in front of me — because I'm a petty officer at a time — and I'm just saying to my crew here, 'Don't worry about it. If they fire the cannons, you're not going to feel anything. So just — just be calm.'

And then right at that point is when I saw the the helicopters come in. And they were actually firing warning shots because you could see that red tracers in between the shots and they started bouncing off the water surface because they were at an angle. So I kind of had a feeling of confidence that our submarines are sitting right behind her. So there's really not too much of an incident that's going to go down.

And shortly enough the Iranians were just standing their ground and trying to defend their waters because eventually the cannons lowered. They centered back onto the bow of the ship and then they pulled off and they left. They let us be. But for a second there it kind of got hairy because you're sitting there, you know, staring down the barrel of a cannon and you're holding a broom.

Katie White: Can you tell me about the ocean? I'm sure when you're out on it that long you get to know it.

Robert Hawthorne: Oh, yes you do. It can be crazy at times. Sometimes you can get waves that come up onto the flight deck itself — from the water level to the flight deck that's about a seven-story building in height.

On a calm day the water is just as smooth as a pane of glass. Off in the distance you can see the sun setting and it's just — you just want to take in that calmness and that beauty — serene moment for the rest of your life. It just — I just don't want to leave. Just let me stay right here, you know. That's the extremes of beautiful and chaos at the same time.

Support for Bringing War Home comes from Utah State University, the National Endowment for the Humanities Dialogues on the Experience of War, and Utah Humanities.

Katie White has been fascinated by a multitude of subjects all her life. At 13-years-old Katie realized she couldn't grow up to be everything — a doctor-architect-anthropologist-dancer-teacher-etc. — but she could tell stories about everything. Passionate about ethical and informed reporting, Katie is studying both journalism and sociology at Utah State University.