captions:

Top: On deck on the USS Carl Vinson. Photo by Guillermo Carmona. Above: Fighter jets 30 feet away. Photo by Tom Borner. Left: Tom Borner (left) and Barney Seney experienced a day at sea on an aircraft carrier.



A day in the Navy
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
PUTNAM — Standing 30 feet from F-35s rocketing off the deck of a carrier is certainly jaw dropping — even for a businessman and a mayor.
Attorney Thomas Borner and Putnam Mayor Barney Seney said it was an “impressive” experience.
They had joined the crew of the USS Carl Vinson Nimitz class nuclear aircraft carrier for a full day in March. The two were part of a group of 14 from the U.S. who had been nominated to take part in the Navy Embark distinguished visitor program. It’s designed to acquaint civilians with the Navy, to “experience the Navy for a day,” said Borner. “The program is intended to showcase the Navy and to spread the good word about the Navy’s contribution to our national security.”
Educators, business people and politicians are nominated to take part and perhaps share with their towns what the modern U.S. Navy is like.
Borner said they were nominated four years ago and then the pandemic put the program on hold. The first week in March they were notified that there would be a carrier in the San Diego vicinity, possibly between March 24 and March 29. The pair got short notice that March 29 was the day. They met their group at the naval base gate — 10 teachers, three business people and … one mayor. After three hours of training, they took an exciting ride on an Osprey to the Vinson. Borner said much of the time the door of the Osprey was open. Borner said “You could drive a car in through that door.” They were “super strapped in.”
When they got to the carrier, the wind was incredible when they disembarked. “I thought somebody is gonna get blown off,” said Borner.
After landing on the Vinson and more training, they were outfitted with vests, double ear plugs and a helmet so “snug” that most got headaches.
Then it was off to the flight deck where they stood 30 feet from the F-35s’ takeoffs and landings. “It was earth shattering” they said.
On a tour they noted the carrier is home to 5,500 and morale is high. Borner said the only way that they knew they were below deck was that the doors were water tight. Otherwise all the halls and doors looked the same.
This “little city” had everything it needed. There’s 18,000 square feet of freezer space; they serve 17,000 meals a day in five mess halls and do 43,000 pounds of laundry. The carrier is resupplied about once a month. When the resupply is at sea, Borner said they use “modified M-16s” that shoot “suction cups” so that a cable relay system between the supply boat and the carrier can be established to transfer goods.
There’s all types of gym equipment. Seney spotted a Zumba class going on and joined in. “Barney was a hit,” Borner said.
They marveled at how a carrier four football fields long could almost turn on a dime. It was nearly zero clearance. The carrier makes frequent turns so that the aircraft are always taking off into the wind, the changeable wind. They said they could look behind them and see they were crossing their own wake.
Another tour topside at night — there are takeoffs and landings until 2 a.m. There’s even a midnight buffet. The next day they returned to San Diego.
Borner said the outreach program is “a great segue from high school to being grown up.” Students can at least consider the military and all the benefits it offers and the service to your country. Seney said the military offers much: discipline, learning a trade that transfers to the civilian world or using the GI bill to continue on to college. “It opens up the whole world.”
Borner said what impressed him most was seeing what 20 year olds were doing. “It was encouraging to see what this generation is doing; it’s inspiring.”
The Navy Embark program was right up there with “ringing the bell at NASDAQ, twice,” he added (for Putnam Bank).
Seney said, “I’m still high. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life and this was impressive. Maybe I should have joined the Navy.”
A highlight for Seney was giving a chief a Putnam anniversary medallion. “The chief walked with me to a seaman and handed the medallion to the sailor saying that someday ‘you, too, can achieve much. You can be a mayor’.”

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