One more photo. We got to watch flight ops daily. Here a harrier jet lands vertically. There were six aboard and five of them came in one after another, landed vertically and then were moved to their tie-down position. Did you know harrier jets (at least aboard the Peleliu) don't take off vertically because it wastes too much fuel? They take of on the runway -- the only US military jet that takes off without the use of a catapult, just down the runway and off the ship. Then they land vertically. These harriers were the first ones deployed in Afghanistan in the original war on terror. They told us when they flew off the Peleliu late last year that it would be their final time flying off. The pilots were going to be re-trained for new jets and no more harriers aboard the Peleliu. You can see the USS Pearl Harbor and USS Dubuque in the background as part of the battle group returning to the US.