NAVAL AIR STATION NORTH ISLAND, Calif. – When the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) pulls away from its California berth for its upcoming deployment, the crew will embark with some homey creature comforts.
Comforts like cushy club chairs by an electric fireplace, reliable WIFI, a gaming room, a stadium-seating movie theater. There are also phones, a pair of teal-blue rotary dial phones plain old telephone system lines, are tucked into two enclosed, sound-proofed booths.
Those amenities are features of the new fully renovated library and lounge, courtesy of the USO, that have taken over three spaces of the Lincoln’s command religious ministries department. Each space is softened by teal bulkheads, wood laminated flooring, wood accents and artificial plants with steam punk-styled and contemporary artwork of the former Abraham Lincoln dress the walls.
The newly named USO Center is the fifth to open aboard a Navy aircraft carrier, officials said, and similar redos of library and lounge spaces aboard four more carriers are planned this year.
“What the Abraham Lincoln USO Center offers is a peaceful and modern respite for our sailors and Marines to rest and recharge and to reach their families while using wifi while at sea, to watch movies in legitimate movie theater seating, and play video games in a purposefully designed video game room,” Capt. Pete Riebe, Lincoln’s commander, said during a Monday ceremony on the carrier’s flight deck.
Each renovation is intended with comfort and a healthier work-life in mind for the sailors and Marines who live and work every day while at sea. “We ask a lot of our sailors and Marines. We ask them to uphold the values of our nation. We ask them to sacrifice time away from their families, loved ones and friends,” Riebe said. “For their sacrifices, it’s absolutely fitting that we provide our Abraham Lincoln sailors and Marines a suitable space to truly unwind.”
Lincoln ship’s company is preparing to take on its carrier air wing for a planned overseas deployment later this month.
The USO Center, was transformed over the past month by a team of USO volunteers, contracted workers and ship’s crew after a month-long predeployment training at sea. It joins other modernized libraries aboard four other aircraft carriers, including USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), the first to renovate the spaces in 2023.
“This is critically important… This is what gets after quality of service, because this combines quality of life and quality of work,” said Vice Adm. Daniel Cheever, commander of Naval Air Forces and Naval Air Force Pacific.
“This is not just a USO Center. This is our commitment to this aircraft carrier and to the Navy that we are here to support you, no matter where the mission takes you,” Plamp said. “This is the start of a long relationship with the Lincoln,” said Christopher Plamp, USO’s chief operations officer and a retired Air Force colonel and pilot.
“In the Navy, I don’t think the USO was doing all that we could do, because their main deploying force is on these ships,” he told the audience. “We’re now here. We want to be here. We want to sustain here.”
The renovations cost roughly $200,000 each, all covered by USO donations, Plamp said. Three more carriers will get their renovations by year’s end, “with the goal by the end of next year to be on all the CVNs. They might be in existing libraries “or whatever spaces that a ship can allow us to have. The whole idea… is to really add a morale element, where it gives them kind of a space that isn’t Navy, isn’t shipboard or doesn’t feel like it.”
Bush was the first carrier identified, and a donor quickly stepped up to cover the renovation costs, said Plamp. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) got its renovation before its deployment last year.
“We pushed that one up to do it quickly, to make sure that when they deployed, they had a center onboard,” Plamp said. The other libraries-turned-USO Centers are aboard USS George Washington (CVN-73) and USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76).
The afloat USO Centers are popular, and spaces get booked up. “It’s been tremendous. It’s booked up. We had over 8,000 visits to one of our centers on one carrier the last month,” he said. “That’s a lot of them telling us this is a highly-needed type of thing,” he added, and it dovetails with the Navy’s plans to make life at sea more comfortable for sailors.
“When you’re in an industrial environment like this, a ship is made to be a military facility,” Riebe said. “So to go in and sit in a comfortable couch, take a pause, talk to your shipmates, read a book, be on your phone or internet, play a game – whatever that activity is… and it really does not feel like you’re on a ship.”
The 5,500 members of the Lincoln’s crew and embarked air wing will see better WIFI connections, which on ships and at sea can be sporadic.
The ship’s advanced communications systems and additional satellite links and internet service providers provide for unclassified web-surfing and will let the crew call home in a more private environment, which “unless you’re one of the few people aboard, that is a hard thing to do,” Riebe said. “Generally, we are using widely available, unclass bandwidth systems that are available to the general public,” he said, and hardware installations are part of the Navy’s broader effort to increase bandwidth and make WIFI more available on the carrier.
The USO’s phone booths provide privacy for calls – 15 minutes, via sign up – either via the POTS rotary phone or one’s personal phone. Those are made through “dedicated telephone lines on the ship to call home, via satellite communications,” Riebe said. They “can Facetiming loved ones at home, or texting or messaging or connecting with their friends on social media – all those capabilities exist in the USO Center.”
The ship keeps track of personal devices, which go through a router system placed throughout the ship that “control what sites those devices can access,” he said. “We monitor what sites are being accessed, and we also try to give a fair allocation across the crew so no one is taking all the bandwidth.” Movies can be downloaded, “but you can’t download one movie an hour all week long,” he noted. “If you’re using too much, your connection will be slow.”
The same WIFI rules and access applies to ship’s company as well as embarked sailors and Marines, including the air wing and Marine F-35C fighter squadron. The access will enable them to read a story to their children in real-time or sent texts and instant messages to their teenagers.
“Now for those with toddlers, you can Facetime, and they can see mom or dad’s face thousands of miles away,” Riebe said.
Before the renovation, the spaces’ modern décor changes what was something of an antiquated, sterile, plain environment to something that “is sort of a demilitarized zone,” he said. “It just screams homey comfort, not warship… It feels like a space to relax in.”
It also appeals to Lincoln’s crew, which 60 percent are under 24. “I think we can all appreciate the importance of recharging our own personal batteries, whether that’s a video game, or surfing some social media or writing a letter or journaling… the USO Center is going to support that,” he added, “and that is good for my crew. That is good for our sailors and our Marines to make them ready when it’s their time to work hard.”
