ABOARD USS GEORGE WASHINGTON, Oct 3 - An emergency alert blares from a loudspeaker, and Damon Dennard and other sailors on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington are scrambling. Dennard, 23, is readying bombs for loading onto aircraft as his crewmates race to their positions.

"It has been eventful," says Dennard, an aviation ordnanceman airman apprentice. Once the alert ends, he takes a breath, sits on one of the bombs and jokes that he probably expected an easier deployment.

"It's crazy, but at the end of the day, it's work. That's all."

Dennard was one of dozens of sailors Reuters spoke with in September on a rare visit to a US warship that is central to the Iran war. The visit began at a particularly tense moment, just three days after the US military blew up five Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for Iran targeting a US Navy warship.

The George Washington's mission near the Strait of Hormuz — which has no defined end-date — came as a surprise to the crew, who were deployed from Japan at the end of August to relieve another carrier.

The aircraft carrier is effectively a floating city of around 5,000 personnel, each with their own mission, from Majesta Ochoa, who operates a cash register, to Lieutenant Commander Brody Samaha, a "shooter" who helps oversee the launch of aircraft from the carrier's catapults.

But there is a sense of synchronization as the sailors go about their jobs, crew say.

"It's a dance, with lots of people checking each other," Samaha says, before adding that the flight deck is also a "very dangerous place to be. It's very unforgiving."

BOARD STRATEGY

Breana Royston, a night aircraft handling officer, or 'NACHO,' has a unique perspective over the dangerous maneuvering on the flight deck. Her job is to supervise aircraft movement, including bringing fighter jets up to the flight deck and back down to the hangar bay via massive elevators. To do that, she uses what's known in Navy parlance as a "ouija board" — a real-time model of...