CVW-20: The Early Days
Life on Naval Station Great Lakes was hell. Any FC, ET, or IC who went to TSC Great Lakes from 2018 until the command’s disestablishment in 2021 can tell you the experience. We won’t get into the details here, but as you can imagine, it wasn’t a great environment for creative team building. It can probably be considered egotistical for a site managed by someone to focus on that person’s contributions and achievements. Although, by his own understanding of the situation, it’s somewhat unavoidable.
For the majority of this story, we’ll be focusing on Spaceman since he was the longest consistent member of the team. Spaceman wasn’t a stranger to DCS, he had started playing before he left for the Navy. He also wasn’t highly experienced either. Back then, Spaceman was in the Cole barracks, which was numbered 6301. That should be a good enough number for a squadron, so the first designs for the squadron patch were numbered VFA-6301. Shortly after Spaceman had resolved to assemble a DCS squadron, he was moved to a different barracks. As a Missouri native, and since he had actually visited the USS Missouri as a kid, he was ecstatic to be moved to the Missouri Barracks, building number 634. Having what was probably an unhealthy obsession with the namesake of the barracks, Spaceman settled on the final name for the squadron VFA-634, and met one of the squadron’s founding members: Scout.
Wi-Fi at Great Lakes was practically nonexistent, so multiplayer DCS was a challenging prospect. Scout had somehow figured out a way to create a virtual LAN between two laptops, allowing for 634’s first missions in the Missouri Main Deck Lounge. One story of merit, involves a Senior Chief Williams taking interest in 634’s operations. The Senior Chief’s nephew played DCS, and Senior was hoping that VFA-634 could take his ego down a peg. Spaceman and Scout were happy to oblige, and ended up shooting down their target on a public server. Over time, Spaceman was moved again to the Essex barracks. It was here that long time members Baldy and Lineshack joined the squadron, and the first concepts for the Black Gambit campaign were set up.
Eventually, Scout and Spaceman left the Navy. Spaceman alone was determined to keep the squadron together. Baldy and Spaceman both participated in the Black Gambit campaign. During the Roaring Sun Campaign, the squadron welcomed aboard Polaroid, David, and StarStranger. With all the varying aircraft types and now 50+ squadron members, Spaceman decided it was time to fold VFA-634 into a larger group that could allow for better expansion.
He would call it CVW-20