Vic is a sailor and the Navy has been our life for almost 24 years now. It's a career, not a job, and for the entire family, it's been an adventure. For Vic, it's been the amazing opportunity to travel to parts of the world that he might not otherwise have visited. Sure, deployments are long, they are tough, the separation is never easy, but amazing memories are made and they are usually preserved in a Cruise Book.
A cruise book is a yearbook-style publication often produced by ships of the United States Navy upon completion of a long deployment (typically six months or more). The books typically contain photos of all the people who were aboard during the cruise, usually grouped by their division or department. There are often candid photos as well, showing the people at work aboard the ship. Often there is a map or a description of the ship's travels during the cruise, and there are almost always pictures taken at the various ports of call. - Thank you, Navy History and Heritage Command via Wikipedia.
Over his almost 24 years, Vic has completed all or a major portion of seven deployments (you could argue six, since one was only five months long but since it was a circumnavigation of South America, I consider that a deployment). Cruise Books were published for four of these deployments.
USS DEWERT (FFG 45) Mediterranean Deployment 1995-1996
Palma de Mallorca; Portsmouth, England; Frederickshavn and Aarhus, Denmark; Lisbon, Portugal; La Spezia and Trieste, Italy; Corfu, Greece, Villefranche-sur-mer, France; Naples, Italy; and Palermo, Sicily
USS KAUFFMAN (FFG 59) Gulf of Guinea Deployment 2006-2007
Augusta Bay, Italy; Rhodes, Greece; Rota, Spain; Cape Verde; Dakar, Senegal; Port Gentil, Gabon; Luanda, Angola; Sao Tome and Principe
USS WINSTON S. CHURCHILL (DDG 81) Persian Gulf Deployment 2010
Souda Bay, Crete; Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates; Seychelles; Manama, Bahrain; Muscat, Oman; Cannes, France
USS JOHN C. STENNIS (CVN 74) Western Pacific Deployment 2016
Guam; Busan, Korea; Singapore; Manila, Philippines, Hawaii
It's a great deal of work to put together a Cruise Book but I'm very thankful to the sailors who volunteer their time and talents to undertake the task. It's a great memento.
What a wonderful memento of his deployments! It sounds like his career has been quite an adventure. Thank you for his service and for your family's dedication!
ReplyDeleteSwoon! I'm so jealous! He's been all over!
ReplyDeleteI did WestPac '95 on the Lincoln but we didn't go to all those cool places that the Stennis went to! We did Hong Kong, Singapore, FIVE stops in Jebal Ali, (Australia & Tasmania got cancelled - BOOOO!) and then Hawaii. Sigh.
They were supposed to go to Hong Kong on WESTPAC 2016 but the port visit was cancelled. Things were a little tense in the area at the time.
DeleteHow interesting. I wish we had something like that for all of my husband's deployments.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that, about the cruise books. My daughter served on two ships in the Navy--USS Bunker Hill and USS San Diego. She deployed but not for 6 months. I like that the Navy does this for all the family left behind on a deployment.
ReplyDeleteThat's such a meaningful way to remember one's service to our country. I didn't know that the cruise books were even created.
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