Jonathan Aubry learned things about his father he could not have were it not for a common experience–serving aboard the aircraft carrier USS Constellation.
Jonathan Aubry, a 23-year-old Marine lance corporal from Las Vegas, and his father, Bill, a former Marine from Sacramento, stand almost like bookends for the Constellation. Bill Aubry sailed on the carrier’s second deployment in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. Now his son is aboard, sailing in the Persian Gulf on what is scheduled to be the carrier’s last voyage, amid an intensifying U.S. military buildup around Iraq.
Father and son held the same job, too, working as a “plane captain,” the mechanic responsible for keeping a fighter jet airworthy. The father worked with the famous “Black Sheep” squadron; the son is attached to the “Death Rattlers,” or VMFA-323 squadron.
Despite the similar footsteps, Aubry’s father began to share some of his experiences only after his son brought him aboard the Constellation a year ago.
“He was pretty choked up by the whole thing. It probably brought a lot of memories back–not just from the Constellation, but from the Vietnam War,” Aubry said.
“He told me a lot of stuff about Vietnam that I don’t think he even told my mother.”
His father received a Bronze Star in 1965 for heroic action in Vietnam, Aubry said.
“He actually took me around the ship. It was pretty remarkable that he remembered. He showed me a lot of stuff. He took me to the mess hall. It was shocking what kind of memories you can get by stepping on something familiar.
“He noticed the minor changes. He said the berthing [sleeping] areas were much nicer,” said Aubry, who added that he thought there was still room for improvement.
`Golden shellback’
The dad became a “shellback” on the Constellation–one who crosses the equator on a warship. The son became a “golden shellback” on the carrier–one who crosses the equator and international dateline simultaneously, at “zero-zero time,” he said.
“So I outrank him,” Aubry said.
Jonathan Aubry has a twin brother, Joseph, also a Marine; he is a corporal and ordnance technician in Yuma, Ariz. The twins graduated together from the same boot camp on the same date that their father had graduated decades earlier, June 4.
Dad is likely to get one last look at the Constellation.
“I think I’ll bring him on it one more time, before they bring her up to Washington [state], where she’s going to be mothballed,” Jonathan said.
For Marine Capt. Guy Ravey, 28, an F/A-18C Hornet pilot from Berkeley, Calif., the blood ties reach back an extra generation.
His grandfather was a Navy pilot on the Constellation in 1966-67 and flew a “Cod,” which in carrier parlance means the C-2A Greyhound twin-prop plane that transports parts and mail. It is known as “Carrier On-board Delivery,” hence “Cod,” and has a few seats to shuttle a few military personnel, dignitaries and journalists.
The grandfather, Wilford Rickman, 79, of Cupertino, Calif., catapulted and landed on the Constellation toward the end of an almost 30-year military career that began as a torpedo bomber pilot in World War II and included service as an attack pilot in the Korean War. Rickman retired as a lieutenant commander in 1972.
After Ravey joined the Marines in 1997 and became a fighter pilot on the Constellation in 2000, grandfather attended the winging ceremony and gave his grandson the Navy aviator wings that he had earned decades earlier. Grandson wears those wings on his dress uniform today.
“My grandfather has always been my hero. This is my dream since I was a little kid–being a fighter pilot on an aircraft carrier,” Ravey said.
`The newfangled thing’
The passage of time was evident when his grandfather recounted the marvels of the new Constellation, Ravey said. Back then, the carrier, commissioned in 1961, was “the newfangled thing” because it had an escalator (something of an oddity today that the Navy has discontinued in later carriers) and even air-conditioning, so commonplace now, he said.
Sometimes when Ravey lands his fighter jet on the Connie, as the carrier is nicknamed, he feels as if he is throttling back to the day of his grandfather.
That’s because the Constellation is one of only three diesel-powered aircraft carriers in the Navy’s arsenal of 12 carriers, the remainder being nuclear-powered. As such, the Constellation has a smokestack.
His grandfather told him about finding the Constellation by its trailing smoke.
“I didn’t believe him until my first landing, and when I saw it coming, it was pretty impressive,” Ravey said. “It made me feel like I was stepping back in the Vietnam era.”
