Tonight, the first time I went on the flight deck, I was scared to death.
I don't really fear death.
On 48 hours.
What can happen?
Supercar.
World's finest warfighting machine.
From the flight deck.
The first time I was up there, I was scared to get sucked up into an airplane.
Like Wizard of Oz, I wasn't in Kansas no more.
To be loaded.
You know what time it is now?
You know what day it is?
No, it's not.
The adventure is for the few.
They made the movie about Top Gun, not Top Engineer.
It's also got a manual mode.
To a wild ride.
In an F-14.
Have you ever lost anybody yet?
A symbol of power or the past.
Dinosaurs and obsolete herds.
Two days and two nights on one of America's mightiest warships.
You know, the feeling that you've cheated death again is a good one.
This is the USS Kennedy.
The planes that roar off this flight deck pack more firepower than all the U.S. Navy had in World War II.
To many, the Kennedy and other carriers now on active duty represent necessary symbols of America's might and the will to use it.
To others, they are symbols of Pentagon overkill.
Floating dinosaurs in a changing world.
What's the time?
Your way.
Forty-eight hours joined the 5,000 officers and men of the Kennedy as the supercarrier set sail for New York Harbor for flight operations off the East Coast.
Send speed in one point.
Okay.
Herb Brown first shipped out with the Navy as an ordinary seaman.
She's starting to move.
Now he's in command of the Kennedy.
Ready to go to sea?
Captain, tell me what the mission of the John F. Kennedy is.
Well, I think I'm going to get in trouble with this answer, so be ready to cut this out.
But my opinion is, I think the mission of this ship is to ensure that my grandchildren speak English and not Russian.
And I know that's not popular in our country today.
You don't buy the idea that the Cold War is over.
I see the Soviet capability today exactly what it was a year ago.
No, sir, I don't see them changing.
We need to train hard, and we train the ship very, very hard.
We're hard on ourselves.
We're hard on the machine in order to have the ship ready to fight.
Okay, we have two missiles in.
Okay, wait. Let's go to work.
You can't be scared of the deck.
You're scared of the deck, you shouldn't be, honest.
Most of them are fearless.
The first time I went on the flight deck, I was scared to death.
I was 18 years old, just out of high school.
It was like in The Wizard of Oz. I wasn't in Kansas no more.
This is some of the most dangerous 4 1 half acres under American control,
a floating airport packed with 85 war planes.
First time I was up there, I was scared of getting sucked up into an airplane.
I was scared of getting blown down by airplanes.
I was scared of getting burned by the exhaust, standing in the wrong spot,
maybe getting run over by an airplane.
Aircraft all over the place.
Launching recovery.
It was great.
Airplanes are flown onto and off of the Kennedy with the precision
and speed of a jet-powered ballet.
This is the hub of the flight operations on the carrier.
This is the airfield primary. What's the problem over there?
This is the hot seat.
Commander John Warren is the Kennedy's air boss.
The air boss is the choreographer for this whole ballet.
We've got one fixed wing to go. This time, it'll be a trap.
Five knots is a trap. Time, 4E.
But the people that are on the deck are the people that make the flight deck run.
Take me through who's who on the flight deck.
There are all these people wearing different colored jackets.
The true heads of the flight deck are the yellow shirts.
They're the directors. They have brown shirts.
They do the daily and turnaround maintenance on the aircraft.
Blue shirts, they're the ones that carry the chocks and chains.
And the red shirts?
They handle weapons.
White indicates some sort of safety, quality assurance, or final check.
Purple shirts, they're great.
Their responsibility is to make sure that all the aircraft are fueled.
And the men who wear green work on one of the four catapults,
two million horsepower slingshots that can blast a 65,000 pound airplane
from zero to 150 miles per hour in two seconds.
Is there anything that scares you about this job?
They're 19-year-old kids.
But the thought of losing a life on the flight deck scares me.
He's training to be a top-side safety fatty officer.
He's responsible for hooking each and every one of these planes up,
making sure they're hooked up properly to get off the flight deck.
He screws up, he kills himself, he can kill me,
he can kill most pilots in the plane,
or he can take out a whole number of people.
You've got to know what to do.
What can happen up here?
Just about anything you can imagine.
Lieutenant Tom Stubblefield is a shooter
responsible for firing aircraft off the catapults.
The A-7 has very low intake, as you can see,
and you have to stay fairly far back from it to avoid becoming a piece of mincemeat.
There's a people eater here.
Is that what they call it?
Yeah.
This will suck you right in?
You better believe it.
I've seen it with this type of plane.
The guy was just walking around the flight deck nonchalantly
and walked right in front of one and sucked him right up.
Mike Terry is one of Stubblefield's men.
You saw that happen?
Yeah.
He just went right in.
The last thing you've seen was his feet going through.
What happens then?
They'll clean it up and we'll start right back up.
We've still got a job to do, so we're still going to do that.
Okay, on the FOD walk down.
I need your help today.
Guys, move down.
Let's go.
Let's go.
What is everybody doing?
They're engaged in the morning ritual called the FOD walk down.
What's FOD?
FOD is the acronym for Foreign Object Damage,
and it's basically anything that's out here that's not supposed to be out here.
At least two or three people checking the scuppers all the way down and around.
So, I mean, this is serious business.
It's very serious business.
We lost a jet aircraft engine the last time we were out here.
I mean, there's several million dollars you're talking about,
and we lost it to a bolt that big.
That's our call.
What are we going to see this morning?
Today is going to be a series of launches starting about 9.30 in the morning.
We'll run through to midnight.
We're going to come out here, start the aircraft.
There'll be people running all over the place.
The aircraft will start the taxi.
These jet blasts, the flakers will go up and down.
We'll put them on the catapults as they get there.
Set up for launches, and we'll send them flying.
It's going to be rock and roll up here, huh?
Yeah.
Launch is complete.
How'd that go?
What, that went pretty damn well.
Everybody that we started with is still here.
See, normally you'd say, gee, you guys make it look easy, but you don't.
It looks tough.
It is tough.
I saw it start raining, and the deck gets covered with grease.
It gets slick.
The airplane starts sliding around, and it's not easy.
I like that style thing that you have.
You jump up in the air.
You've got to have style.
Style's very important.
Everybody hot dogs a little bit.
Don't you see the style these guys put on their deck edge turns?
Talk about your prima donnas.
They're not the only prima donnas here.
I saw you.
Well, sure.
That's right.
I mean, you were putting on a show in addition to the fact that you're launching airplanes.
I mean, it's unlikely if you look like a geek.
I've heard him say to a guy, either jump like a man or keep your feet on the deck.
And you?
He never said it to me.
You jump like a man.
I do.
Every time a plane leaves, we did it.
We created that event.
The pilots fly it.
The pilots fly it, but they're just secondary.
They're not flying it.
We're not doing our job.
80% of the people out here work 12 on, 12 off.
We'll work three days solid and still launch the next day.
It'll be nasty, stinky, dirty.
Then you go down to eat at BestEx and you just watch them clear out.
They get out of your way.
You've got attitudes after three days.
It's an experience.
It's a lifestyle.
It's something you adapt to it.
Between launches, most of the guys come in, they catch some sleep.
They're just anywhere and it's comfortable.
This is our life, 24 hours a day.
And as you're doing your maintenance, you think, boy, I'm tired.
I don't know if I can take it very much longer.
But then you get into a launch and your adrenaline starts pumping.
You're just loving it.
We just got a green beacon.
A shooter just gave the signal to hook up.
The old back man down here is saying, take attention.
They're taking pictures of the aircraft.
They're coming out with thumbs up.
Shooter has control.
It's exciting.
I mean, you can get hurt doing it.
And that's what people like that.
He's watching for them to launch.
He goes, he's 05 afterburner.
Let's face it, why do people drive race cars?
Or climb mountains or jump out of airplanes.
You get that little emotional lift, I guess.
I don't know.
It makes life worth living and doing.
Dangerous something for you?
It's something for everybody.
I mean, you know, the feeling that you've cheated death again is a good one.
See, I'd imagine some people are watching you now thinking that man is stone crazy to do that for a living.
Well, are you crazy?
I don't think so.
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Nothing outlasts the Energizer.
They keep going and going.
I think that this is the world's very finest war fighting machine.
We have about five of these 200-pound washers here.
An aircraft carrier really can do things with no other ship.
Nothing else can be.
Call me up and let me know what you want to hear and I'll put it on as soon as possible.
The Navy likes to call the Kennedy a floating city.
And if this is a city.
Howdy, how you doing?
Then its mayor is Captain Herb Brown.
Hello, preacher. How are you? What's going on?
What is your job like basically that's like a mayor?
Got fun in New York?
I think it's taking care of the people so that they take care of all the functions that are necessary to run my city.
You take care of the people?
Absolutely. That's my job.
Sit down please. Please sit down. I just came from a cup of coffee.
You have nearly 5,000 men here.
Hello, Woody.
How you doing, sir?
Good.
Do you know them all at least by face?
No, I really wish I could.
You play any ball over in New York?
That's probably the roughest part of my job is not knowing the crew.
My name's Brown. Have we met?
But everybody knows him.
Who's going to do this?
How do you know it's not required?
Are you authorized to make that decision?
Yes, sir.
The crew generally appreciates what I do.
The chief authorized you?
I think they know that I like them.
Okay.
Remember they know that I love them. I place demands on them.
They adjust to those demands and they generally exceed my expectations.
Good ice cream?
If I'm going to get the feel for what's going on on the ship, the second deck is the best place to go.
Howdy, how you doing?
This is the crew's environment. This is my environment.
Sit on deck.
Carry on. Have a seat, y'all. Is the engineer here?
The second deck is the Navy's version of Main Street.
We have our own fire department. We have our own newspaper. We have our own bank.
This here is only about $2 million.
And post office.
Stand by on one.
TV station.
In the top news story of the day.
Police department.
That's the jail. The longest I put them in the brig is three days.
And when I put them in the brig, I put them on bread and water.
And then there's the candy store, the Navy's version of Kmart.
And the mess halls, where feeding 5,000 men is no small feat.
In just 48 hours, the Kennedy consumed 1,480 pounds of hamburger, 1,200 dozen eggs, and drank 4,000 gallons of milk.
That's the burger.
The quality of the food is just grand. I mean, the Navy buys good chow.
Would the guys tell me that?
Oh, yes.
It's terrible.
If we only eat to survive, if we didn't have to do it, we wouldn't.
It costs a million dollars a day to run this ship that has just about everything except women, bars, and illegal drugs.
Now where are we going right now?
I'm going to go down and give a urine sample to make sure that I didn't smoke any dope while I was in New York.
Can I have head of the line privileges if I promise to hurry?
The captain has to do that.
Okay, great. We roll a dice. The number that comes up is the last digit of your Social Security number, then it's your turn.
Even if you're the captain of the ship.
Even if you're the captain.
This is the captain.
The safety stand down officially starts at 1900 and it will go until tap tonight.
I use the announcing system a great deal on the ship, more than probably most captains do.
The next seven days are some pretty intensive operations.
I was on a ship when I was 19 years old and I never knew where we were going or what we were doing.
And I always said, gee whiz, if I ever get the opportunity to tell you where we're going and what we're doing and why things happen, I'm going to do that.
Just got to put New York behind us. Let's not worry about Boston yet.
Let's think about safety all around the ship. Let's do it by the numbers and stay safe. That's all.
Good morning on the Kalamazoo. Thanks for coming up and meeting us.
Every four days, Captain Brown must put his city at risk in a way few mayors ever have to.
Stand by to receive our shot line.
Close the rate for now, sir.
The ship is a floating gas tank.
They're going to fuel at all stations.
Burning 80,000 gallons of diesel a day.
We'll be getting 500,000 gallons an hour.
Refueling alone is incredibly dangerous.
That's 30,000 pounds of pressure over pulling this together now that it wasn't there before.
And it turns the Kennedy into a sitting target.
I think I'm more vulnerable to both air attack and also from a sub attack.
Make sure you always give them in a very exact, precise order, please.
Half a dozen times a day I'm a little bit nervous or I'm scared. Why don't you just do my heart's good and bring off some RPM.
I don't think I show it outwardly. I just think that I feel it in my stomach.
I don't think there is anything mysterious about this captain. I'm pretty much a common guy.
I just happen to be the oldest and most experienced sailor on this ship, but I'm a sailor just like the sailor that is chipping paint.
This is the drill.
And he's a man who has known war. Vietnam, leading young men who never have.
I'm convinced if something goes wrong on the ship that it's my fault.
Either I didn't afford the man the right training, I didn't give him the right direction,
I didn't give him enough of something else in order to do the job the way it should have been done.
And it pretty well always comes back to this chair that if something goes wrong it's my fault.
Hey, Sour Puss. Suppose you think anything natural tastes pretty bland.
You got it.
Well, I want you to try all natural NutriGrain.
Oh, thanks a lot.
Come on. NutriGrain is the taste of juicy raisins and crunchy almonds with no sugar added.
Hey, would you look at this.
You know, for somebody who thought they wouldn't like the taste of NutriGrain, that's a pretty incredible smile.
Let's call it a NutriGrain.
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I'm Paula Zahn. Tomorrow, Matthew Broderick on his new film, The Freshman,
and you'll be at home with baseball's Oral Hersheiser on CBS.
On Newhart, Muppet tackles hard work.
If you lowered your arms, something might actually get clean.
Then, take an all-American guy with a wicked sense of travel and give him a video camera.
I'm in Budapest.
Send him out to dig up his roots.
The Buddhists have more attractive women, but the pests have the swinging salad bars.
And get ready for very funny video letters home.
Wish you were here Friday afternoon, Hart.
There is a weapon in the war against AIDS. That weapon is information.
The more you know, the safer you are.
Find out the facts about AIDS.
You're going as fast as you possibly can, and you're doing a mission at the same time.
I'll sit there and I'll smile and laugh, because it is such a good time.
Fighter pilots have the biggest egos in the world.
They all think they're the best, or they probably wouldn't be in the business.
The final Jeopardy category is Prohibited Maneuvering.
Fighter Squadron 32, the pilots and backseat radar operators who fly the Kennedy's F-14s.
How many are there? And write them down.
Hey, what are you guys doing back there?
Cocky and flamboyant, with nicknames like Voodoo, Yogi, and Dog.
If you were looking for the dog on the weekend, you'd find him on the beach, probably sporting a pair of flip-flops.
Oh my God, no. I can't believe it.
With cut-off sleeves and sun visor on, walking the beach, looking for trouble.
The drill I know at home, back at the beach.
I'll say this for around the midnight when it really gets boring on the flight schedule.
I'll just sniff it and tell him, it smells good.
See any other ones?
Dog, real name Lieutenant Jim Kuhn from Damascus, Maryland, is a nugget.
That's pilot talk, meaning rookie.
Nuggets must obviously feel a need to prove themselves.
Yes, they do.
Kennedy is his first carrier, but he's a fast learner.
He kind of reminds you of a laid-back dog kind of person until he gets in the air.
He's as sharp as a tap.
I just want to make the angle right.
What got you into flying?
I want to do two things in my life.
One was to go to the Naval Academy, and one was to fly F-14s to circuitry.
It was the baddest on the block.
The F-14s may be the baddest, but they're not the mostest.
All they can do is play defense.
On the ship's attack planes, the A-6s and A-7s deliver the bombs.
Everybody's got their mission, and our mission, our little task in life, is to protect those guys that are projecting the power.
Because there's a lot of little bad guys out there that want to put our bombers down, and that's our job to say, nah.
If Dog does it right, the attack planes will get past the enemy's defenses and roll in for a low-level bombing run.
They cruise low, they put their bombs on target on time, every time.
Do you consider yourself a lawyer?
Absolutely.
We've been breaking out all over, but we still, and I can probably answer and speak for every guy in here that we consider ourselves a lawyer,
even though there's probably not ten hot spots in the world today.
Being a lawyer of a few different things, getting to the basics where we are at combat with the ship, your skills against the ship every single day.
I'm the only guy that can use my feet, my hands, and get that plane aboard the ship. That, to me, is being a warrior.
Almost to a man, pilots will tell you the thing that scares them most is landing, which is little more than a controlled crash.
The hook suspended from the tail of the plane catches a cable strung across the deck.
The pilot's ability to snare the wire can make or break his reputation.
Each landing is televised throughout the ship for all to see.
The plane goes around a couple times. It's just a pain in the butt to everybody.
There's no sense causing people that kind of problem.
Like that guy did right there.
Power! Power! Power!
Holy shit.
I don't know what happened, but he sunk down out of sight for a minute. If he didn't have aft burners, he wouldn't have made it.
He went over the wires. He was either way back on the power or didn't put his power up right away.
He settled off the ramp. Another 30 feet, his wheels would have been in the water, and we would have had two pilots cruising on that way.
Let's see. There he goes around again. That was the same conga. Now he's really starting to get shaken.
He's seriously checking his fuel if he's low.
He has a real good start right now, and now he doesn't want to settle. Like he's been around twice, he's been overpowered.
He's looking real good so far, and he's going to go...he's in. Okay.
Anybody can fly a jet and land it on a runway.
I can teach anybody in this room on this ship to land an F-14 on a runway. It's no problem.
But to land one on a boat, it gets more difficult.
You can't teach a reporter to fly an F-14.
Bring the canopy down, and the first thing they'll say is, okay, let's go ahead and arm the ejection seat.
But you can take them flying in one.
It's time to shift gears. Let's get into some Eagle meat here.
On a training mission against Air Force F-15 Eagles.
We ought to be able to eliminate six, especially with three of us.
Lieutenant Commander Bob Davis from Clarksburg, West Virginia, will lead the mission.
The only thing that you may use on this is this sub wheel. Again, it'll be in the center for when you're on.
The other items that you have to worry about are going to be the TACAN, which is this box here.
And then it's also got a manual mode. The data link that this is the one that'll bring the radar to work.
I'm going to have a checklist. Absolutely.
It's not that hard once you get in there and get doing it.
You can have pretty good luck with people on their first flight doing that.
They're pretty good, huh? Oh, yeah.
We haven't lost anybody yet. Yeah, okay.
May 45, walk, 930, takeoff for 1115, recovery.
It's all in blood to him because he has lost good friends.
He's the most experienced pilot we have in here, and he has done things I can only dream of doing.
So he's an idol as far as his flying ability, his teaching ability, his experience, and he's a real good friend to me.
Trust me, I'll take good care of him. I do, I do.
Left, right, left rudder, right rudder. I'm happy with the jet.
He's going to give me a burner signal. There's a burner.
Assume the position. I'm saluting. We're out of here.
Whoa! Boy, does that feel like, jeez.
How's that? I guess that was a good launch, huh? Good launch.
Gee, what a great feeling. Go back and do it again.
I will join up and pass out.
F-15s, F-15s.
F-14 pilots encounter the Air Force bad guys. They call them bogeys.
They might as well close out, Joe. New group of bogeys closing from the south.
We've got one aircraft, F-15, on our nose right now.
Kill.
How you doing?
I'm over it now, thank you.
Okay. Sorry, I didn't know you were getting ill. And we're coming down.
Now, Davis and I have our stories straight. It was the wildest dogfight he's ever been in, and I didn't get sick.
Someplace back there, there's got to be a desire to show what you can really do.
Instead of having this, this training is realistic and all that, but it's still pretend and nobody's going to shoot you down.
You bet. You know, you train, in my case, 16 and a half years for game day, if you will,
and there's always that doubt in the back of your mind, how are you going to perform on game day?
And you never know until it really is that day.
I don't want to turn this into a morbid conversation, but do you worry about dying?
Not really dying. It's one of the, I don't know if I can speak for all the pilots,
but I know the majority of the pilots that I went through flight school with and everything,
they are, and I still am, more fearful of failure than death.
Crashing a jet, pure failure, even if it wasn't your fault.
I don't really fear death. It's not doing my job and failing. It always has been my biggest fear.
All right, come on, man. I'm wasting my gas. Let's go do it. Here we go.
Did you want your daughter to marry a pilot?
I wouldn't have posed to her. I would certainly make sure she knew that if she was about to give birth,
that's no guarantee she was going to be there.
As you're walking towards the jet, you're looking at it, your blood's starting to pump a little bit.
So it's a matter of getting psyched up.
And just because it's your birthday, there's no guarantee he's going to be there.
I love this feeling. I'm a little...
Lieutenant Commander Drew Bruegel flies F-14s.
How long have you been married?
Eleven years.
His wife Shelly has learned to live without him.
How long would you say that husband's been away from that?
I'm going to underestimate and say six years, but in reality, he's gone 80 percent the time that we've been married.
What comes first in your life? The Navy? Family?
Family, of course, always comes first. But to be honest with you, I mean, it's pretty much, it's almost right there neck and neck.
Truly, for myself, if I had to be with him 24 hours a day, I'd go.
It would drive me nuts. I just, I couldn't do it.
Fill it up. Ooh, it's cold. You ready? Come on.
Michael, Nellis, let's go see how the boys are doing.
How much time is there for a regular life?
Oh, it's time enough to have three kids.
What about three kids? Have you missed much of their lives?
Yeah, yeah, that is by far the hardest part. My daughter, my two-year-old daughter, it's really affected her.
She, you know, whenever she sees an airplane go by, she looks up and waves, and my daddy, my daddy.
Where is your daddy?
There.
But what's he doing?
Um.
Yes, what does daddy do?
Um.
Does he fly the airplane?
Yeah.
Do we wave to him when he flies by?
Yeah.
Every airplane that flies by is definitely daddy, so we run outside and we scream, Hi, daddy.
He waves, and I'll say, did he wave to you? And he'll say, yes, he waved.
He started sleepwalking, and she'll wake up, walk downstairs, and sit by the window.
And what wakes up my wife is her going, Daddy, boat, long, long time. Daddy, boat, long, long time.
I find her at the door about three in the morning with her shorts and shoes on, and she has her handbag,
and she'll be banging on the door screaming, I want to go get my daddy.
It hurts a little bit to hear that, but I guess I rationalize it by knowing that what I'm doing is a very important thing.
It takes sacrifices.
I hope that during the time that I am home, I'll be able to compensate for that time that I'm gone.
You are the father, the mother, the full-time nurse.
I'm the father, the mother, the doctor, the nurse, the playmate, the director of Fun City. You name it, I meant.
Are you a much different person here than you are at home?
After a bit.
After a bit.
Here you've got to be in control all the time. You're in charge of the airplanes.
The control at home shifts to my wife.
She's piloting back there.
She's piloting, yeah. And that was the hard part for me, being a controlled kind of guy.
All these months I have been paying bills, cleaning house, taking care of the house, the yard, the car, the kids,
and every crisis that comes in between, and now all of a sudden this man comes home, and all these things are still taking place.
But I have to validate what I do with him prior to taking care of what needs to be done.
And it drives me nuts.
And it's probably not intentional, but I think it's his way of putting his foot in the door and saying, I really am here.
You have to work. You have to work at understanding what's going on, why you've been gone,
what changes have happened to the family.
Tough life.
It is a tough life. It's a tough life. It's a special life.
0-0-7, temperature 72 degrees, wind 260 degrees at 1-2.
Expected VRC 270 now.
I love my family. I love flying.
Just got to make them both mix.
Gary, it's time I taught you something every man should know.
How to eat an Oreo cookie.
It's yours.
Twist it off.
Oh, you did it.
Just give it a lick.
It's hard to hide the truth.
Now it's stuck in.
Just like a professional basketball player.
Now you just learn to tie your shoelaces and you'll be all set.
O-R-E-O.
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At your local Mazda dealer now.
48 hours will continue.
Give me the bus, give me the bus, give me, give me, give me the bus.
If you want the bus, just listen up, cuz this is what's going down.
Guiding Light is out of sight, well you know it's the hottest show in town.
Give me the bus, give me the bus, give me, give me, give me the bus.
Guiding Light, making your passion today.
This apartment building has lots of stories.
Peek inside their windows and get a glimpse at love.
Boom for romance, premieres Friday.
Deep in the bowels of the Kennedy there is another Navy.
This is the domain of sailors called Snipes who always work below.
What time is it? Time to get up.
Time to get up, that's all that matters.
Time is irrelevant.
There are no windows here and high noon looks the same as midnight.
You know what time it is now?
I don't know, I think it's about 4 o'clock, isn't it?
Well you're about an hour and a half off.
Oh really?
You know what day it is?
No, to be honest with you, no.
Ken Stoll is 23 years old.
I think it's Tuesday, isn't it?
He is from Denville, New Jersey.
Now he's an electrician.
He sleeps in an area with 120 other guys.
Actually, it's not much.
But he's lucky.
He's been on the Kennedy long enough to have some seniority, some privilege.
My locker lifts up.
That's like one of the benefits of having a bottom rack.
I have a lot more room.
Graduated to the lower bunk?
Yeah, it's funny, you know, you go down instead of going up the ranks.
Like I said, when you first come on board you get a little claustrophobic, you know.
And you're looking around and it seems like, I don't know, you can't hack it.
But I guess it's like anything else.
You just have to adapt.
You don't have a choice.
I was noticing among other things, these purple pipes?
Yeah, JT5.
That's jet fuel.
So you live right by the jet fuel.
Oh yeah, we're not allowed to smoke back here.
Because I guess if there were a pinhole it could be a little disaster.
You got trouble with some of your jewelry too.
Oh yeah, yeah, you heard about that.
What kind of earring did you wear?
As a matter of fact, it was a hammer and sickle from the Soviet flag.
Well, I got it in New York.
Somebody told me it was a working man.
Yeah, somebody told me it was a working man's symbol.
So I figured, hey, glass nuts, you know, and everything.
Navy didn't see it that way?
No.
Like the other sailors below deck, Stull works 12 hours on, 12 hours off.
Most of his working hours are spent here in the electrician's office.
It seems like all you guys do is rush from one small room with no windows or anything
to another small room with no windows or anything.
Basically.
It's almost like they're two navies.
It is. It's like an upper deck and a lower deck.
The engineers and everybody keeps themselves down here,
and the pilots and the aerodails keep themselves up there.
Have you ever met a pilot?
No.
How long have you been in the Navy?
A year and a half.
How long have you been on this carrier?
About nine months.
You've never met pilots?
No.
Who are just scared to come down here because they might get dirty?
There are thousands of men on this ship who go for months without ever seeing the sun.
They work far from the fresh air, far from the adventure, far from the glamour.
How come the Navy, why do you think the Navy doesn't sort of say,
join the Navy and be an electrician or an engineer?
They made the movie about Top Gun, not Top Engineer, so.
Forget it, okay? Just get down there and get the job done.
Al Cordarero is the Top Gun below deck.
He is a 20-year Navy man, a chief warrant officer.
He takes names.
Max people are not up there in rear deck control working on that job.
I'll get them when the job's ready.
And pats backs.
This morning we have a letter of appreciation.
I'd like to read your entire efforts to properly instruct and well the entrance case as a testimony of your diligent professionalism.
I am confident that you will continue your excellent performance as the number one welder on board USS John F. Kennedy, CV-67.
The glory for the average sailor, the glory for the average serviceman is unsung.
It's personal satisfaction, it's job satisfaction.
The adventure is for the few.
This is our stable.
You've been in the Navy for almost 20 years.
Right.
This doesn't look much different than the guys here.
That's right, it's really not.
They're pretty much all the same.
We're all diverted now, are we not?
I was a 17-year-old high school dropout in the civilian community.
There's not a lot of 17-year-old guys that are in 20 years to go from sweeping the floors, let's say, in a building that would be comparable like the Twin Towers in New York to being the super for that building.
Okay?
I've done that.
Is there anybody going to re-enlist?
No, no, no.
Not a soul is going to re-enlist?
How much time do you have left?
I've got about two and a half years.
I have nine months.
Nine months?
You know how many days?
I have about three years.
I got mine down.
1,489.
And how many hours?
I don't know.
That's what my dad says.
Five years, that's it, it'll go like this.
Dad, it's not going like this.
Like all his shipmates, Ken Stahl entered the Navy voluntarily, and the figures show 60% of the sailors will re-enlist.
Did you see them whales yesterday?
During our 48 hours, not much broke on board the Kennedy, so the electricians had time for a rare breath of fresh air.
What has the Navy given you?
It's hard to describe. I complain about it a lot, but I think overall, like I said, I think I'm a lot more responsible now.
I mean, I've traveled, I've been halfway around the world, I've met a lot of good friends, I learned a lot about different cultures around the country.
You joined the Navy and you've seen the world.
Oh yeah. If there's one thing the recruiting poster doesn't lie about, it's travel.
I got the mid-lodge tonight.
Because it's given me a lot of stuff that I don't think I would have had if I had just stayed on the outside mowing lawns and stuff like that.
I'd probably still be doing it.
Huh? Okay.
We're not in the middle of nowhere. I'm buying some KFC for the road. I could have just gotten some for myself, but I figured I'd get a whole meal.
Why do I need so much chicken? One whiff of my brother's food radar goes off.
Chicken?
He gets some or I die young. And then there's Doris with her five-inch fingernails. So I thought I'd make us all happy.
Original Recipe Chicken. All the fixings from Kentucky Fried Chicken.
It's the only good thing about this trip.
Is cat box odor a problem?
No. Oh yeah.
Try Fresh Step. The only litter that releases tiny odor controllers every time your cat scratches her steps.
Fresh Step. Freshens with every step.
For profiles in quality. Pride.
When you get pride, you get quality.
That's what I said back in 81.
And today we still have that same pride.
And from what we hear, a lot of people think we're doing a pretty good job.
You can hear the quality.
You can see the quality.
You can feel the quality in the way it handles.
Thanks.
That's what happens at Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln when clothing is job one.
Excuse me. How'd Skippy get its great peanutty taste?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Wow. More than other leading national brands?
Mm-hmm.
Well thanks. You set a mouthful.
You're welcome.
Everybody's Skippy the Pimp.
This weekend, the PGA Tour visits Warwick Hills in Michigan for the Buick Open.
Here on CBS Sports.
Get ready for CBS.
CBS has got so much for you.
So get ready. Get ready.
We really want you for the love of truth.
So get ready. Get ready for CBS.
Three days before our 48 hours began...
This is just called a hangar bay, hangar bay one. That one's hangar bay two.
Oh.
It was Fleet Week in New York.
Another medium.
Another medium.
What color?
Gray. We got a blue.
The Navy's chance to sell super carriers like the Kennedy to the public.
Wow.
It's an awesome sight going up to Point A and with 500 pound bombs on it.
Good to see my taxpayers going on something that's going to protect us.
But the super carrier is in danger of being sunk on its own shores in the battle of the budget.
Bye. Bye. Bye.
It's a luxury you can't afford any longer.
The United States of America is now going into debt in excess of $200 billion a year.
And if we go on building aircraft carriers and carrier battle troops and B-2 bombers and SDI programs,
we're going to basically be a bankrupt nation.
The leading critic of the Navy's carriers is a man who once commanded one.
18 landings here.
Retired Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll.
He met us on the deck of the first carrier on which he served, the Intrepid, now a floating museum in the New York Harbor.
And finally you come in and I made my first jet carrier landing just about in here,
maybe just a little bit further back 29 years ago on this very deck.
If Carroll had his way, there would be more museums like the Intrepid.
Well, you were proud of this.
Isn't there still some benefit of having these carriers out all over the world as kind of a show of American presence?
Isn't there still some need for that?
It doesn't work that way anymore.
Most of that goes back to 1947, the idea that we had to contain communism, had to contain the Soviet Union.
Well, who has to contain Soviet Union any longer?
We've always, we, the military, have always overstressed, exaggerated the military capabilities of the Reds
as a justification for our big budgets and our big forces.
We always made them sound 12 feet tall because it served our institutional purposes to do so.
I have been in the Navy for 33 years.
Admiral Leon Edney is the Atlantic commander with nine of the 14 carriers under his command.
They're big and they're beautiful in my eyes and in my judgment you need it more than ever.
Edney is in Newport News, Virginia, seeing for the first time the Navy's newest supercarrier, the $3.5 billion George Washington.
I love it, I should go.
28,000 people work around the clock.
Not only on the George Washington, but they have also begun work on yet another supercarrier, the Stennis.
I'm thankful that the nation has the wisdom to continue to support this type of effort.
And I know there are a lot of people that want to question that, but they never question it when they need it.
And when you need it, you can't get one of these things.
It takes you three and a half years to build one of these things.
This is an instrument of peace, not an instrument of war.
It's only an instrument of war if you want to do bad things.
There will be no other carrier like it in the world, a 90,000 ton nuclear-powered warship that the Navy says is prepared for any war, including the war on drugs.
Now, Admiral, you would use this, this type of carrier, we'll say, for drug trafficking, fighting drug trafficking?
It's very applicable down there.
A three and a half billion dollar carrier is a little bit overpowered to fight terrorists.
The former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, retired Admiral Stansfield Turner, is another critic of the supercarrier.
I think we have been ill-advised to persist in buying big aircraft carriers that we won't put at risk in a situation like the Persian Gulf,
in which are over-expensive and overpowered for the kinds of operations that are now the real province of the Navy.
And I think that's where we missed the boat in the Navy, so to speak.
We didn't say to ourselves, the carriers are getting too big, the airplanes are getting too sophisticated.
Does it still impress you to look at one of these?
It does, sure. This has to be impressed with the amount of imagination, initiative, energy, creativity that goes into putting this system together.
I've often said if we really wanted to rule in the Soviet Navy we've got to give one of our carriers and let them try to operate.
They'd make a mess of it.
How do you do?
Glad to meet you, Sir. Welcome aboard Jive Kennedy.
Thank you.
It still looks like a grand ship.
Yes, sir, it is a grand ship.
week, Admiral Carroll came aboard the Kennedy with us. There is a feeling of
almost exhilaration in the carrier when you get ready for flight operations.
The intensity of the operation is really extreme.
Wonderful expression of human creativity, but unfortunately in the final analysis
for negative reasons, to create a weapon of war. I wish we could demonstrate the
same energy and intensity of creativity with engines of peace.
Tonight does come quick, real quick. The danger involved is increased 50%.
The Kennedy never sleeps. At night, pilots and deck crew push themselves under
conditions of near blindness and exhaustion. Night operations on an aircraft
carrier, it's like opening up a dark closet. In fact, the United States is the
only country to fly off carriers at night. Kevin, you know the arguments, that
this is a floating dinosaur, great in its time, but its time has passed.
Absolutely no one who has ridden this ship during the last year for a day has
left saying the word dinosaur.
Nobody is going to want to mess with an aircraft carrier.
Why buy one of those refrigerators that may be guaranteed for only the next few
years, when you could have the only one that has a money-back guarantee until
the year 2000? The Maytag refrigerator. Buy one now and if it stops working
before the year 2000, we'll buy it back. See a Maytag dealer for details. See a
Maytag repairman in our commercials. The Maytag refrigerator. Buy one now and we'll
guarantee it till the year 2000. At Burger King, that flame-broiled taste
you've always loved is about to take a new turn. Chicken. Introducing the BK
broiler. For a chicken sandwich with that flame-broiled taste, sometimes you've got
to break the rules. Ninja Turtles are hard to capture, but Burger King's got them.
Teenage mutant Ninja Turtle cups, 39 cents each when you buy any drink. To capture
these Ninja Turtles, sometimes you've got to break the rules. What pain reliever
do doctors trust so much they've recommended it over 50 million times in
just six years? Advil. To your stomach for an aspirin, safe, trusted doctor
recommended. Advil. Advanced medicine for pain. Well, did the doctor say you'd need
surgery? No, he said my hemorrhoids aren't that serious and to use
Preparation H. You can often relieve pain and itch for hours and help shrink
swelling of inflamed hemorrhoidal tissues with Preparation H. Inuitment and
suppositories. The Honda Civic four-door sedan. It comes with a roomy interior,
large comfortable seats, four-wheel double wishbone suspension, and an
advanced 16 valve fuel-injected engine. Unfortunately, some colors are not yet
available. Debate over the so-called peace dividend is likely to heat up in
weeks ahead as US defense spending comes up for votes in the Congress and the
supercarriers of the Navy are big targets in that budget battle. But the
argument is really over more than ships and planes. It's really about how we view
ourselves as a nation, as a people. How powerful do we want to be? How powerful
do we need to be and can we afford to be as we come out of the shadows of the
Cold War into a new century? I'm Dan Rather. That's 48 hours for this week. Now
here's a look ahead to next week. A musical legend is Mackle Road and 48
hours is with him. McCartney, the man. I think all of us recognized that there had
to be a life after the Beatles. The music. I mean I was out to become like another
Cole Porter. The member. John just said I'm leaving the group. He just looked at us and our
jaws just fell. So it's kind of a great feeling telling you it's kind of an
adrenaline rush. Next week.
As your television started looking better, well keep your eyes open because
CBS has a great lineup of new entertaining summer series. Time time
pets and wish you were here on Friday. Top cops on Wednesday and later tonight
get ready for a show that will have everybody talking. Northern exposure.
For a transcript of 48 hours, send $4 to Journal Graphics 267 Broadway, New York
New York one triple zero seven. And to purchase a VHS cassette of today's
broadcast, call 1-800-338-4847.