When the pandemic swept the world last winter, Ben Schoenster, a 19-year-old Navy sailor, was blissfully out at sea. After graduating from East Hampton High School in 2018, he enrolled at Suffolk Community College, but he had a yearning to experience more. After a semester of classes, he enlisted in the Navy Reserve. `I was extremely excited,` he said, mentioning that his father, a Navy veteran, had encouraged him to enlist. `I figured there`s no reason to be worried.` They set sail on Nov. 18, unaware of the long journey that lay ahead. The ships, with a total of nearly 5,000 sailors aboard, were stationed off a port in...
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