By Linda Taaffe

This month’s rain and cooler temperatures have been a pleasant homecoming for Los Altos resident Ryan Bernacchi, 29. He spent nearly a year in 80 degree-plus heat aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, deployed to the Persian Gulf as a U.S. Navy jet fighter pilot. Lt. Bernacchi, who arrived home April 9, was part of the first large military unit involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom to return home, after nearly 10 months at sea — longer than any other U.S. carrier battle group on duty since the Vietnam War.

“It was a never-ending summer. I missed the seasons we have here in California,” said Bernacchi, bundled in a sweater at his home last week with Bosco, the family dog, at his side.

Besides a red, white and blue welcome sign tacked across the family’s garage door and yellow ribbons tied to the frontyard trees, there was little fanfare at the house when Bernacchi arrived home — just the normalcy of everyday life in Los Altos that the Navy lieutenant told his family he craved most.

“I was looking forward to seeing everyone, my family and friends. Second to that, I missed all the things of home,” he said — homemade meals, playing with Bosco, wide roads instead of jet runways.

Bernacchi celebrated his first night home eating homemade tacos into the night with his parents, Elli and Jerry, his younger sister, Katie, and some neighbors. Food with flavor, he said.

The excitement and chaos of Bernacchi’s homecoming was still pulsing through his family’s two-story home when I showed up at his house unannounced the following day.

They welcomed me into the home with lots of smiles and no questions. Bosco had decided to stop holding a grudge against Bernacchi for being away so long and joined him in the entry hall wagging his tail. The dog had spent the previous night ignoring him.

Bernacchi flashed his mother a half-smile and a questioning look after they discovered I was a journalist.

“I swear I didn’t call. It wasn’t me,” Elli assured him. His look continued.

“I swear, it wasn’t her. A neighbor walking his dog noticed the sign and called in,” I said.

It became apparent to Bernacchi that his homecoming wouldn’t be as low-key as he’d anticipated. Elli said calls have been pouring in from neighbors and friends wishing the family and Bernacchi well. Well-wishers have stopped her in the grocery store, too, she added.

“I’m overwhelmed with the awesome support. It’s been really great,” Bernacchi said. “The majority of people have let me know they were behind us (the troops).”

Students from Oak Elementary School even sent letters to him on the carrier, Elli said.

Bernacchi said the crew didn’t see any of the televised anti-war protests while on the carrier. His only contacts home were e-mail and letters.

Elli said the e-mails saved her from becoming an emotional wreck. She planned her day around Bernacchi’s daily messages during the war — even waiting up until 2 or 3 a.m. to hear from him.

“Once I heard from him, I knew I could relax for awhile,” she said. “Whenever I got blubbery, Ryan would remind me that I was lucky he wasn’t in a more dangerous position.”

280 days at sea

Life on a carrier as a pilot is something Bernacchi has waited for most of his life. Elli said he has wanted to be a Navy jet pilot since he was 3 years old.

“He thought the P-3 Orions that flew into Moffett Field were named after him. Every time someone said ‘Orion,’ he thought they were saying ‘Ryan.’”

The Loyola Elementary School student wrote his school reports about aviation, and even doodled airplanes in the margins of his math assignments. His interest only intensified when he entered Blach Junior High and Mountain View High schools.

Bernacchi joined ROTC and earned his pilot’s license while at the University of California at San Diego, then received a Navy scholarship for his last three years of college. He maintained high grades so that he could go on to flight school, where he was among the top 10 percent of his primary training class that went on to jet training.

He earned his Navy Wings as a jet pilot in 1999 and was assigned to the Pacific Fleet Hornet Wing in Lemoore, about three hours south of Los Altos.

Bernacchi was finishing a three-year tour when he boarded the Lincoln July 20, 2002, for a six-month deployment in the Arabian Gulf, to conduct operations in support of the Global War on Terrorism. Bernacchi, or “Guido,” his call sign, had no idea that his carrier group would be deployed longer than any other Naval carrier since 1973. By the end of the war, the ship’s record had earned a Top 9 ranking for one of the longest deployments in Naval history. Bernacchi said they spent 78 straight days at sea during one stretch.

The Lincoln was scheduled to head home Jan. 1. The carrier got as far as Guam when the crew received orders to go to the Persian Gulf. The turnaround meant another three months on the carrier.

Bernacchi said he missed all of his family’s holiday celebrations and birthdays, except for his sister’s, whose birthday was the week he returned home.

Bernacchi wasn’t alone: One crew mate missed his own wedding, Bernacchi said.

Bernacchi described his 280-day stint at sea as long and often monotonous, especially in the weeks preceding the war while they waited for the battle to begin.

The 5,500 or so crew who lived on the 1,092-foot-long carrier slept on bunk beds in 14-by-7-foot metal dorms without windows. The flight deck covered 4.5 acres and included 70 aircraft. The carrier supplied enough power to operate 100,000 homes a day and distilled enough water to sustain 200 homes a day.

For Bernacchi and the 15 pilots in his squadron, life included night landings, daily practice flights and no fly zone patrols until about 4 or 5 a.m.; watching movies; e-mailing home; and working out.

The Lincoln was the key carrier on station in the Gulf for Operation Southern Watch. It was the only U.S. carrier, of the five in the Gulf, to have the newest strike fighter FA-18 Super Hornet designed for better precision.

Airstrikes over Iraq

Bernacchi participated in the first airstrike over Iraq and flew during one of the worst sandstorms to hit the region in recent years. Winds reached speeds of 40 mph, and visibility was down to zero. The storm, which lasted one and a half days, was bad enough to stall the ground war.

The Lincoln launched 29 rapid takeoffs in succession in an hourlong spree, including Bernacchi in his FA-18 Hornet.

This was Bernacchi’s first war.

“It was a whole different ballgame once we were involved in war,” he said.

This time Bernacchi was carrying bombs that he wasn’t taking back with him to the carrier.

“You don’t know the outcome or what to expect. You never know what’s coming,” he said. “It’s all worth it when you know you’ve helped someone on the ground … when you hear someone say ‘thanks’ over the radio.”

Each pilot spent about 30 to 40 minutes in the attack zone over Baghdad. Flying to and from the carrier took about four hours, Bernacchi said, a distance that required inflight refueling.

The sandstorm was so severe, the tankers assigned to refuel Bernacchi’s FA-18 had left, forcing him to make an emergency landing in Kuwait.

Once back on the carrier, Bernacchi, who is also a Landing Signal Officer, helped land other jets returning from the airstrike using verbal commands. The pilots are trained to follow the speed and inflection in the landing officer’s voice with their jet.

The pilots couldn’t rely on visuals to land. Bernacchi said he couldn’t even see the jets until five to 10 seconds before they hit the runway, or about one-eighth of a mile. Usually the crew can spot a carrier about one mile out, he said.

All of the pilots returned home by midnight, except one, who stayed in Kuwait to refuel, according to NBC news reports from the carrier.

Bernacchi flew 47 combat missions from the Lincoln, including 17 during the war and hundreds of training flights. His final combat mission marked his 300th landing on the same carrier during his three-year tour - a milestone for pilots.

He also earned a Navy Achievement Medal for assisting a pilot in the landing of a plane with one failed engine.

Top Gun

The USS Nimitz relieved the Lincoln April 9. Bernacchi and others flew home in order to make assignments elsewhere. The rest of the crew arrived Saturday in Honolulu and is scheduled to fly to San Diego Friday. U.S. President George W. Bush is scheduled to fly out to the carrier Thursday. The aircraft will return to Lemoore one day earlier.

Next month, Bernacchi is headed to Top Gun school in Fallon, Nev., which he was supposed to have attended in February before being rerouted to the Gulf.