When the USS Nimitz was commissioned in 1975, the crew did not yet know what the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would see. In the years since, it's been adjacent to some of the world's tensest moments.
It was sent to the Indian Ocean after Iran took 52 U.S. hostages in 1979, and an aborted rescue attempt was launched from its flight deck. It guarded Kuwaiti oil tankers in 1987 and '88 during the Iran-Iraq war. It played a role in the first and second Iraq wars, and enforced no-fly zones there in the 1990s.
It's 1,092 feet long, 252 feet wide, and the flight deck is about 4.5 acres. And the thousands who work on the ship bring their families to live in Bremerton, where the vessel has been homeported since 2015.
Kitsap Sun military affairs reporter Josh Farley recently spent four days aboard the Nimitz, as the vessel made its way from Bremerton to San Diego. He reported on the trip in a series of stories, and he spoke to KNKX Public Radio about the journey. The links below will take you to Farley's reporting. In the audio above, he talks with All Things Considered host Ed Ronco about the trip.
NIMITZ AT SEA — A Kitsap Sun series
Getting in and out of Puget Sound
New sailors get ready for deployment
