Halloween on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt ;)

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fair use... (and kinda cute) guess the situation won't let these sailors be down.

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USS Theodore Roosevelt Celebrates Halloween, Complete With Jack-O'-Lanterns, Ghosts

By Chris Tomlinson Associated Press Writer

Published: Oct 30, 2001

ABOARD THE USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (AP) - The crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt celebrated Halloween with a door-decorating contest, improvised jack-o'-lanterns and the ship's mascot donning a ghost costume to trick-or-treat through the aircraft carrier's passage ways.

While the business of launching jets to attack Taliban and al-Qaida targets in Afghanistan continued, some of the ship's 5,500-person crew celebrated the holiday the best they could, and in remarkably ingenious ways.

Mechanics in the airframe department fashioned a three-foot jack-o'-lantern from fiberglass, welding rods, old rags, papier- mache and orange paint. Petty Officer 2nd Class Courtland of Big Piney, Mo., said the sailors in his section spent their free time over four days to build the pumpkin.

"I think its kind of a nice change of pace from working on airplanes," Courtland, 21, said. "Something out of the ordinary."

Members of the aircraft carrier's crew can decide to only be identified by their first names for security reasons.

Because they work the night shift, waking up at 6 p.m. and working until noon the next day, Halloween celebrations began late Tuesday.

In addition to making pumpkins, the morale, welfare and recreation department also organized a door-decorating contest. The airframe department decided to participate in that as well, hanging a painting of Dracula in a Transylvanian cemetery. One of the grave stones was for Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaida organization and prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In the air operations department, Petty Officer 3rd Class Michele Blymire, 21, and Airman Marlene Hernandez, 19, decorated their door with an inflatable Frankenstein and drawings of bats and pumpkins.

Hernandez said she would normally go trick-or-treating in her neighborhood in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. She said she may give it a try on the carrier, if work allows and "if I get permission to put on makeup and stuff."

"We're on a six-month cruise and holidays bring out the spirit in all of us. It's important to have holiday spirit," Blymire, of Seville, Fla., said. "It also breaks the monotony."

Breaking the routine of daily 12-hour or more shifts by celebrating holidays on ship, even during war time, is important for the crew's morale, agreed Kim Watkins, the Theodore Roosevelt's morale officer.

"It's like 'Groundhog Day,' the movie where the same thing happens everyday," Watkins, a civilian from Louisville, Ky., said. "We try to help people get away from the mundane."

But the ship's mission always comes first, she added. "We didn't plan a lot because of the operation."

In honor of former President Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose party, the ship's mascot is a crew member dressed as a moose, who wanders the ship's passageways like Mickey Mouse in Disneyland, playing practical jokes on bemused sailors.

For Halloween, the moose donned a ghost costume to go trick-or- treating through the ship.

"It helps keep things light," Watkins said. "No one can walk past the moose and not smile."

Most sailors on the Theodore Roosevelt expect to remain at sea, probably until the end of the carrier's deployment in March.

"We'll probably make ... a turkey for Thanksgiving," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Matt, of Vero Beach, Fla. "For Christmas, we'll turn it into a snowman."

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001


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