Madison Gaber’s daddy had been gone for nearly a quarter of her young life, and the 4-year-old clung to him as if she never wanted him to leave again.
Lt. Cmdr. Wallace “Chip” Gaber, of Oak Harbor, was one of 16 members of the VAQ-139 “Cougar” squadron who returned to Whidbey Naval Air Station from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln Apirl 30 to be greeted by more than 100 cheering, screaming family members and friends.
“This is what it’s all about,” Gaber said, holding little Madison tightly. “I just wanted to see those eyes.”
Madison’s big brown eyes kept returning to her daddy’s face, as if learning it anew after the long absence, while the happy chaos of homecoming swirled around them.
Pride in the returning flyers swelled as the flag-waving crowd anxiously waited in Hangar 10, the huge bay doors opened to the flight line. It erupted in a burst of Sousa music from the Navy band, and cheers and screams as the returning EA-6B Prowlers buzzed the hangar in a teasing flyby at 4:25 p.m.
After nine long months it seemed like forever before the four jets finally taxied up to the hangar and lined up, wings folded, in perfect order, number 500, 501, 502 and 503. The smell of jet fuel washed into the hangar, and those who hadn’t put in earplugs covered their ears against the deafening roar of the idling engines.
Then the jets went still, the cockpits opened and the fliers emerged after their first landing on terra firma since last July. Even before they touched ground their families were running across the short stretch of tarmac that separated them. Before they could get their helmets off the flyers were hugged, kissed, and overwhelmed with emotion.
A few minutes later in the hangar squadron commander Scott Pollpeter was still stunned by the reception, which his wife, Sandi, had been instrumental in staging.
“They don’t prepare us for this,” he said, looking at the crowd and the decorated hangar.
“There’s nothing better than this,” he said. “It’s all great. It can feel surreal out there, but this is real.”
During the first 19 days of the war in Iraq, Cougar aircrews dodged dense anti-aircraft and surface-to-air missiles while they jammed enemy radar and communications, according to the NAS Whidbey public affairs office.
Prowler squadrons from Whidbey flew from the first days of the conflict, providing cover for the fighter jets and bombers that followed. The Prowlers logged 313 flight hours over Iraq, and no planes or crew were lost in the operation.
VAQ squadrons 128 and 134 have sent crews home from their land bases in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and the rest of the Cougars’ 160-person support crew stepped off of transport planes Friday.
Squadrons still deployed are the VAQ-130 Zappers aboard the USS Harry Truman, the VAQ-131 Lancers aboard the USS Constellation, the VAQ-138 Yellow Jackets on the USS Carl Vinson, and the VAQ-141 Shadowhawks aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
