When I first arrived onboard the Carrier, I made it a personal challenge to get to know the entire crew of about 5,500.
For the first few weeks (couple of months), I introduced myself and met about 30-50 people a day. I did my best to try and memorize their names and some personal detail about them (like their hometown, kids, what they did before joining, etc).
My stateroommate was the Air Transfer Officer (ATO) who was responsible for shipping people and equipment on and off the Ship.
He brutally introduced me to the fact that my challenge, while noble and admirable, was hopelessly impossible.
He estimated that about 75-125 people transfer on and off the Ship per week. In the course of the year, you have between nearly 1/3 to 1/2 of the crew will have changed over.
Basically, there is a constantly “revolving door” of personnel arriving and departing the Ship.
Couple this with the fact that the Air Wing personnel are only aboard during “work-ups” and deployments (and the Squadrons that actually deploy may be different than those during “work-ups”), you have huge influxes of people moving aboard and leaving the Ship.
Then, you have the Admiral’s staff embarked aboard and they frequently change personnel (e.g. the old Admiral is promoted and you get a new Admiral and his staff) .
Additionally, you have shipyard periods where you don’t see the entire crew for long periods of time because they are off going to trainings, doing night maintenance, and taking leave, etc.
During my three years , I had three different Commanding Officers CO’s, three different Executive Officers XO’s, two Command Masterchiefs CMC’s, two (almost three) complete changes of the Wardroom (Officers), two different Air Wings.
By the time I left, there was only one other officer who had been on the Carrier longer than me.
It is a given, that you will not know all the people assigned to the Carrier. At best, you’ll sort of become familiar with faces that should belong on the Carrier.
