Somewhere in the Arabian Sea

**Ira Glass** (0:01)
As I say these words, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is heading home. After an extended deployment, they put it in the news. I'm guessing you might have seen some of the coverage. Their time at sea was extended to over nine months, taking a toll on the crew. There were reported food shortages, resupply issues, exhaustion that comes from months at sea with no break at all. Stars and stripes and Navy Times reported sailors attempting to jump overboard. The other journalists were unable to get that confirmed.
What is life on this kind of Navy ship like during this kind of deployment? Well, years ago, we did an episode of our show on an aircraft carrier during a war, in the same waters the Lincoln was in, the Arabian Sea.
There's just a few months after September 11th, we were on the USS Stennis, they were dropping bombs in Afghanistan in the early stages of that war.
On that show, you really get a sense of the drudgery of so many of the jobs, and also just how dangerous some of the jobs are. It's a very vivid picture. And so today with the crew of The Lincoln in Mind, we thought we would play you that hour. It is, I have to say, a surprisingly entertaining episode. We saw many things that surprised us, starting with the interview that kicked off the hour. Let's just jump in.

**Prevon Scott** (1:18)
My name is Prevon Scott. Just filling up the vending machines.

**Ira Glass** (1:23)
Is that your full-time job?

**Prevon Scott** (1:25)
Yes.

**Ira Glass** (1:26)
It's your full-time job?

**Prevon Scott** (1:27)
Yeah. Filling up vending machines all day.
For 12 hours.

**Ira Glass** (1:38)
A few weeks ago, This American Life producers Alex Blumberg, Wendy Dorr and I flew halfway around the world to spend some time with the USS John C. Stennis.
Stennis is one of two aircraft carriers that are launching jet fighters to support the ground troops in Afghanistan. Alex is the one who talked to Prevon Scott. What are the big sellers?

**Prevon Scott** (1:56)
I'm like, right now, it's Snickers and Starburst. Snickers goes real fast.

**Ira Glass** (2:02)
What's the least favorite candy on board?

**Prevon Scott** (2:04)
Bonkers, the fruit juice. We got boxes of those and still have them. Sometimes if we don't have anything else, we'll just put all rows of bonkers and they'll still stay in here.

**Ira Glass** (2:16)
Some people hate bonkers.

**Alex Blumberg** (2:17)
They just, nobody likes them.

**Prevon Scott** (2:18)
They still got them. But we've been ordering a whole lot of new stuff, so I've been trying to keep like a whole variety of things in here, like crunchimunch. We just got the crunchimunch and the cheez-its. We normally didn't have in here.

**Ira Glass** (2:29)
Cheez-its?

**Prevon Scott** (2:29)
Yeah, the cheez-its. These are the kind of cheez-its.

**Ira Glass** (2:39)
Our enemies, needless to say, are not supplied with crunchimunch. Yes, we're at war, and yes, that means thousands of Americans are in Kandahar and Kabul and other very dangerous places doing very dangerous things. But for every person on the front lines, there are dozens backing them up, with equipment, logistical support and cheez-its. This aircraft carrier has only 50 or 60 pilots on board who actually drop bombs, who actually take part in combat. Everyone else is here, over 5,000 people, to get them in the air.
Back home over the last few months, we've heard about the pilots, we've heard about the people doing more heroic work. But everybody else on this ship is also at war, is also far from home, is also sacrificing something to be here. And we wanted to hear their stories too.
It's one thing to turn your life upside down to go shoot bullets at bad guys. It's another to give up everything to go fill candy machines 12 hours a day.
In the months since the USS Stennis embarked for the Arabian Sea, Prevon has only gone outside twice. If you picture for a moment what an aircraft carrier looks like, the deck of the ship, that big flat deck, is where jets take off and land. So you can't just walk around up there. She sees daylight maybe once a day. She's 20 years old. It's her first time away from home.

**Prevon Scott** (3:51)
You know, the hardest part is just missing home, the homesick. If I can get over that, then I'll be all right. When I first got here, I was like really bad. I cried every day and stuff like that. But it's like my parents are really helpful. They email me every day.

**Ira Glass** (4:14)
Today on our program, Everyday Life aboard a ship at war, what it's really like. If you never served on a ship like this, believe me, there is so much you don't know.