USS Enterprise CVN 65

.....During a port call in Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates, Enterprise hosted former President George H.W. Bush and a live concert by Grammy Award winning rock group Hootie and the Blowfish.

.....Just days after the stop in Jebel Ali, on 16 December 1998, the Enterprise battle group spearheaded Operation Desert Fox, smashing Iraqi military targets with more than 300 Tomahawk land attack missiles and 691,000 pounds of ordnance. The 70-hour assault 16 through 20 December was accomplished by Enterprise, USS Gettysburg (CG 64), USS Stout (DDG 55), USS Nicholson (DD 982) and USS Miami (SSN 755), capturing world attention and significantly reducing Saddam Hussein's capacity to build weapons of mass destruction.

.....Secretary of Defense William Cohen flew out to the carrier Dec. 23, bringing along his wife Janet, Sen. Daniel Inouye from Hawaii, Rep. John Murtha from Pennsylvania, and singers Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Carole King and David Ball. The Secretary enjoyed lunch with Sailors on the mess deck before he kicked off a concert on the flight deck.

.....Following operations off Sicily, Enterprise returned north, this time for a port visit in Cannes, France. Plans changed slightly, though, as Yugoslavian peace talks in Rambouillet, France, deteriorated and the carrier was ordered back to the Adriatic after only 24 hours in Cannes.

.....On a short recall tether, Enterprise and CVW-3 pulled into port at Trieste, Italy, in early March 1999 for their last Mediterranean port visit before returning to the Arabian Gulf. They relieved USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) 14 March 1999 and took over the helm of Southern Watch. Enterprise returned home 6 May.

.....During the 1998-1999 deployment, Enterprise steamed more than 50,000 miles and spent 151 days underway. The aircraft of Carrier Air Wing (CVW) were launched nearly 9,000 times, logging approximately 17,000 hours in the sky. The Enterprise Battle Group was the first to deploy fully IT- 21 capable, affording the team unprecedented internal and external communication channels.

.....Enterprise began its 17th overseas deployment on 25 April 2001, with Carrier Air Wing Eight (CVW-8). In addition to Enterprise and its embarked air wing, the ships of the battle group included guided missile cruisers USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) and USS Gettysburg (CG 64), guided missile destroyers USS Stout (DDG 55), USS McFaul (DDG 74) and USS Gonzalez (DDG 66), destroyers USS Nicholson (DD 982) and USS Thorn (DD 988), guided missile frigate USS Nicholas (FFG 47), logistics ship USS Arctic (AOE 8), and attack submarines USS Providence (SSN 719) and USS Jacksonville (SSN 699).

.....During the early part of the 2001 deployment, Enterprise and four Enterprise Battle Group ships participated in the Joint Maritime Course 01-2 (JMC 01-2), a British Royal Navy joint and combined warfare training exercise, 18 through 28 June 2001 in the North Sea near the Hebrides Islands, as well as land and airspace around Scotland.

.....On 11 September 2001, Enterprise was just beginning her voyage home from the Arabian Gulf. Watching a U.S. morning news show live, although locally in the early evening, the crew saw the terrorist attacks by the al Qaeda terrorist network against New York ' s World Trade Center and on the Pentagon. Immediately, Enterprise turned around and headed back to the waters off Southwest Asia. On 7 October 2001, the U.S. launched air attacks against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and Taliban military installations in Afghanistan. The carefully-targeted actions were designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a base for terrorist operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime.

.....For approximately the next three weeks, aircraft from Enterprise flew nearly 700 missions in Afghanistan and dropped hundred of thousands of pounds of ordnance. Departing from Southwest Asia in late October, Enterprise arrived back at its homeport of Norfolk, Va., on 10 November 2001, about two weeks later than originally planned. During its last day at sea, the ship played host to the ABC Television Network's Good Morning America for a live two-hour broadcast of the program from the ship.

.....On 7 January 2002, Enterprise entered the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for a scheduled one-year Extended Docking Selected Restricted Availability (EDSRA).