April 6, 2006

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Karen Moore joined the U.S. Navy. Last month she returned to Yellow Springs after an eight-month deployment on the USS Pearl Harbor, which transported Marines and equipment to Kuwait.

By Diane Chiddister

Like many people, Karen Moore’s life changed forever on Sept. 11, 2001. Moore, who at the time was an Ohio State student getting a master’s in journalism, no longer wanted to sit on the sidelines, tucked away in academia, while her country faced a terrorist threat.

Rather, she longed to get involved in the world to somehow make things better.

“It was a wake-up call for me,” she said. “I wanted to do something meaningful with my life.”

Moore, whose mother lives in Yellow Springs, responded to 9/11 by turning her own life upside down.

Rather than becoming a journalist, she became a sailor. And rather than spending her days on a leafy green campus, she spent her days, and nights, on a 600-foot ship in the Persian Gulf.

Moore, 29, recently returned to Yellow Springs after an eight-month deployment on the USS Pearl Harbor, an amphibious Navy ship that transported Marines and equipment to Kuwait, provided security in Gulf waters for several months, then returned the Marines home.

It was a rigorous, confining and demanding life, Moore said, and she would do it all over again.

“I’m much more aware now,” she said. “Being able to go out and see the world — one of the best ways to learn about something is to experience it.”

On the ship, Moore served as a cryptologic technician technical, or CTT, part of a group that continuously monitored the radar signals of other vessels and aircraft to determine if they were friend or foe.

Overall, she said, the deployment was uneventful, although the tension of potential hostilities was always present.

“It was a good deployment,” she said. “There was no loss of life.”

But the Pearl Harbor was no cruise ship, and life on board was not easy. Moore’s days began with 6 a.m. wake-up music, then a rush to the single bathroom shared by the 200 women on board. At 7 each morning, all sailors stood in formation on deck to receive their daily assignment, which might include training, equipment checks or working the watch, during which Moore monitored the radar signals. The workday lasted till 4 p.m., after which the approximately 400 sailors worked out in the gym, read or watched DVDs.

Ship life offered definite challenges, Moore said, the biggest one of which was the search for privacy when one’s bedroom consisted of a six-foot “rack,” or sleeping berth, with only a “coffin locker” beneath for storing personal items, in a room shared with 40 other women. Curtains between berth areas provided what passed for privacy, although the berths were stacked in threes, so even that space was shared.

Given the close quarters, Moore said, she expected more tensions between those on board, and she was continually surprised at how well people got along.

Some of the sailors found pride and contentment from doing something for their country, she said, while others gained comfort from thoughts of their families. And for those tempted to misbehave, there was the threat of losing one’s on-shore leave.

That disciplinary threat worked because no one wanted to stay on ship when it docked in Hawaii, Australia, Greece or Singapore, all sites for shore leaves. Moore said her favorite leave was the Grecian island of Crete.

“Greece was wonderful, the cobblestone streets, the European feel,” she said. “The food was so good. You could taste the sunshine.”

Like many others, Moore said, she used much of her free time for self-improvement. She taught an English class and wrote several articles about life aboard ship, three of which were published in a Navy magazine. And best of all, she discovered, was the spectacular view from the deck.

“The sunrise, sunset and stars kept me going,” she said. “It was gorgeous at sea. The stars are amazing.”

Moore’s deployment began in July 2005 when the Pearl Harbor left its dock in San Diego, transporting 400 Marines and their tanks and Humvees. The ship sailed to Australia, where the Marines took part in a training exercise, then on to Kuwait, where they dropped the Marines, who took part in the ground war in Iraq.

From October to December the ship was one of three in a battle group that conducted a maritime security operation in the Gulf, Moore said.

In October the sailors got an unexpected assignment when the Pearl Harbor steamed from the Persian Gulf to Pakistan after that country’s catastrophic earthquake. The ship was the first to arrive in the Karachi harbor, Moore said, and the ship’s captain spoke on CNN after the ship arrived, in a “huge media event.” The ship’s humanitarian assignment included bringing mattresses, medical supplies and earth-moving equipment, which it had picked up in the United Arab Emirates.

While the venture was definitely not a scenic one — the Karachi harbor was full of sewage and smelled terribly, Moore said, and sailors were confined to the ship for security reasons — the crew felt proud to do what it could to help earthquake victims.

“If we had done nothing it would have been horrible,” she said.

In December the ship picked up the Marines in Kuwait, traveled to Singapore and Hong Kong, then returned to San Diego in February.

While the Pearl Harbor provided transport for Marines heading for the Iraq war, those on ship spoke little about the war itself, Moore said. For the most part, she said, people were just too busy.

For herself, Moore said, she is confident that the ship served a positive role, although she has mixed feelings about the war.

“My general feeling is that we don’t need that many troops,” she said. “It bothers me that we’re setting up a mini-America.”

But Moore said she feels good that she changed her life in response to her country’s need. She has already headed back to her ship, which is docked in San Diego, and has several more years to go to fulfill her tour of duty, which began in 2002.

For now, the ship is in maintenance, which means its sailors will take part in training exercises. No one knows for sure what comes next, she said, although another deployment is likely.

What Moore does know for sure is that she’s a journalist as well as a sailor, and she plans to make good use of the experience she’s gained the past few years. She has begun writing a book about being a woman in the Navy, and hopes that sharing her experience will make things easier for other women who take the risk to leave their lives behind to become sailors.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com