Lost My Identity- Kai's Ma'ma: The USS Midway Aircraft Carrier and Timesquare Kiss

July 22, 2007 We leave the hotel and head for the airport. Kai insists on handling Ale's suitcase and actually makes it down the hallway to the elevator. He is quite a little trooper.

We have a couple hours to spare before we turn our rental car in, and we see this huge aircraft carrier taking up a lot of space at the dock.

Oh by golly! It's the USS Midway- this ship was deployed to the Persian Gulf for the Gulf War- and was floating out there where I was. I was a petty officer third class serving my time as a physical therapist on the hospital corps ship the USNS Comfort. I was only in the Gulf briefly during the Operation Desert Shield and when war was declared, it became the Operation Desert Storm.

I had known the USS Midway was out there not too far from us, and found some comfort knowing that we had such huge guns and several airplanes to protect us.

The USS Midway. 59,901 tons of metal, launched in 1943 and decommissioned in 1992 sitting in port in San Diego.

The aft of the carrier.

Kai and daddy head towards the ship.

A Blue Angel plane.

The aircraft can carry up to 100 planes. We are just below the deck and are walking towards a- hey wait a minute! that's a T-6 Texan. Greg was all smiles when he saw it, having operated one on his birthday.

Video: panorama of the USS Midway.

All hands on deck! I remember hearing this a lot when I was working or trying to sleep in my triple bunk with about 100 other military women in the sleeping quarters.

(San Diego buildings in background.)

The brains of the helicopter.

Inside the bowels of a plane. I had ridden a C-140 much bigger than this that flew me from Puerto Rico to Virginia (and that was just for fun!) Me and a couple of military buddies of mine decided to take a weekend trip over Easter break ('89?). Who needs Key West when you can do a C-140? :) Only bummer was we had to wear our dress uniforms.

And from the deck I could see this towering statue of the ever popular V-J Day Kiss at Times Square- the sailor who kissed a nurse.

35 years after this kiss, Edith Shain came forward to claim that was her in that world renowned picture. She finally did so as it was considered undignified back in those days. (She was 62 at the time, now passed away in 1995 at age 96).

They are still trying to identify the sailor in this picture as at least 10 men have stepped forward to make their claim to fame (i.e. one kissed hundreds of girls at Times Square, another claimed he was drunk it could have been him, one thought it may have been him but his wife said that was a picture of a much taller man, another said that was his awkward way of clutching a woman.)