DECATUR - The first time Vince Wright went to sea, he found himself surrounded by 6,300 sailors.

It was in July 1986. The Decatur man was a physician's assistant on the USS Nimitz, one of the earliest nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. A war machine.

The Nimitz is being featured on "Carrier," a 10-hour PBS series this week on WILL-TV; it will continue from 8 to 10 p.m. today through Thursday.

Now a physician's assistant for Dr. Robert Smith in Decatur, Wright served aboard the Nimitz for two years.

"It was crowded," he said. "I got on board in the middle of the night, and when I woke up, we were far out to sea, headed for the Middle East."

There were six officers in the medical section plus about 30 corpsmen. "We treated all sorts of injuries. The cruiser and the picket ships in our group would bring sick and injured sailors to us. The surgeon operated twice a week and was constantly busy.

"I particularly remember an incident when we were coming back from our first cruise. A sailor was taking a shower when a steam pipe burst. He had burns over 92 percent of his body." The ship was 600 miles from the United States. "We dashed back to port at speeds I judged at about 50 miles an hour." The sailor was flown to a burn unit in Texas but eventually died.

"I was lucky - we never went to battle," Wright said. "Once it was close. There was trouble in Libya. The 90 jet planes on board were sent out, then called back without bombing anyone."

Wright was on board the Nimitz when Great Britain's Prince Andrew visited for a tour of the ship. Wright also met actor Tony Curtis in Hawaii.

The Nimitz was named for Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Pacific Fleet during World War II.

Maro Chermayeff, director of the TV film, described the Nimitz like this during his first month aboard: "Controlled chaos applies to every element of the ship. It defines the flight deck, the mess decks and the state of our film crews.

"It has been so difficult during this first month - finding subjects, coordinating with subjects, learning where we are, how to get places quickly, how to work safely on the flight deck, how to have meaningful time off and let the crew relax a little, how to get our e-mails, how to coordinate and remain in contact with (our office)."

Wright went through the same sort of chaos aboard the Nimitz. He put in 12 years in the Navy at two different times and also was in the Air Force eight years. He retired as a major in the Air Force Reserve when Chanute Air Force Base at Rantoul closed in 1993.

Wright grew up in the Fans Field neighborhood and worked as a youngster for the Decatur Commodores, the minor league baseball team. He graduated in 1977 from Wichita State University with a degree in health science as a physician's assistant. This was after he was a Navy corpsman starting in 1974.

About serving aboard the Nimitz, Wright liked this observation from columnist George Will:

"Right now, somewhere around the world, young men are landing high-performance jet aircraft on the pitching decks of aircraft carriers - at night. You can't pay people to do that; they do it out of love of country, of adventure, of the challenge. We all benefit from it, and the very fact that we don't have to think about it tells you how superbly they're doing their job - living on the edge of danger so that the of rest of us need not think about, let alone experience danger."

Bob Fallstrom can be reached at bfallstrom@herald-review.com or 421-7981.