Here's the clincher: Bush's hug

A Springfield High grad is an intelligence specialist aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
NEW MIDDLETOWN -- "Guess what? I just hugged the president. He gives really good hugs," Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Tracy Stuba e-mailed all of her family members last week.
Stuba, 21, is an intelligence specialist aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which President Bush visited to announce the end of major combat in Iraq.
She had been telling shipmates that she wanted to hug the president. As it turned out, she was in the right place at the right time, and showing a lot of moxie, she got her presidential hug.
Stuba's mother, Mary Fortunato-Conace of New Middletown, tells the story, based partly on a news story in the Daily Herald in Everett, Wash., near Seattle.
Shipboard duties
Fortunato-Conace said part of Stuba's duties was to brief the Secret Service agents traveling with the president, and she kept telling them she wanted to meet the president. She also worked with the press.
Fortunato-Conace believes those contacts probably helped Stuba in her quest to meet the president and get a hug.
Also, she had told the Fox News crew about the tradition in the Conace household of everyone's getting three hugs a day.
According to the Herald, Stuba had just left her living quarters when she saw the president, still in his flight suit, talking to ship personnel.
She didn't know what she should do, but the Fox News crew encouraged her and she called out to the president.
What president did
He walked over to her and thanked her and said how proud he was and shook her hand.
It was then she asked if she could get a hug, Fortunato-Conace said.
The president said, "Sure."
"It felt like I was hugging my father," Stuba was quoted as saying.
"She got a hug from the president that makes up for all the hugs I couldn't give her while she has been away. The president gave her a perfect war souvenir," Fortunato-Conace said.
Meeting the ship
Stuba has been at sea for 10 months, and is the only female among 30 intelligence personnel on the ship. She is not due for liberty until August, her mother said. However, Fortunato-Conace and Zoe Panno of Canfield, Stuba's grandmother, who arrived in Everett on Monday and were to meet the ship at 10 a.m. west coast time today, plan to stay in Washington until Saturday.
Stuba is a 2000 graduate of Springfield High School, where she was in the occupation work experience program.
She has been in the Navy for 21/2 years, and plans to make it a career, just like her brother, who is a Navy SEAL.
Family traditions
Also, the family has a long Navy tradition. Fortunato-Conace's grandfather, Jerome Kramer, was a master chief on the USS Missouri, and was on deck when Japan surrendered to end World War II.
"She's a good girl. She has a smile that could have won the war all by itself," Fortunato-Conace said of her daughter.
She said Stuba, who volunteered for the Lincoln, is dedicated to her work and to her family.
"I was always concerned, but Tracy kept me posted with regular e-mails. She's a pretty important little girl on that big ship, all 5' 4" and 110 pounds of her," Fortunato-Conace said.