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George H. Cogswell III / Star staff On the flight deck of the USS John C. Stennis, landing signal officers, in white, huddle with air wing captains between landings and takeoffs of aircraft.

USS JOHN C. STENNIS — It's late.

Stephen Dixon has just finished his 12-hour shift on the flight deck, and black grease is still smudged across his long-sleeve brown jersey. It decorates his big hands and is crammed under his nails.

All around Dixon, fellow sailors snake their way through a crowded galley below deck on the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.

They are finishing up a macaroni, cheese and meat dinner Dixon hasn't tasted yet. The rumble and concussion of jets jerking to a tailhook landing or being shot off the deck reverberate below deck.

Maybe it's not the best time to ask Dixon, an aviation structural mechanic third class, what it's like to serve in the Navy, but the 24-year-old from Ventura doesn't let being hungry and tired dampen his mood.

"It's not so bad," the Buena High School graduate said with a boyish smile.

Dixon was in boot camp when his daughter, Kiley, was born almost two years ago, and he then spent eight months in the Persian Gulf, working on the ship's squadron of helicopters in 120-degree heat.

"It can be tough," he said, "especially being away for so long from family. The last deployment — that was a hard one."

Dixon is one of more than 5,500 sailors who serve on the Stennis, now conducting several weeks of training about 60 miles offshore of San Diego and northern Baja California. Home port for the ship, which includes a handful of sailors and pilots from Ventura County, is Bremerton, Wash., but the aircraft carrier is only truly at home when at sea.

Carrier has visitors

The training this month, in preparation for another deployment in January, will be followed up with several more weeks at sea in the fall.

Last week, about two dozen county business executives and the mayors of Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Ojai got a chance to spend 24 hours with the crew. They watched as the ship's F-18 Hornets, Raptors and lumbering twin-engine E-2 Hawkeyes rocketed off the ship or yanked to a screeching stop by snagging a tailhook onto fist-thick steel cables strung across the flight deck.

Aircraft carriers are designed to project air power, and the pilots are at the tip of that spear. It's not really nuclear power and jet fuel that power the ship, but the 19- and 20-year-old sailors amped on Red Bull, Skittles and Froot Loops.

"It's shocking and wonderful how young and energetic these sailors are," said Marine Col. Jim Jamison, the force Marine officer for the Naval Air Forces.

The Navy and the commander of the Stennis, Capt. Bradley E. Johanson, have instilled the idea among the crew that whether polishing brass, scrambling the 12,000 eggs consumed every day or slowly walking the deck looking for bits of chaff, screws or washers that might get sucked up into a jet engine, they are every bit as important as the top-gun pilots inside the cockpit of an F-18.

"If I can't get the part they need, then they don't fly," said Jason Yarbough, a 31-year-old supplies clerk from Ventura, who's been in the Navy for 11 years.

Johanson talks a bit like Mr. Rogers and refers to the ship as a "city at sea." Command Master Chief Joe Powers calls the captain's touch "Joho's Recipe" — the special something he has conjured up among the crew.

"They talk about The Greatest Generation,' but you walk around this ship, and I think you'll see we've got a pretty damn good one right here," Powers said.

Even those young sailors who leave after their enlistment will be able to get more than a "McJob" because of their training and experience on board, he said.

I feel very lucky'

Chris Sheehan, a 23-year-old former Camarillo resident, said he has "the best enlisted job in the Navy." A rescue swimmer who also operates a weapon and sonar on a helicopter, Sheehan said his first ambition was to be a Navy SEAL. He went on to work in a special security detail that boarded ships in the Arabian Sea and then trained for his current job.

"I feel very lucky," he said. He's currently trying to nab an officer's commission so he can become a helicopter pilot.

Matt Bowman, 22, took his first flight off the deck of the Stennis on a C-2 transport plane last week — on the last day of his four-year enlistment. He said his service was a chance to get money to attend CSU Northridge.

It was easy leaving the Navy, but harder leaving behind his fellow sailors, he said.

Opening up the aircraft carrier to a rotation of so-called "influencers" from various communities, the Navy is reaching out more to tell its story. In the first week of June, the Stennis hosted a visit from former U.S. Sen. John Glenn and a week before that had a college football coach from Iowa on board.

Polls show many Americans do not see the relevance of the Navy — with its $4.5 billion carrier — in the current war on terror, although it's had a constant presence in the Persian Gulf for the past six years. The Stennis, flying a flag that had flown from the World Trade Center towers the day they were struck by two hijacked planes, was in the Persian Gulf launching missions when the war in Afghanistan began in late 2001.

The Stennis, one of 11 Navy carriers, can project "4.5 acres of national sovereignty" almost at a moment's notice anywhere in the world, according to Col. Jamison.

During its deployment last year, fighter planes and E-2s from the Stennis were instrumental in thwarting a spring offensive launched by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Built to last for 50 years, the ship also will meet future threats, said Jamison, pointing out that the crew members who will serve on the Stennis' last deployment haven't even been born yet.

For those serving now — the average age on the ship is 25, with most of those working on the flight deck 19 to 20 — the job means long hours and months of separation from family.

The Stennis and its crew spent eight months at sea last year, much of it baking in the sun of the Persian Gulf while launching sorties over Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It's strenuous, but you just have to get in the right mind-set," said Yarbough, who at 31 is considered old by sailor standards. "I tell the younger guys when we deploy, they signed up and this is what we're all about."

It makes it difficult, even when you love the job, to make a long-term commitment, said Richard Gutierrez, a 29-year-old military police officer on the ship.

"I'm in 10 years now, so I've got to decide," said Gutierrez, who lives at Point Mugu with wife, Natalie, and 2-year-old son, Diego.

There are unexpected rewards from all that time away, said Cmdr. Brian Wysocki of Point Mugu, who heads the E-2 squadron on the carrier.

"When you're gone that long, it makes the family bonds stronger," said Wysocki, who was making night and day landings and takeoffs on the carrier as part of the training.

But he and wife, Susan, have two boys, Drew, 14, and Matthew, 10, and they promised each other that when the oldest got into high school, they'd stay put somewhere. He's preparing to relocate to a base in the East.

"When you get home from something like that (deployment), you realize what's important," he said. "It means a lot just to go in the backyard and throw the ball around with your sons."