NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, Fla. – Four-year-old Ricky stands at Naval Station Mayport, his eyes fixed on the USS St. Louis.
The 378-foot Freedom-variant littoral combat ship rests against the dock. It is the biggest vessel Ricky says he has ever seen.
He calls it “Mommy’s ship.”
His mom, Victoria Cavazos, serves as weapons officer aboard the St. Louis. On Monday, she embarked on a deployment to the Caribbean, leaving her husband, Ryan Donlon and young son behind.
“Why?” Ricky asked curiously.
“Because she has to stop the bad guys, right?” Donlon replied.
The deployment will send the St. Louis to work alongside the Coast Guard to support “counter-illicit drug trafficking in the Caribbean.”
In February, the ship returned from an 8-month deployment, disrupting and confiscating over $100-million worth of illicit contraband in five different operations.
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“Because the bad guys are trying to bring bad stuff into the country and she’s going to take care of it,” Donlon said, translating complex military operations into terms a child can grasp.
Donlon, an instructor at Surface Combat Systems Training Command Mayport, knows these goodbyes from both sides of the pier.
“It’s very hard to not cry whether it’s her or it’s me,” he said, remembering their reunion from that deployment in February. “The last moment when she came back was something out of a storybook. It was the biggest hug.”
And after a brief weather delay on Monday, the crew loaded the ship, lowered the flag and blew its horn.
The 75-member crew is expected to be out at sea for about 7 to 9 months.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Donlon said. “But they know what to do. They’ve been trained for it, and they’re going to kick butt.”
