Television seems to have an unusually full slate of military-related programming for Memorial Day this year, and the Smithsonian Channel helps kick it off Sunday at 8 p.m. ET with Carriers at War.
This is the first of a four-part series that takes viewers aboard three different Navy warships and provides an unusually detailed tour of their nuts-and-bolts, both mechanical and human.
Carriers at War is set aboard the USS George H.W. Bush, named for the 41st president and often one of the first ships deployed to what are euphemistically known as trouble spots around the globe.
Smithsonian cameras follow the Bush at the start of its Middle East mission to provide air support against ISIS.
The Navy can deploy the fastest and closest support in situations like this because, as one Naval officer explains, no time gets wasted looking for a place to set up.
The Bush, like other carriers, is a floating airfield that can set up anywhere. In this case, planes can be over Iraq in less than half an hour.
Pilots Ashley Pelzek and Luke Carroll lead the highlighted mission here, which involves destroying a cement factory ISIS has been using as a revenue source.
As missions go, it’s relatively uncomplicated. There are no civilians nearby, so it’s just a matter of dropping a couple of 2,000-pound bombs in the middle of the factory and reducing it to rubble.
“Just” doing that, of course, involves a whole lot else, and that other stuff is where Carriers at War gets most interesting.
The ship is 20 stories high and more than three football fields long. Its crew numbers around 5,000. A “fill ‘er up” with jet fuel means 1.25 million gallons. The deck spans four and a half acres and holds 72 F18 Super Hornet fighter planes.
For takeoff, each plane requires a catapult as well as its own engine power. For landing, it has to catch a wire that helps it stop, since it has hit the deck at about 150 miles per hour.
Did we mention that the deck is also constantly rolling with the ocean, so the landing surface is a moving target?
Carriers at War underscores how modern combat has become high-tech business, even when you’re flying 50,000 feet overhead, dropping a bomb and getting out.
Carriers and the episodes that will air each of the following Sundays – a return visit to the Bush, followed by explorations of the USS Harry Truman and the new $14 billion supercarrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford – were shot with the cooperation of the Navy and that’s reflected in their tone.
In fact, these could be promotional movies for the Navy, in the spirit of patriotic military productions that go back to the dawn of film.
That’s not a criticism, just a note on what viewers should expect. U.S. troops here are devoted, gallant and dedicated to their three-pronged mission: “to defeat an evil enemy,” makes friends for America in the Arabian Gulf and facilitate the free flow of commerce around the globe.
There is no discussion of larger policy matters here, because the focus is on execution: what logistics must be in place and what the crew must do for a mission to succeed.
In a way, it’s the story of the universal soldier, playing his or her part in carrying out the country’s will. Since Memorial Day was designed to remember those individual soldiers, Carriers at War does its job.