Fleet Week Soldiers Take In The Sights And Sounds Of New York City
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- In a Fleet Week that's been marked by both celebration and devastation, one Navy Sailor is tackling New York City head-on.
One of the many men and women in uniform you've probably noticed filing up and down the streets of Midtown is Lorin Reed, a third-year Navy aviation mechanic spending her first Fleet Week in NYC.
And while she said her time here in New York City "is going great," it's certainly a far cry from the time she spent in Haiti, providing humanitarian relief to victims of the earthquake.
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But even that, she said, was an enjoyable experience.
"Everyone came together," the young soldier said of her time in the country struck by devastation. "It's different to work your day-to-day job in the Navy, but when you actually go on a mission, you see why you train so much, and why you do what you do."
After only a short time in New York, she's noticed that its residents are in fact very aware of what she does.
"When we were sailing in, people were cheering, saying 'New York loves the Navy, New York loves the Armed Forces,'" she said. "My first night here, so many people saluted us, shook our hands, told us they were thankful."
Originally from Columbia, S.C., Reed was pursuing a degree in accounting before joining the military.
"I've been going to different restaurants…we took a tour on the double decker bus to the different key points of New York," she said. "I didn't know New York was so big!"
Despite being a bit overwhelmed by everything Manhattan has to offer, Reed has big plans for the rest of her time in New York.
"The only thing I want to do is go all the way up to the top of the Empire State Building," she said. "That's it."
