Women Who Inspire: Interview with Casey (Jamieson) Johnson

Next up in the series of Women Who Inspire, it's Casey (Jamieson) Johnson!

Casey (Jamieson) Johnson graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering and reported to Naval Intelligence Officer School. She served as the Anti-Submarine Warfare Intelligence Officer for VP-24 and worked in the Pentagon both as the Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence and as an Intelligence Analyst in the Naval Information Warfare Activity. After six years of active duty service, Casey returned to the civilian sector, remaining in the Naval Reserves for an additional three years, achieving the rank of Lieutenant Commander (O-4).  

AW: You selected the field of Naval Intelligence coming out of the Academy. Is that something you had always wanted to do?

CJ: Actually, no. I was pushed into it. (Laughs). I had wanted aviation all along, but it turns out that I was a quarter inch too short. Admiral Hill [Naval Academy Superintendent] and his wife used to joke that they should hang me upside down to stretch me. I didn’t find out until two days before service selection that I wouldn’t be able to get a waiver. Fortunately, I was one of the first women to service select, so I was able to get one of the four Intelligence billets available.

AW: You served as the ASW Intelligence Officer for VP-24 [Anti-Submarine Warfare squadron that flew the P-3 Orion] in Jacksonville, FL. Was that your first duty station after Naval Intelligence Officer School?

 

CJ:  Yes, that was a great tour. In fact, that was my favorite tour. I was the only female officer in the wardroom, and I think about half of the wardroom were graduates from the Naval Academy – Class of  '86 and '87—which helped me to make friends quickly. They were a great group (all of them).

AW: Did you deploy with them?

CJ: Yes, we deployed to Iceland for six months. And people always get Greenland and Iceland mixed up, by the way, because Greenland is icy and Iceland is green.

AW: I had no idea! So what was your job in Iceland?

CJ: Primarily, I gave the flight crews their intel briefings prior to their flights. I was also attached to the local intel unit as a TAD officer.

AW: Intel like where to look for subs?

CJ: Yes, we would give them a potential target area to monitor and tell them what to listen for. They would drop an appropriate sonobuoy pattern  and just listen. They’d stay on station for eight hours.

AW: Very cool. I’m sort of thinking The Hunt for Red October here. So did they ever find anything or is that classified?

CJ: Well, actually we had one major hit on that deployment, and it was so long ago, I’m sure it’s declassified by now. There was a high opportunity target that we wanted a signature on, so we did a lot of work to get the intel we needed on it and finally determined that it might be out of port on patrol. Our aircrews went on station and got the first signature data ever captured on it. That was pretty cool.

AW: And after VP-24?

CJ: I went to Washington, D.C., primarily because it was the easiest place to get stationed with my husband. We were engaged at the time, so when I got up there, the detailer looked for Intel billets for my husband, who was still on deployment, and it was easy to find him a job. There are literally hundreds of Intel billets in D.C.

 

AW: When did you meet your husband?

CJ: I met him at Intel School, and then we dated long-distance for two years while I was in Florida and he was in California. We got engaged while I was still at VP-24.

AW: And where was he?

CJ: He was in San Diego and served as the Intel Officer for HS-4 [helicopter squadron] and deployed with the Kitty Hawk. Oh, and a story for you, which you’ll appreciate since you flew the 46 [H-46 Sea Knight helicopter]. My husband flew off the Kitty Hawk to Bahrain in an H-46 and the helo starts hemorrhaging hydraulic fluid. I mean, he was drenched in it. My husband told one of the crewmen, “Hey guys, we’re getting poured on back here,” to which the response was something like, “Let me know if it stops, because if it stops, we’re in trouble. As long as we have fluid, we’re good.”

AW: Ok, that is hilarious! And sort of typical, actually, of the kind of stuff we encountered with the 46. What memories! So you were together, then, in D.C. after that?

CJ: Yes, After that tour, he moved to Washington, D.C., we got married, I got pregnant, and we got out! In that order.

AW: Did you have your kids while you were still in the navy or was that after you got out?

CJ: I had my oldest daughter when I was still on active duty and working at NavSecGru. And that was a unique, only-in-the-navy experience. I was assigned to Bethesda Naval Hospital for the delivery and the baby was frank breech, so I needed to have a scheduled C-section. Now Bethesda is a training hospital, so everyone present in the operating room that day had a training partner with them. There were like fifteen people in there watching me get spliced open !

AW: Nice audience!

CJ: Yeah, tell me about it! I found out later that my C-section was an actual scheduled training event for that day.

AW: Why am I not surprised? So then you left active duty soon after, right?

CJ: Yes, my husband and I met with the detailer and we realized that we would be on opposite deployment schedules, lots of underway time, little family time, and so we decided it was a good time to leave.

A Deployment for Two

Sweet homecoming

I had written three novels of epic fantasy and one medical thriller when I made the decision—finally—to try to get published. For my fifth novel, I knew I wanted to write a love story with a strong female protagonist, but when I began my research into agents and editors, they all called for the same thing—something unique!

At the time, using the Navy as a setting wasn’t an option, a thought, or even a microscopic notion. I had simply never considered it.

I was at such a loss for an idea, I began writing my fourth novel of epic fantasy to fill the time. About six chapters into this new manuscript, now July 2011, the Navy announced it would begin assigning women to submarines. I’ll never forget when my husband looked at me and said, “A woman in the Navy. That’s your story.”

Common advice given to authors is to write what you know. The Navy? I knew this. A love story set in a battle group, particularly with a woman as the main protagonist? Unique. And as a bonus, I knew what it would be like for my protagonist to deploy with someone she loved.

My husband and I met at the Naval Academy and had been married for four years when we deployed together with the USS Nimitz battle group—he on the USS Lake Champlain, a guided missile cruiser, and me on the USS Kansas City, a replenishment oiler. Our first Western Pacific deployment was short by today’s standards, just six months. At that time, in 1993, women were still prohibited from serving on combatant ships, however, a growing number of auxiliary ships were opening their decks to women, including the Kansas City.

My roommate and I were the first women to deploy aboard the Kansas City, members of the air detachment, flying the H-46 helicopter. It was just the two of us, serving with a crew of about 500. Our battle group, now called a carrier strike group, counted four women total—two of our squadron mates were deployed aboard the ammunition ship, USS Shasta—in a task force numbering about 7,000.

Of those 7,000, one was my husband, Bill, who flew the H-60 helicopter. That we were assigned to the same battle group was pure happenstance, a matter of timing more than anything. Because we entered flight school at the same time and eventually received our wings on the same day, the timing of our arrival to our fleet squadrons matched, and our deployment schedules somehow aligned from there—for the first long deployment, anyway.

Bill on the flight deck of the Lake Champlain

Because HOVER takes place in present day, the main characters, Sara and Eric, are able to use email and cell phones to communicate. However, when Bill and I deployed, there was no such thing, not onboard ships, anyway. So we found other ways to communicate. Fortunately for us, the other ships in the battle group relied on the Kansas City for their food, fuel, supply parts and ammunition. We conducted something called CONREP, or connected replenishment, where ships would come alongside ours, lines would be cast between the two to connect them, and hoses run across those lines so we could deliver fuel. During these evolutions, if we weren’t flying, we could wave to each other, while standing on our respective flight decks.

When appropriate, we also talked to each other via the hand-held radios we carried with us for flying, the PRC-90. And when I landed on the Lake Champlain, as we did on daily logistics flights, we took advantage of our in-house “mail delivery system,” otherwise known as passing notes.

Sara and Eric’s story is not the tale of Anne and Bill. Our love story was quite different and maybe there’s another blog article in that. But I drew from our joint experiences in the fabrication of Sara and Eric’s journey, and I’ll briefly touch on one of those angles here—a couple serving in a risky work environment, both in harm’s way. A modern issue, to be sure, now that so many married couples and partners deploy together. 

For example, during work-ups for our deployment, one of our H-46 aircraft had to ditch in the Pacific. Bill was in the cockpit of his H-60, turning on the deck of the Lake Champlain, when the call came that a Sideflare—the call sign for our H-46 helicopter—had gone in the water. Only two Sideflare helicopters were flying that day, so there was a fifty percent chance it was my aircraft. He was about to lift from the deck to provide search and rescue support, when his officer in charge pulled him from the cockpit and replaced him with another pilot. 

Bill remembers that perhaps he may have had a few choice words for his boss for pulling him from a mission. His officer in charge explained that no one knew yet if I was in the helicopter that had gone down. But in Bill’s mind, whether I had been in the bird or not, he felt he should have been able to fly. He clearly remembers the rush of adrenaline and thinking, “A helicopter’s in the water! Let’s go!”

He learned later that I was flying in the second helicopter when the first ditched. In fact, we performed the rescue for the pilot, while the ship sent a small boat to retrieve the remainder of the crew.

The tables were turned during a transit through the Strait of Hormuz, when another helicopter went down, this time at night. Initial reports indicated it was an H-60. As I learned later, Bill did the search for that aircraft, an H-2, which in this case, ended tragically with the deaths of all four crew members.

Comparing notes after each incident, we both admitted reacting in a detached way to those initial reports of helicopters in the water, compartmentalizing and responding to the task at hand of searching for a downed aircraft. The emotional side—What if he/she is in the aircraft?—never kicked in for us.

I want to point out that Sara and Eric react and respond differently than Bill and I would have in several scenes in HOVER, due to the requirements of the story, its arc and plot. But like I said earlier, Sara and Eric are fictional characters in a fictional setting doing things that will hopefully keep the reader turning the pages.

But back to reality, I’ve heard it many times in discussions about integrating women into combat units that men might act differently with women present and vice versa. But what I personally experienced and what we witnessed time and again was consummate professionalism, men and women doing their jobs side by side, just as they were trained. 

Granted, the emotional stakes were higher since we were married. But Bill says that if he ever found himself worrying about me, he would tell himself, “Anne knows what she’s doing. You just need to make sure you know what you’re doing.” I felt the same way, channeling my focus into doing my job well, knowing Bill was doing his, and understanding that worrying wouldn't accomplish much of anything. 

Yes, it was a unique shared experience for a married couple, but the Navy trained us well, and I think we handled it like any professional military service member would, just as our soldiers, sailors and airmen do today.