USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) deployed to the Arabian Sea in 2002 as part of the sustained naval campaign that followed September 11, 2001. Operation Enduring Freedom was in its second year; the initial strikes that had destroyed the Taliban government’s infrastructure and driven al-Qaeda from its Afghan training camps had given way to a more complex, grinding campaign of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. Truman’s carrier air wing flew sorties over Afghanistan, provided close air support for coalition and Afghan forces on the ground, and sustained the rhythm of flight operations that kept the Navy’s contribution to OEF continuous across the months of her deployment.
The Ship
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) is a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, commissioned on July 25, 1998, and named for the thirty-third President of the United States — the former Missouri National Guard artillery captain and US Senator who inherited the presidency at the end of World War II and made the decision to use atomic weapons against Japan, the decision to airlift supplies to Berlin rather than capitulate to the Soviet blockade, and the decision to commit American forces to Korea when the North invaded in June 1950. The ship that bears his name was commissioned just three years before the events that would define her early career. She was homeported at Norfolk, Virginia, and Carrier Air Wing Three (CVW-3) was her assigned air wing.
The 2002 OEF Deployment
The carrier air wing over Afghanistan in 2002 was doing work that the Navy had not designed carrier aviation to do. Carrier aircraft had been built to strike Soviet naval forces, to fight for air superiority in high-intensity conflict, to attack fixed military infrastructure. OEF required something different: persistent presence over the battlefield, rapid response to requests from ground forces in contact with the enemy, strikes against targets that were often identified in real time rather than planned days in advance. The pilots and naval flight officers of CVW-3 adapted. The aircraft adapted — different loadouts, different rules of engagement, a different tempo and texture of combat flying than the training syllabus had emphasized.
CVW-3 included F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters, F-14 Tomcat fighters operating in a strike role with targeting pods, E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft, EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft, and S-3B Viking maritime patrol aircraft repurposed for the land campaign. The combination of platforms gave the air wing a range of capabilities that the joint force commander used across the spectrum of operations in Afghanistan — from time-sensitive strike against Taliban leadership to routine surveillance of suspected insurgent movement.
Life Aboard During OEF
A carrier on an OEF deployment in 2002 operated on a sustained flight schedule that pushed aircraft maintenance crews to their limits and kept pilots and naval flight officers at a level of operational intensity that peacetime deployments didn’t approach. The Arabian Sea is a demanding operating environment — hot, humid, with weather that complicates flight operations and a threat environment that required constant vigilance even in areas well away from Afghanistan’s borders. The crew of Truman spent months sustaining a flight schedule that supported ground operations thousands of miles away, connected to the war by the aircraft on their flight deck and by the tasking that came down from the joint operations center.
Below the flight deck, the ship’s crew maintained the nuclear propulsion plant, the weapons magazines, the aviation fuel systems, the food service, the medical facilities, the communications systems — everything that kept more than five thousand people alive and operational at sea for months. The sailors who didn’t fly were the ones who made the flying possible, and they knew it.
If you served aboard USS Harry S. Truman or want to honor someone who did, browse the full Truman collection — cruise shirts, license plate frames, and more.
Legacy
USS Harry S. Truman continues to serve, more than two decades after her commissioning. Her OEF deployment in 2002 was the first of many combat deployments in a career that has included multiple rotations to the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean. The ship named for the president who committed American forces to Korea is herself committed to a sustained forward presence that Truman’s decisions made permanent. The carrier that carries his name serves in the same tradition of American power projection that he helped define.