Go to Chemical Warfare, a shop dominated by Damage Controlmen that falls under the purview of the Engineering department on the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), and one would find themselves at a shop that some could argue has more personality than any other. In it, are personalized lockers, smiling faces of Sailors enjoying the company of their fellow shipmates and a wall absolutely covered in toy cars.
The impressive array covers a multitude of designs, ranging from custom first responder vehicles, super cars, comic book inspired designs and other unique choices. What started with one Sailor sharing a passion, evolved to include an entire shop.
“My cousins and I played with Hot Wheels and the tracks all the time when I was young,” said Damage Controlman Fireman Adrian Landoverde. “I really like cars, and they have a more unique look than anything else I’ve seen. One day, I was at Walmart and saw the Mickey-Mouse boat, thought, ‘Oh, a boat on a ship, that would be cool,’ and bought it.”
According to the official Hot Wheels Media website, they got their start in 1968 when their creator, Elliot Handler, and his toy company named “Mattel,” put out a product that would “look cooler and go faster” than anything else on the market. Hot Wheels Media also claims they were intended to be modeled after hot rods, often sporting custom paint jobs, superchargers and large rear wheels among other things. Additionally, Hot Wheels sold an orange track set that featured a “service station” that would propel the cars along the track.
“A week after Landoverde started the wall, I made a trip to Target,” said Damage Controlman 2nd class Dan-Michael Luna. “I thought, ‘I gotta get some more cool ones.”
Luna then went on to explain how this growing collection of cars has affected his fellow shipmates and morale in the shop.
“At first, collecting the cars and displaying them was for fun, but then it became a work center thing. It brought us together as a team, and comraderie got stronger as the wall got bigger. It boosted morale in a funny way. Savoy would try to sneak some Matchbox onto the wall, and we would create funny scenarios like if the XO fancied one of the cars and said ‘I’ll pass your zone if you give me one of the cars,’ and I would say ‘You’re just gonna have to fail us, Sir!’”
Damage Controlman Fireman Daymon Savoy sowed chaos by putting a Matchbox car up late at night while on duty. Once he did, he waited until morning when his deed has been discovered. The shop went into detective mode trying to figure out who could’ve possibly tainted the Great Wall of Hot Wheels with a Matchbox – an orange Volkswagen Beetle in this instance – although all knew who the culprit was.
“We’re Damage Controlmen, so I wanted to put up some emergency vehicles,” says Savoy. “Matchbox makes most of those, but when I tried to put up one or two they said I couldn’t because it wasn’t a Hot Wheels. They suggested starting a different wall for Matchbox in the compartment opposite of the Wall. That only made me want to do it more, so I bought a VW bug and put that up with the them. That one finally met its end, but I ain’t done. I’ll keep putting up the cars people don’t like. I can’t be stopped. Matchbox is just as good as Hot Wheels.”
Matchbox, created in 1953 under the name Lesney Products, found major success when the school John Odell’s daughter attended only allowed toys that could fit inside of a matchbox, thus inspiring the small design according to the official Best Ride website. Designers would take pictures of the original models and occasionally acquire blueprints which allowed Lesney Products to create scaled toy cars with an impressive amount of detail. Their size allowed them to dominate a market niche that many of their competitors had yet to break into until the emergence of Hot Wheels in the 60’s.
“I guess you could compare it to being in the Navy, you know,” said Damage Controlman 3rd class Chad Hodge. “Being part of something in general and having the ability to say you contributed to it. I feel like I would try to start something similar to this collection whenever I get to my next command, but I doubt I’d bring anything I have contributed here. It’s like I’m leaving a piece of myself here, leaving my mark.”
A common theme in Chemical Warfare is the infectious positive energy. Their faces light up when discussing some of the new additions, and although there’s a lot of yelling when a Matchbox is discovered where it shouldn’t be, there are wide, toothy smiles everywhere in a room bursting with laughter.
“The DC shop works really hard,” Luna said. “We plan and run drills and general quarters, clean the repair lockers, contain actual casualties, plus all the other Sailor stuff. At the end of the day I see my guys in the corner looking at the wall, laughing and talking about the next things we’ll add to it; like expanding on one of the sections. They basically forget about all the negative stuff that happened throughout the day.”
All four collectors have agreed to grow the wall as much as they possibly could for the rest of their tenure aboard IKE, and they hope to encourage others to be part of their collective.
“Anyone who wants to contribute to the wall can,” said Landoverde. “Just don’t put any Matchbox on there.”