Aboard the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier, his life and legacy remain vital

As I typed the dateline about this journey to learn about a monumental aspect of President Harry S. Truman’s legacy, I kept thinking about how the most compelling part of being a journalist often is in trying to take people where they don’t normally get to go.

I’ve found that in covering 10 Olympics, traveling with the Royals to attend Yordano Ventura’s funeral in the Dominican Republic and assignments all over the country. And, for that matter, as close by as in local locker rooms.

But I’ve never experienced it in a more literal sense than flying to the namesake ship of the man from Independence who orchestrated one of the most consequential tenures in U.S. history — and whose influence is honored and perpetuated aboard here.

You’ll feel “the essence” of Truman on the ship, said Capt. Dave Snowden, the ship’s commanding officer.

That intangible — albeit infused with plenty of tangibles — tends to become personal to leaders, he added: “I think you develop a connection to the namesake.”

A connection even visitors can sense onboard after landing in what felt like a portal to another dimension.

‘Highway to the Danger Zone’

Strapped into four-point harnesses with sound largely muted inside our cranial helmets and with goggles as our lenses, our group with the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum last month rumbled out of Naval Station Norfolk in a C-2A Greyhound twin-engine propeller airplane.

Designed some 60 years ago and soon to be a relic, the plane oozed with what might be called character. With few windows and at-best dim lighting, the dark cabin and its exposed guts had the vibe of an attic.

The sensory deprivation was made all the more disorienting by the fact that we, as passengers, were riding backward. But, at least for me, it all somehow had a pacifying effect: Despite my apprehensions as one who avoids roller coasters and can barely tolerate a Ferris wheel, the steady hum nearly put me to sleep during the 45-minute ride.

Until …

About 20 seconds after two crewmen waved their arms and yelled, “Here we go, here we go,” the plane landed at about 150 mph on the deck of the 4.5-acre aircraft carrier.

Planes landing on the carrier maintain their speed lest the arresting wires don’t catch their tail hooks. That way if something goes awry they can zoom right back up rather than potentially go into the water.

Ours came to an abrupt stop within a few seconds and a few hundred feet — quite possibly in less distance than superstar Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes can throw a football, or what it takes to hit a home run at Kauffman Stadium.

But it didn’t reverberate as otherworldly until the aft cargo door lowered, revealing the Atlantic Ocean and perpetual motion of crew members clad in a variety of shirt colors or vests denoting their duties.

Perhaps because I’d played out this scenario a few times recently in preparation, I heard Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” from “Top Gun” in my mind walking out onto the deck and beholding the spectacle of what some on the ship consider either controlled chaos or a ballet.

It was bewildering emerging from lingering fog of air conditioning on our plane into some drifting steam-haze from the ship’s boiler system, which catapults planes into flight.

All the more so as we inhaled the fragrance of jet fuel that on the plane nauseated one of our group.

That overload was punctuated by the steady buzz and boom of fighter planes performing touch-and-go operations or jerking to a stop — sounds we’d hear well into the night, even below deck.

Sounds that ultimately should make us all sleep better because of a 24/7 operation that surely is duplicated on the 10 other U.S. carriers — making for more than other nations combined.

It’s one thing to witness this on YouTube or in recruitment videos or, yes, “Top Gun.” But it’s another, Snowden said, to “actually see it live and in person, raw, unfiltered, uncut.”

When he preps young sailors for the feeling on deck, Snowden tells them they will “get this rattling all over your body … and you’re going to think you’re having a panic attack. And then it’s going to just stop, and you’re going to realize it’s the roar of those engines making your innards rattle up against your rib cage.

“I can talk about it all day,” the ship’s CO said, “but until you experience it for yourself you have no idea what I’m saying, right?”

It’s all so spellbinding and seamless looking that it’s easy to forget how apt the “danger zone” notion is.

Referring to documentaries on the topic that call it the most dangerous place in the world to work, Snowden added, “It is.”

It’s not just that this is a nuclear-powered carrier often full of some 3 million gallons of jet fuel for more than 70 tactical and support aircraft, including helicopters, F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets and the EA-18G Growler. (By policy, the Navy neither confirms nor denies the presence of nuclear weapons aboard.)

It’s the inherent perils entwined with what they somehow make look routine: Arresting cables can break, jet turbines can either blast you off-ship or suck you in, planes with bombs on them landing on a tight target on a moving object can crash.

The training and courage and resolve it takes to do this, particularly considering the mental-health challenges over months at a time for a largely young group, is admirable and self-evident.

To behold it in person intensifies appreciation of the valor and discipline it takes. Explicitly in the Navy but also in all branches of the service.

In this case, it also makes for testimony to Truman in numerous ways, including through imagery, philosophy and the striking number of people of color and women serving onboard.

‘Heart and soul of America’

During the carrier’s commissioning ceremony in 1998, President Bill Clinton invoked Truman’s unfathomable ascension to the White House and uniquely challenging presidency to illustrate not just Truman’s life, but also its context in the ship’s mission.

Starting with reminding that the forthright Truman always strove to do what he said he would.

Referring to a then-aimless Truman’s words in a 1913 letter to his future wife — “My ship’s going to come in yet” — Clinton joked that 85 years later Truman again proved to be a man of his word.

What would matter more would be the ship venturing out in the spirit of the man who in 1944 had spoken at the christening of the battleship USS Missouri. A year later on that ship, Japan surrendered to mark the end of World War II just weeks after Truman’s forever debatable decision — a topic addressed from all angles at the Truman Presidential Library — to deploy atomic bombs.

The intense demands of Truman’s job, though, were only beginning. His greatest legacy, as library director Kurt Graham put it a few weeks ago, was “putting the world back together.”

And he did that, Clinton suggested in 1998, with words of inspiration that adorned his Oval Office desk:

In addition to embracing his famed motto, “The Buck Stops Here,” Clinton said Truman “never failed to live up to the words of his fellow Missourian, Mark Twain: … ‘Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.’”

Europe was devastated, and the Cold War loomed in a perilous new world that included deep divisions at home. Not the least of this nation’s domestic issues was ongoing segregation and abuse of Black soldiers who had helped save the world, only to return to racist hostility. They’d often be denied benefits guaranteed by the G.I. bill, as a History.com report put it.

Enter Truman, and the Marshall Plan, the forming of NATO, the Berlin Airlift, the Truman Doctrine and much more.

And in 1948, Truman took measures that resonate in the makeup of the ship and broader armed forces.

That June, Truman signed into law the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, enabling women to serve in all four branches of the service — albeit in a limited immediate capacity.

That July, he signed Executive Order 9981, directing the desegregation of the military.

To be onboard the USS Harry S. Truman is to be constantly reminded of the implications of those monumental directives.

Also apparent onboard are foreign-born sailors, including Cameroon-born Samira McBride, the Truman’s Command Master Chief — the ship’s highest-ranking enlisted member, and someone whom Snowden said he could not operate the ship without.

Some 100 or more people currently serving on the Truman, Snowden said, are foreign-born. Most have or will become naturalized along the way.

“This is the heart and soul of America,” he said. “This is a big part of what it means to be American.”

Speaking of which, Truman hardly is the only touch of home on the ship. During our 24 hours there, we met a number of sailors from Missouri and Kansas, learning about how the Navy had opened up their very worlds, and spoke at length with Rear Admiral Sean R. Bailey — commander of Carrier Strike Group Eight, in which the Truman is the flagship.

The native of Lansing, Kansas, entered the University of Kansas Naval ROTC program in 1986 and still identifies with KU. “Rock Chalk,” he said when asked about the school and enjoyed a playful exchange with a Missouri graduate among us.

While serving in Bahrain in 2022, he taped the men’s basketball national title game to watch the next day.

While Bailey already had had some exposure to Naval recruiting, when I asked him what planted the seed of wanting to fly, he smiled and said, “Top Gun” — much like, he added, “a lot of guys in my generation.”

The Truman Show

At the christening of the ship, Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, a relentless force in this recognition of Truman, reckoned that we shouldn’t be surprised if “Truman sailors” come to “walk more bristly, speak more plainly, show more determination, exhibit more warmth and have more confidence” after learning of the characteristics of the man for whom it was named.

Certainly, they’d have enjoyed every opportunity to learn about him here, starting with “The Buck Stops Here” motto that can be found engraved on the bridge and otherwise all over.

Then there’s the prominent “Give ‘em Hell” battle flag inspired by Truman’s Army service during World War I.

And the omnipresent ship’s seal encircled by 33 gold stars (denoting the 33rd president) and highlighting two eagles intended to embody Truman’s approach. One “denotes command of the sea, strength and authority,” the other grasps an olive branch.

Truman quotes, images and themes embellish everywhere you turn: memorabilia encircling the room Snowden uses to greet visitors, the very names on the staterooms for visitors (mine was, simply, NATO), the ship’s paper, known as “The Buck,” and its TV station that produces in-house content, including “The Truman Show.”

And then there’s “The Truman Room” that depicts the Oval Office of his era and animates his life and times.

Cmdr. Ryan Solomon, the safety officer, tends to end his meetings with a “1-2-3, Give ‘em Hell.” One officer gives as promotion gifts copies of “Truman,” David McCullough’s biography. And Snowden meets daily with young sailors distinguishing themselves to present a “Give ‘em Hell Warrior of the Day” award.

‘Every taxpayer should get to see it’

My once-in-a-lifetime trip was provided through The Commander Naval Air Forces Distinguished Visitor embark program. More directly, I was invited by the Truman Library as an opportunity to understand Truman’s continuing influence.

The rest of an upbeat and curious group that bonded through this experience was Graham; friends of the library Lewis and Sue Nerman; institute CFO Lisa Sullivan; Dean Davison of Davison Strategic Communications; and KCUR’s Steve Kraske, my former colleague at The Star.

As the Navy describes it, the program to witness at-sea flight operations is “meant to increase the public’s understanding of carrier-based aviation by providing (it) an opportunity to view Navy operations first hand, to have direct interactions with Sailors, and see the unique capabilities of Naval aviation.”

Or as Snowden put it upon greeting us:

“I think every taxpayer should get to see (it); I wish we could make that happen as a right,” he said. “Because this is the taxpayers’ ship.”

All $4.5 billion worth as the 26-year-old vessel is nearing a roughly mid-life overhaul that will include topping off the nuclear reactors at a cost of more than $900 million.

All toward a mission that the Navy describes as featuring “maritime security operations, expeditionary power projection, forward naval presence, crisis response, sea control, deterrence, counter-terrorism, information operations and security cooperation.”

Over the decades, that has meant being deployed in such vital strike-group operations as Operation Iraqi Freedom; disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; participation in Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan; and, in 2021, the response to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine — in which NATO took tactical command of the ship in an action it says had not been since the Cold War.

While it struck me as impossible for a layman to comprehend the intricacy and vastness of the operation, it also was impossible not to be awed by all it takes to operate what essentially is a floating city of some 5,000 people atop a nuclear power plant — a fact you’re subtly reminded of with a small sign in the ship’s store that reads, “NO BUNKING. RADIATION AREAS NEARBY.

As its own self-contained world, the ship features a full medical department, surgeon, oncologist, dentists and an oral surgeon, a barber shop, a post office with its own zip code, workout space all over and the capacity to serve 18,000 meals a day.

We observed many phases of the operation during our 24 hours on the ship.

That included the bridge, the hangar bay, the forecastle from where two of 30-ton anchors can be dropped, the ready room and the library-USO-chapel, where we met with Chaplain Chris Martin and Rabbi Yoni Warren.

Riffing off the old joke, Warren laughed and said, “We like to go to bars together.”

More seriously, the charismatic duo spoke thoughtfully and compassionately about their crucial roles in morale and support aboard the carrier.

Both and other leaders noted how the Navy’s attention to mental health has increased exponentially with a psychologist and social workers now on-board — soon to be joined by support dog Rudder, for whom 700 pounds of food already is stashed in the library.

More attention to quality of life is needed, though, as the Navy acknowledged after three sailors on the USS George Washington died by suicide in 2022.

“The Navy has changed its view of how to deal with mental health,” said Bailey, who noted adding personnel dedicated to the cause and the implementation of Wi-Fi have been part of that.

Reflecting Truman’s ‘will and vision’

While we were aboard, the ship (and the rest of Carrier Strike Group Eight) was in the final stages of preparation for another deployment tentatively scheduled to be about nine months. (The immediacy and reality of the sorts of assignments that could mean were reinforced days after our trip, when U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the U.S. is ramping up its military presence in the Middle East.)

“It’s never as simple as (nine months),” Bailey said. “The world gets a vote.”

A vote that conjures Truman, as Lt. Cmdr. Courtney Callaghan summed up in words of his that also could be found on a ship’s plaque: “I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.”

“A carrier’s kind of like that,” said Callaghan, the ship’s public affairs officer. “We don’t want to give them hell, but … we’re a political symbol of might and power.”

Still very much in the image of Truman the way Clinton envisioned in 1998.

“The very sight of the Harry S. Truman will summon our best ideals and recall the will and vision of a man who arrived when we needed him most,” Clinton said then. “Some will look at this carrier and see only her massive physical dimensions.

“I hope most of us will see something even bigger: the living spirit of America and the indomitable courage of one of the greatest leaders our still-young nation has yet produced.”