USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) was at sea on September 11, 2001. She was transiting toward the Persian Gulf on a routine deployment when the attacks happened, and within days she was repositioned as the first carrier to begin combat operations in support of what would become Operation Enduring Freedom — the American military response to the September 11 attacks and the campaign to destroy al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Carrier Air Wing Eleven (CVW-11) flew the first strikes of OEF from her decks on October 7, 2001, the opening salvos of a war that would last two decades. Carl Vinson was there at the beginning.
The Ship
USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) is a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, commissioned on March 13, 1982, and named for the Georgia congressman who served in the House of Representatives for fifty years and was one of the primary architects of the modern U.S. Navy. Homeported at Bremerton, Washington, and later at Coronado, California, she was a mature, capable ship by 2001, with nearly two decades of operational experience and a crew ready for the kind of sustained high-tempo combat that OEF would demand.
September 11 and the Repositioning
When the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked, Carl Vinson was already underway in the North Arabian Sea. Within 24 hours, her operational orders changed. The ship that had been on a standard rotational deployment became the centerpiece of the American military response to the worst attack on the American homeland since Pearl Harbor. The pace of preparations accelerated: ordnance was loaded, intelligence was integrated, the planning for what would become Operation Enduring Freedom began in earnest. The crew knew what was coming.
On October 7, 2001, CVW-11 launched the first carrier strikes of OEF against al-Qaeda training camps and Taliban military infrastructure in Afghanistan. The targets were inland — hundreds of miles from the ship — requiring the kind of long-range precision strike that the carrier's air wing was designed to deliver. The strikes were the opening of a campaign that would continue for twenty years; the first night was Carl Vinson's.
The OEF Air Campaign
The air campaign in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 was unlike any that carrier aviation had conducted since Vietnam. The distances were extreme; the targets were often small and rapidly moving; the coordination with Special Operations Forces on the ground required a level of tactical integration that was new to carrier aviation in its current form. CVW-11 adapted. The F/A-18 Hornets and F-14 Tomcats flew long missions, refueled by S-3 Vikings and shore-based tankers, delivering precision-guided munitions against targets that were often identified by forces on the ground in real time. The E-2C Hawkeye provided command and control. The EA-6B Prowler provided electronic warfare support.
By the time the Taliban government collapsed in November and December 2001, Carl Vinson's air wing had flown hundreds of combat sorties against targets that shaped the outcome of the ground campaign. The ship remained on station through the transition period, her air wing available for whatever the ground situation required.
Life Aboard
The crew of Carl Vinson during the OEF deployment lived with the particular weight of knowing they were part of a response to an attack on their country. The tempo was high and the purpose was clear in a way that peacetime deployments are not. The maintenance crews who kept the aircraft ready, the ordnancemen who armed them, the catapult crews who launched them — every person aboard understood that the work they were doing was connected, directly, to the events of September 11. That weight is not a burden. It is a kind of calling.
If you served aboard USS Carl Vinson or want to honor someone who did, browse the Carl Vinson collection — cruise shirts, license plate frames, and more.
Legacy
USS Carl Vinson continues to serve. In 2011, she was the ship from which Osama bin Laden's body was buried at sea, a final chapter in the story that began with her OEF deployment a decade earlier. The 2001 deployment — the first strikes of a long war, flown from a ship that was positioned and ready when the moment came — is the defining cruise of her career. That is the kind of service that a ship and her crew carry forever.