EVERETT — Sue Vanderhoofven huddled in a gentle rain with her 9-year-old son, Jim.
She sat on the lip of a pier at Naval Station Everett within sight of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.
Her husband, Lt. Phil Vanderhoofven, had already walked beyond the security gate and down the pier to the ship.
It wasn’t the first time her husband has made similar walks to ships that were about to leave for deployment for months at a time while tending to the nation’s business abroad.
The Lincoln left the naval station Thursday morning, en route to the western Pacific and the Persian Gulf region.
Spouses cried and children hugged their dads and moms as sailors headed toward the ship.
The scene was expected to be repeated today when two of Everett-based destroyers, the USS Shoup and the USS Momsen, leave to catch up with the Lincoln and become a part of the carrier’s strike group on a seven-month voyage.
Altogether, the three ships will take about 3,600 sailors away until about October.
Sue Vanderhoofven’s mood was melancholy after watching her husband head toward the ship.
“Just this part of it is hard,” she said of the separation. She repeated something her 13-year-old daughter said earlier: “God kiss all the guys with his sunshine and hug them with his wind. Keep them safe.”
An hour before the departure, the Lincoln’s commanding officer walked down the pier to greet a handful of spouses and small children who were staying out of the weather under shelters.
A woman walked up to him, hugged Capt. Patrick Hall and told him: “Capt. Hall, you take care of my husband.”
Then the captain said his last goodbye to his wife, Gail Hall.
“We’re ready to go, you bet,” Hall said. “The crew is trained and the crew is ready to go overseas to show the flag.”
The crew spent 120 days at sea over the last nine months training and preparing for the deployment. During that time, there was a turnover of about a third of the crew, requiring the constant training.
The training graduation was a joint exercise with the other ships in the strike group and other branches of the armed services early this year in Southern California waters.
“The exercise was designed to force us to operate with and communicate with the other services,” Hall said. For example, there was a time when air support was being supplied by the U.S. Air Force, he said.
Besides a ship’s crew of about 3,000 on the Lincoln, the ship will take on about 2,000 more personnel in the San Diego area when its own the air crews come aboard.
The Lincoln last returned from deployment in August 2006 and then went into Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton for about 10 months. The training cycle started in the summer.
The training is tough, but the long deployments are worse for families like the Vanderhoofvens.
The family will trace the location of the Lincoln using large world maps attached to walls and a ceiling of their home in Marysville. A 13-year-old daughter will bake cookies and brownies with notes hidden in them to ship off to her dad.
Her husband was emotionally strong “until we got here,” Sue Vanderhoofvens said. “Now I have to be the strong one.”
Navy Chief Brian Luckett was waiting with his family and got to kiss a tearful Hayley, 10, who didn’t want to see her daddy go.
Luckett, of Stanwood, is head of a program meant to keep separated families closer. Up to 1,000 Lincoln crew members will participate in videotapes of them reading to their kids. The videos will be mailed home and played for the children.
His wife, Ami Luckett, plans to remain busy with three children and is studying accounting.
Teary-eyed Christine Moore is a former sailor and remains in the Naval Reserve. Her husband, Chief Dennis Moore, is in charge of the Lincoln’s dental unit. Christine Moore also plans to stay busy to make the separation seem shorter.
Because she’s former military, she knows well about long deployments.
“We knew what we were getting into,” the Lake Stevens woman said. “It still doesn’t make it easier, though.”
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or jhaley@heraldnet.com.
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