Families reunited as the Truman air wing returns

VIRGINIA BEACH

Lt. Cmdr. Justin Rubino hurried from his F/A-18C Hornet on Saturday, embraced his wife, Julie, for the first time in seven months and stepped back.

Then he put his hand on her nine-months-pregnant belly and greeted his child, who the doctor sa ys is poised to enter the world any day.

“Glad you stayed in there!” Rubino said.

Saturday marked the return of Strike Fighter Squadron 37 and three other squadrons to Oceana Naval Air Station after a seven-month deployment with the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. More than 100 family members and others waved American flags, snapped photos and held signs welcoming them home in front of the squadron’s hangar.

Part of the carrier’s air wing returned Friday. The carrier comes home Wednesday.

Cmdr. Jeff Anderson, the squadron’s executive officer, embraced his wife and children, then held his 6-month-old daughter, Emily, for the first time Saturday. Within seconds, though, the infant started to fuss and search for her mother.

Anderson shrugged. “It’ll take a while,” he said, as his other three children, ages 4, 8 and 10, clutched his legs. This deployment was the first in which he has missed a birth. He and the rest of the group also missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, family birthdays and other milestones.

“This was probably the hardest one,” his wife, Lisa, said.

While she stayed busy caring for a newborn and three others, Anderson, his squadron and the rest of the Truman’s air wing kept busy, too.

The air wing logged more than 26,500 flight hours while supporting ground troops, taking part in maritime security operations and performing other exercises. They also dropped 77,536 pounds of ordnance, including 148 bombs.

For Lt. Cmdr. Rubino, the six-hour missions seven days a week served as his alternative to preparing a bedroom for his first child. His wife, Julie, enlisted family and friends to help get a room ready for the baby, to be named Nicholas or Ava.

The couple do n’t know whether to expect a boy or a girl.

“I didn’t want to take that surprise from him,” Julie Rubino said.

She also left one final task, by request, for him to complete: assembling the crib.

“You miss all the baby prep work while you’re at sea,” the soon-to-be father said. “I wanted her to hold off on the crib.”

Shawn Day, (757) 222-5131, shawn.day@pilotonline.com