COMFORT XO

Homecoming!

2010-03-15T15:39:00.004-04:00

In the Navy, we frequently refer to some event in the future as being "X number of days and a wake-up." If something was going to happen a week from now, we would refer to that as "seven days and a wake-up!"

We left Haiti on the evening of March 9th headed for Norfolk. At that time we were "Four days and a wake-up!" Then we had a propulsion plant casualty that left us dead in the water for four hours. For three hours and 59 minutes, my only thought was, "How many days now?" Then, the problem was fixed, and we were off again!

On Wedensday, March 10th, President Obama had a news conference in the Rose garden, attended by two of our crew from COMFORT, where he talked about Haiti, and we watched him, thinking, "Three days and a wake-up!"

On Thursday, we had an MWR day on the flight deck (MWR stands for Morale, Welfare and Recreation). This was basically a chance for people to recreate a little, play some basketball and football and never forget that we were "Two days and a wake-up."

On Friday, we finalized all the plans for our arrival in Norfolk, including all of the VIPs who would be visiting us and as all these details were falling into place, we couldn't help but think that it was only "One more day and a wake-up!"

So I went to bed Friday night, tingling from anticipation of the coming day! I couldn't wait to get to sleep, because then it would be Saturday! I laid down at 10:00pm and started to quickly drift off to sleep. Then at 10:05: 'Hooonnnnkkkkk' (A mind-numbing, bed shaking fog horn located about 30 feet behind and above my rack). Then at 10:07: 'Hooonnnnkkkk,' at 10:09: 'Hooonnnkkkk,' at 10:11: 'Hooonnnkkkk,' at 10:13: 'Hooonnnkkkk,' . . . at 05:59: 'Hooonnnkkkk!'

And then Saturday arrived. All that was left was the "Wake-up!" Reveille sounded at 0600 and the crew sprang to life. It was about 64 degrees in my stateroom that morning (A ship like the COMFORT doesn't shift quickly from the 90 degrees of Haiti to the 49 degrees of Norfolk!) I decided that it was time for the XO to do what he had admonished everyone to NOT do during the whole deployment! It was Hollywood shower time! Throughout this deployment, and the one before, I had repeatedly scolded the crew to conserve water!! For seven months of the last year, I have kept my showering to less than two minutes of water flowing per day: 30 seconds of getting wet! (Turn the water off) Lather up. One minute of rinsing off and you're done! But Saturday morning was a whole different world! No need to conserve water now! Time to truly indulge! So as I got in the shower Saturday, I couldn't help myself! This time, I waited for the water to warm up before I got in the shower! I spent nearly 30 seconds getting wet! Kept the water running for the 30 seconds that I lathered up, and then rinsed off for another minute! Now that was living!!

We were supposed to be pierside at 10:30am, but being the overachievers that we are, we were on track to arrive at 10:00am. But as the fog-horn continued to sound throughout the morning, it became apparent that we might have a problem. Whenever a ship like the COMFORT comes into port, she is met by a harbor pilot who guides the ship into the harbor. In Noroflk, there is also a pier pilot who takes us the last little distance and ensures the ship safely arrives at the pier. The problem is, you really need to be able to see the pier at some point before you hit it. The COMFORT weighs 69,000 Long Tons. That's about 151 Million pounds. When you get that much mass moving even very slowly, it can be hard to stop or redirect its movement.

As I was looking off the bridge toward the water, there were times when I couldn't see anything even 100 feet away from the ship. The fog was so thick that as we passed over the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel we couldn't see any sign of the roadway at all.

So we inched along at only about one mile per hour hoping that the clowds would part, the fog would lift and we would be able to see the pier. Finally, with the pier only a couple of hundred feet off the bow of the ship, it finally came into view and the skilled Mariners who drive this beast brought her in flawlessly to the pier.

My wife took these pictures from the shore as we arrived. The Red Cross on the front of the ship slowly appeared through the fog and as the ship slid slowly up to the pier, the clouds broke, the sun broke through and Saturday turned into a beautiful day!

Their were over 400 people waiting for our arrival and as soon as the ship was cleared by customs, they were all brought aboard to meet their family onboard the ship. It was quite a hoot!

Leading the families onto the ship were six Flag officers: Five Admirals and One General who all came to thank the crew of the Mighty COMFORT for their truly heroic efforts in support of OPERATION UNIFIED RESPONSE - HAITI. They said a few words, shook a few hands and soon were on their way. We set the watch, called away Liberty Call, and we all went ashore for the first time in 60 days.

So then we were in Norfolk, and about five days later, we sailed up the Chesapeake Bay and arrived at our home port in Baltimore. We were met by families, hundreds of school children, lots of media, and my dog, Ruffy. It was pretty special.

Now, suddenly, two months have passed and I found that I never actually published this blog entry. Well, better late than never.

Shortly after our return, the COMFORT family suffered a tragic loss: About two weeks after safely steering us through the fog to arrive in Norfolk, and then safely bringing us home to Baltimore, the ship's Master, Captain Bob Holley suffered a heart attack and died in his home in Virginia Beach, VA. A veteran Master of both hospital ships as well as a long career in the Military Sealift Command, Captain Holley will truly be missed by those who knew him.

So, now we are back in our Reduced Operating Status and the ship is a ghost ship again. We spend lots of time showing her off to all kinds of tour groups who come for visits, but the hustle and bustle that is so much a part of every day underway is gone.

I am getting short. (That's a Navy term for getting ready to transfer). My relief has been identified: Captain Kathy Becker, NC, USN. She will be arriving onboard at the beginning of July and I will turn over the reigns to her on or about July 12th. Then I will be off to my next assignment: Navy Medicine Training Center, Ft. Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas! Where I will get to take young skulls full of mush and turn them into the next generation of highly trained, highly skilled, dedicated professionals who will pick up the gauntlet and carry Navy Medicine into the future!

Of course, anything can happen between now and then and the crew of the COMFORT is ready to respond! It has been an honor to have been able to serve along side some of the most heroic, hard-working, never-say-quit people I have ever had the pleasure to know. I will miss them all!

And for you, dear readers, should this be my last blog entry as the XO of the Mighty COMFORT, I hope that you have enjoyed these posts and that they have given you a little insight into life onboard America's Most Prestigious Ship!

For now at least: XO Signing Off!

Wow! It's been almost a month?

2010-03-10T15:23:00.005-05:00

I can't believe that it's been almost a month since my last post. It's not that there hasn't been anything to talk about, nor is it that I haven't had the time. Actually, shortly after my last post, the bottom dropped out as far as any new patients coming to the ship. And although my work days are still generally about 14 hours or so, the pace certainly changed.

I think the reason is that early on, writing on this blog was almost cathartic as a means of emotional release. As things slowed down, the day ended not with me needing to unload emotionally, but just needing to go to bed!

So, anyway, here's whats been going on over the last month: From our peak census of about 500 patients onboard, we steadily started discharging patients, even as more came aboard. We had about 31 of what we termed "Difficult to Place" patients who we were very concerned about whether or not we would be able to find a place for them to go here in Haiti. These were paraplegics, quadraplegics, and patients with traumatic brain injuries. It wasn't easy, and took lots of partnership building with a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) here in Haiti, but eventually, we were able to place all 31 into local facilities.

On February 27th, we discharged our last patient, pictured here! Then came the hard part: Waiting for the word to head home. We were told from the beginning that we would be here as long as the President needed us to be, so the process of convincing people up the Chain of Command that the need for the Hospital Ship had passed was not a quick task. I don't know if President Obama actually made the decision or not, but finally yesterday at 1:00pm we got the word that we would be leaving! And last night at 7:00pm the anchor came up and we put to sea headed non-stop for Norfolk, Va! Look out Norfolk! Here we come!

But if you listened to the President today from the Rose Garden, he made the point that the work in Haiti is not done. So why bring the COMFORT home now? Good question! Here's the answer: Our mission here was to provide care that was not available in Haiti. At first, that meant any complex surgery came to the ship, as well as many critically ill due to infection. Over the last 50 days that we have been here, a tremendous flood of capability came into the country, and the local hospitals have steadily been coming online to their pre-earthquake capability. So by the middle of February, there were very few cases that couldn't be handled by facilities ashore. We continued to provide some diagnostic services such as CT scans, but eventually, even those facilities were back in business in Haiti. At last count there were five CT scanners and one MRI working in the country. So, it's time for us to go!

Also, there is such a thing as the law of unintended consequences. You might think it's a great thing for the United States to provide all kinds of free health care for the people of Haiti. But the problem with that is that then their medical professionals, clinics and hospitals can't make a living, can't cover their costs, and so can't continue to provide care, and even more people will not have access to care. There have been protests in the streets of Haiti by Haitian physicians who are being driven out of business by all the wonderful help that has come to Haiti. The help is needed, but it needs to be balanced with a strategy that will not end up hurting the country even more in the long run. So, we did what we came to do: Provide services until the country's healthcare system could return to pre-earthquake capabilities. Now it's time for me to kiss my wife! Brace yourself, Debbie!

It has been 53 days since we set sail from Baltimore and in less than three days we will be back in Norfolk! It will be good to get back! My wife will be driving down from Maryland to meet us when we arrive and I can't wait to see her! We will have a couple of days together before she heads home and I go back to the ship. By the end of next week we will hopefully be back in Baltimore and we can put COMFORT back to bed! Then I can say hi to Ruffy! He's just such a boy!

At 6:45pm this evening we were 1018 miles as the crow flies from Pier 12 in Norfolk! Let's see how far we can get in a day!

One Month Ago. . .

2010-02-13T22:42:00.006-05:00

One month ago last night the ground shook in Haiti. At 4:53pm, Dad just got home from work and stretched out for a nap. His wife was busy gathering that night's dinner. It wasn't one of the fancy houses on the hill, but it was his. The streat was cluttered with rubble and garbage that never quite seemed to make it into a pan. Oh well, that's life in Haiti! And then an estimated at 230,000 people died.

Other elements of the Armed Forces of the United States of America were on station three days after the quake and they provided much needed immediate relief. One week after the quake, we took on our first two patients by hellicopter as soon as we were in range. Then day after day after day of gruelling work with people screaming, legs missing, broken thigh bones, crushed heads, and the list goes on.

Last night onboard COMFORT, we took a moment to reflect on that tragedy, said prayers for all the people who were so devistated by what happened. And shared stories of tragedy and triumph onboard COMFORT.

The night started with prayer and scripture reading, both in English and Creole. Then a time of sharing included the story of Isabel Rose, the baby that I talked about shortly after we arrived in Haiti. Isabel Rose was born two and half months premature to a mother who had her pelvis crushed during the earthquake. The injury caused her water to break and it was necessary to deliver the baby, both to save the mother's life, as well as to give the baby any chance at all at survival.

Isabel Rose was born through Cesarean Section and initially was doing pretty well. But as the days went by, she began to fail. She had a tube inserted to help her breathe, another one to help her eat, and an IV for fluids and medications. But she kept getting worse. Her mother was given the bad news. The Chaplain was called to pray and baptized little baby Isabel. Then the decision was made to remove her breathing tube and to keep her warm, until she passed away. So the tube came out, she was wrapped in a blanket and placed back into the incubator. Her mother, the Chaplain, and the team who had so lovingly cared for this, the first baby born on COMFORT, waited for the end.

They're still waiting. God wasn't ready for Isabel to come back to him just yet. As the minutes, then the hours, then the days passes, she kept going. She grew stronger, and bigger, and just the other day, she and her mother left COMFORT for another hospital in Haiti where little Isabel will continue to grow as her mother continues to heal.

Then the singing began. One of our line officers, LCDR Mortimer sang a moving rendition of the Navy Hymn including a special verse written to commemorate this Haitian tragedy. Then the "Joyful Noise" Choir got up and sang "This Little Light of Mine" is a way that would have made every one of their Sunday School teachers proud! Then it was the Haitian's turn. Now I don't know if they have mandatory singing training in Haiti, but I tell you what, you get a group of Haitians together, and every one of them can sing like an angel!

Now you know me. They don't call me the "frozen chosen" for nothing. I still think maybe people are overdoing it a little if they clap their hands in church. But, I tell you what! I was clappin my hands, tapin my foot, and just gettin all warm in side as our many patients joined us on the mess decks to share in this time of remembrence and celebration. It was a hoot!

I truly think things are slowly getting better in Haiti, if only the criminal element and stooges allow it to happen.

Well, I'm about to fall asleep. I haven't been sleeping terribly well for the last few days, waking up a lot during the evening. But that's OK, something tells me I'm gonna sleep like the dead tonight! Ahh the power of the little white pill! It's pretty hard to do this 30 minutes after you took an Ambien. It's all I can do to see the screen. Oh well! Have a great night.

Change is in the Air!

2010-02-11T14:15:00.002-05:00

It rained this morning. Hard. I haven't been ashore to see what the impact has been there, but I have seen some pictures on the news. Doesn't look pretty. This is the first real rain we've had since we got here, and since the earthquake. I can only imagine what the city must look like with rivers of pulverized concrete and muck flowing through the streets.

I thought I would share with you today what COMFORT has accomplished while here in Haiti. To date, we have admitted just under 900 patients. The vast majority of them (just under 800) needed complex orthopedic surgeries to repair their crushed and broken bodies. We delivered two newborns to mothers who were injured in the quake. We have supported and helped facilities ashore and we are now expanding that program to provide even more help in the days ahead. We have returned nearly 550 patients either to home or to other facilities here in Haiti to recouperate. We have medevaced 81 patients to the United States for ongoing care that we couldn't do here on COMFORT.

The pace of new admissions has dropped off over the last week and with the addition of a team of Orthopedic surgeons from the Orthopedic Trauma Association, we have completely caught up on the hundreds of patients onboard COMFORT who were waiting for surgery.

Tomorrow marks one month since the earthquake. Watching the international community come together to help these people has been inspiring. We have had French, Italian, Colombian, Mexican and German ships anchored near us (I'm sure there were others, but that's what I remember off the top of my head!) Ashore there has been an Israeli hospital, as well as teams from many other countries. Today or tomorrow we'll be welcoming a Colombian medical team aboard to work with us for a few days.

When we first got here, there were hardly any lights on in the city of Port-au-Prince. But each night, it seems like there are more.

I miss the snow back home! 90 degrees and February just don't mix in my mind! Oh well, with my luck it'll be 90 degrees in Baltimore when we get home!

Who is that Handsome Guy?

2010-02-06T14:53:00.003-05:00

You know, there are precious few pictures of me on this blog, because I'm usually on the back side of the camera! But, the other day when we were ashore, there was one of the Navy photographers with us and he snapped a few pics that had me in them, so I thought I would throw them up here.

Here, Commodore Laco and I are assessing the area around the city center port where we landed. Lots of damage to the port, but the US Military has made temporary repairs and has botten ships coming in and dropping off much needed material to support the disaster relief.

From there we traveled up to St. Damian's Orphanage and children's hospital and we put together a number of cots that we had been able to provide the hospital to make it possible for them to take some of our post-operative patients for follow-on care.
And after about an hour or so of that work, we got a tour of their facility and got to meet some of the volunteers who were there doing great things for the people of Haiti.

Well, our network is getting ready to go down for awhile, so I need to get this posted quick! Thanks for all your prayers!

XO Goes Ashore: Oh My God!

2010-02-05T14:40:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, I went ashore for the first time since we arrived a couple of weeks ago (well, actually, I did go ashore one time earlier, but it was for only a second). I will start this blog post by stating what became an epiphany for me from yesterday's trip: Nothing you or I have seen, nothing you or I have heard, can prepare you for the overwhelming emenseness of this tragedy. Take every picture, every sight, every sound, every word that you have seen, heard or read about this disaster, put them all together and multiply them by a million, and you wouldn't begin to appreciate the scope of the destruction in Port-au-Prince.

As we pulled into the downtown port, the damage was evident. Two large cranes, used to offload container ships were collapsed into the water. I can't tell for sure, but it looks like they were standing on a pier that entirely collapsed into the water, leaving the cranes leaning dangerously over the harbor.

While I could see the collapsed neighborhoods on the hills surrounding the city's plains, I didn't get a chance to go up there. There were a number of buildings that I saw that were completely collapsed, but most of the structures in the lower part of the city, while often damaged, have not completely collapsed. Lots of rubble, lots of broken walls, lots of parts of buildings collapsed, but not the dramatic pancaked buildings that are common in other parts of the city.

But what I did see was mile, after mile, after mile of makeshift tent cities with thousands upon thousands of people milling about with no electricity, no sanitation, no running water, spending every waking hour struggling to scavenge or find enough food and water to keep themselves and their families alive.

But at the same time, there is evidence that the city is reawakening from this nightmare. Traffic, unlike just about anywhere else in the world, is beginning to return to it's normal, hyper-chaotic, "he who gets his front bumper into a space first has the right of way," jumble of vehicles all pushing their way through a turnstile at the same time. Motorcycles and scooters swarm between vehicles in what can only be described as a death wish. But amazingly, with almost two hours of travel in a bus through this environment, not one scratch, not one nick, not one bumped mirror, even with big Mac trucks and tanker trucks squeezing their way along a road built for two lanes of traffic with at least four lanes of vehicles pushing their way along.

Trash is everywhere, along with the rubble, but that's not a lot different from what the place was like last April when we were here. And maybe we were just lucky, but we didn't smell much in the way of decomposition, other than rotting vegetables and the dusty, dirty smell that again was not much different from the pre-quake Port-au-Prince.

But amongst all of that, the people demonstrate the resiliance for which they have become famous. People are generally wearing clean clothes, and are moderately clean. Children are cared for, and people have taken their situations into their own hands and have produced thousands and thousands of shelters from every kind of fabric, tarp, or piece of sheet metal that they could find. Of course, these will be precious little defense against the rains that are only a few weeks away, but they do shelter them from the sun, and if the earth moves again, they won't have to worry about slabs of concrete crushing them to death.

Our mission yesterday was to visit the St. Damien's Orphanage and hospital located only a few hundred yards from the American Embassy. St. Damien's is actually a fine hospital and facility that is well maintained and almost an oasis within the desert of beauty that is Port-au-Prince. St. Damien's has a dedicated medical staff and they are doing everything they can to take care of as many of the injured as possible. We took them some much needed medical supplies to help them care for the 25 recovering patients of ours that they have graciously agreed to help nurse back to health. We also took some cots that we put together and placed in some large tents that they have set up as additional wards in front of the hospital.

Well, I need to run and get back to work, so I'll just say goodbye for now. Keep praying for the people of Haiti. This disaster will soon leave your TV's, but it won't leave Haiti for many years.

2010-02-03T20:43:00.002-05:00

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been five days since the last time I wrote on this blog. Every night, I try to write something, but for the last four nights, by the time the day is winding down, so is my ability to even think, let alone write.

Tonight, I just quit. As the last two meetings of the evening wound down, I looked around and no one was there with something I needed to do. I could have gone looking, and I probably should have, but I told myself, “If I can make it to my stateroom without the tyranny of the urgent grabbing me on the way, I’m going to go straight there and try to write something for the blog. Well, I made it! So far, the day has been 15 hours. I’ll spend about an hour trying to write this (and get it loaded to the net which is whole nother problem!) and maybe I can get a good night’s sleep.

But even as I’m typing this, we just went to Flight Quarters.

I’ve said this before, but it is so strange to experience the changes to the space-time continuum that has happened over the last two weeks. Two weeks, it can not possibly be only two weeks since we arrived here in Port-au-Prince. So much has happened, so much has been done: We’ve treated over 700 patients, every one of them severely injured. We’ve done over 500 major surgeries including 38 today. We’ve sent over 300 people who came to us broken, bleeding and dying back home to their families. And we’ve stood by 21 souls as they’ve torn this earthly veil and joined the hundreds of thousands of their brothers and sisters who fell victim to the power of nature to shake our world.

Several days ago, I took pictures of some of the other ships here serving in Haiti. I don’t know which ones they were exactly, but we’ve had ships associated with two ARGs ( I think that’s Amphibious Ready Groups, but I’m not sure. We live and die by our acronyms and all I ever call them is ARGs) lead by the USS NASSAU and the USS BATAAN. We also had one CSG (That’s Carrier Strike Group) headed by the USS CARL VINSON. The VINSON and her escorts have left us now.

There are also a number of Partner Nation ships here. This is a picture of the French ship SCIRACCO (sp?). Her Captain and Senior Medical Officer came to the COMFORT for dinner with our ship’s Master, Captain Holley. Tonight we had a visit from the leader of a group of Colombians here rendering assistance to the people of Haiti.

Our Intensive Care Artist has given us two more drawings that I am sharing with you. They really are telling of the scope of this tragedy.

Tonight we’re getting a shot in the arm! We have been overwhelmed with major Orthopedic Surgery cases. Broken femurs, broken legs and feet, broken pelvises, shattered arms, broken backs, broken necks, and broken skulls. We left Baltimore with one Orthopedic surgeon onboard. We received several more when we were plused up after our arrival here, and today, we’re receiving 10 more! Six of which are Orthopedic Trauma surgeons. We plan on running three OR’s 24 hours a day doing nothing but Orthopedic surgery to burn through the hundreds of surgical patients who have been waiting since the earthquake more than three weeks ago for a chance to have their broken bodies repaired.

We also have some new equipment that we’ve received to help them do the voodoo they do: Three C-Arm Fluoroscopy machines. Complete with tech rep to get them up and running and two Radiation Physicists to calibrate and certify them safe for use. These expensive pieces of equipment weren’t ordered until after we arrived here in Haiti. So in less than two weeks, the Naval Medical Logistics Command in Frederick, Maryland turned around a request for these machines, got the quotes, wrote the contracts, got them shipped, then the Supply team got them hop scotched from Jacksonville to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, out to the BATAAN and then yesterday, finally lifted to the COMFORT. Purely amazing!

OK, that’s enough for tonight. It is getting late and I need to finish this and check to see if that tyranny of the urgent is waiting outside me door!

And Debbie, I love you so much! We’ll be home soon! Well, someday!

Day uh, I don't have a clue. Maybe Saturday?

2010-01-30T22:22:00.003-05:00

The picture below was drawn by one of our patients in the Intensive Care Unit onboard COMFORT. This is the first of several drawings he has made showing some of the destruction that is so common in this city. And while the COMFORT may look like a cruise liner in this picture, it's only because he probably has never seen the ship.

Another full day! Our patient census continues to rise, but we have essentially hit the limit of what we can take without discharging more patients. So far we've treated over 700 patients and we have 500 or so aboard now. We have a pretty good number that is ready to go home and tomorrow's emphasis is on making that happen.

We have been having increased success in finding available beds in the hospitals outlying the city of Port-au-Prince. They can take some of our patients for ongoing care and recovery. That's a good thing because we need to lower our census if we are to continue to receive patients and attain a sustainable level of effort. It's been 15 days since we left Baltimore. It seems more like 15 weeks and we haven't had any time to pause other than the serindipitous breaks that come from helicopter delays or retaskings.

We had a young child die unexpectadly today and it's been tough on the Pediatric ward staff. He had a broken leg but was healing well. We planned on discharging him today. As his nurse approached him to give him some oral medication early this morning she saw that he was gasping for breath. She started resucitation procedures and called away a "Code Blue" but the child was not able to be resucitated. It's hard whenever we lose a patient, particularly a child, but it's extra hard when you think, "Here's one we've saved!" and then we didn't.

We had a memorial service tonight for a 12 year old girl who died several days ago. She and her mother were from some distance away and we were having trouble arranging to get her back home with her daughter's remains. The way it works here is that if a family wants to bury their loved one, they have to make all of the arrangements and pay for the funeral. If not, the Government will take the remains and bury them in mass graves with the nearly 200,000 others who were killed in a matter of minutes two weeks ago; or died of their wounds in the days to follow. This mother wanted to take her daughter home, but she didn't have any resources to do it. The closest landing zone that we had to her house was about seven kilometers away (about four miles). With no transportation or ability to get transportation, or money to pay for a funeral, she came to the point today where she asked if we would have a funeral service on the ship, then she would allow her daughter to be buried by the Government.

I meant to go. I wanted to be sure that someone other than her and the Chaplain would be there to morn the loss of her child. But I got tied up in one meeting after another and before I knew it, the time for the service had passed. We had decided that we wouldn't announce the service on our overhead speaker system because we didn't know what the reaction would be amoung the other patients onboard. So I was afraid it would be an empty room with no one but a grieving mother and an over-worked chaplain.

I was wrong. I ran into Chaplain Oravec about an hour after the service and he told me that it was a powerful, cathartic time of sorrow and remembrance. There were about 70 people in attendance: Medical staff, translators, and patients.

Tomorrow the two will leave the ship. One going home to a life of uncertainty. One going to an unmarked grave. This is a very sad place today.

I'm going to bed.

Day 8: Meet Baby Isabel Rose!

2010-01-27T22:28:00.006-05:00

If you refer back to my Day 2 post, I mentioned at the end that our first baby born on COMFORT was born that day. Well, here she is!

Her name is Isabel Rose. Now this is something that her mother doesn't know, but before the COMFORT was the COMFORT, she was an oil tanker named "Rose City." So Isabel Rose, welcome to Rose City!

Another busy day today! At about 4:00pm this evening I stopped by Casualty Receiving and we had already received 53 new patients. I don't know what the day totals were but after that, I was outside for a breath or air (it's really not very fresh here!) and helicopters were landing as quickly as one could get out of the way!

We have 75 Red Cross volunteers onboard helping us with translation. And today, a group of Project Hope nurses and doctors arrived to augment our nursing and pediatric care ability.

Well, it's after 11:00pm and I'm tired! If I get to bed now, I'll get six hours of sleep!

Day 7: It's Only Been a Week?

2010-01-26T15:44:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe on one hand that we have only been here a week, and on the other hand that we've already been here a week. I have never been involved in anything where the days have blended together like this mission.

As of today we now have over 400 patients aboard, 35 of them in Intensive Care, with 14 of them on ventilators. The patients on the ward are all what we call "high acuity" patients. Our nurses are stretched to the limit and are doing amazing things to help their patients.

One of the issues for this ship is that half of our 850 ward beds are upper bunks, designed to provide space for slightly wounded or injured patients who can climb up a ladder to reach the rack. Well, anyone who is well enough to climb up to the top bunk doesn't belong on COMFORT, so using those beds has been difficult.

But, the nursing staff is not about to be overcome by such trivial challenges! Most people wouldn't consider a pelvic fracture patient as a suitable candidate for an upper bunk. But, if you pick them up with a scoop stretcher, lift them up to the top rack and place them in the bed, well there you go! One more lower bed for patients who need it.

We have brought patients onboard faster than we can take them to surgery, so we have quite a few patients still waiting to go to the operating room. The last estimate I heard was that we could operate non-stop for three weeks to take care of just the patients we have onboard now. But instead of that, we're working to get more surgeons and nurses and Hospital Corpsmen here so that we can expand our Orthopedic surgery capability and take care of as many as possible.

We've started discharging some of our patients now. At least 50 or so have been able to go home, and we expect more each day. We are working on identifying places where our patients who are recovering, but aren't ready to go home yet, can go so that we can free up more capacity for those who haven't yet been able to get care.

It has been great to be on the receiving end of all the help that has been coming our way from back home. We have had people jumping through some amazing hoops to get us the blood, medical supplies, and equipment we need to keep going. A lot of people have asked if they can send things to the ship for our patients, and I would ask that people not do that. First of all, we have lots of bears and toys that we brought with us when we came, plus we haven't even started to receive mail yet, so I have no idea how long it would take for any packages to arrive. I'm sure that there are organizations in the States who could work with people wanting to donate to the people of Haiti to distribute those kinds of things after the initial emergency is over.

Well, that's all I have time for today. It has been such an honor to be involved with the people who are working so hard to do so much for so many. It hasn't been easy and the toll on our people is substantial. It's very hard to put so much of yourself into this effort and realize that it is just a drop in the bucket compared to the need. It reminds me of the story of the old man and his grandson who were walking down a beach that was littered with starfish left exposed by the retreating tide. As the boy picked up a starfish and threw it back into the sea, his Grandfater said, "There are so many! You can't possibly makd a difference!" The boy looked at his Grandfather and said, "I made a difference for that one!" Well, we can't make a difference for everyone in Haiti, but we are making a difference for some.

Got to run.

Day 3: Aftershocks!

2010-01-22T13:29:00.004-05:00

I haven't heard how big is was, but at about 7:45am this morning, the ship was shook by the strongest aftershock we've felt so far. Thirty minutes later, another aftershock hit. Not as strong as the first, but certainly able to be felt throughout the ship. We're not in any danger on the ship from these aftershocks, but they certainly present a danger to those who are ashore. The good news for those of you who would worry about a loved one here on the ship is that even when ashore, we are using tents for shelter, we're not inside any buildings, so I'm comfortable that all of our people are safe.

Geraldo Rivera was onboard COMFORT this morning. I know that he was impressed with the work our people are doing here. He is a bit of a celebrity and lots of people wanted to get their picture taken with him!

We were up on the bridge wing for awhile as his crew was getting set up and while we were there it was one helicopter after another bringing in more patients. One helicopter would barely be off the deck before the next helicopter was approaching to land. We are the busiest trauma hospital in the world today. Our surgeons and CASREC staff are working 19 hours a day and they are truly saving hundreds of lives. But now we're starting to see people who are coming aboard with massive infections that are too far advanced for us to do anything but make them comfortable until their inevitable passing. That takes a tremendous emotional toll on our people. Especially when some of these people look healthy and vigorous, but in a matter of hours become overwhelmed by the infection.

We have three Chaplains onboard who pray with the dying, and pray for and councel the living. Our lead Chaplain is Chaplain Oravec. He has been in the Reserves for years, but just before our CONTINUING PROMISE deployment, he came on active duty and sailed with us for nearly five months back in early 2009. He was a blessing to the crew then and to the people of Latin America. He's a blessing to the people of Haiti and to our crew now. It has been so good to have so many of the people we sailed with in 2009 back with us now when the stresses of this mission are so much larger.

Well, I have to run. Remember us and the people of Haiti in your prayers.

P.S. We got the A/C back on the ICUs! It's actually comfortable in there today. Today we started putting patients in our third ICU.

Day 2: Heroes on the Loose!

2010-01-21T16:07:00.004-05:00

I've titled today's blog entry as "Heroes on the Loose!" because that is exactly what is happening on USNS COMFORT. Yesterday started before 5:00am for most of the crew. By 6:00am, when reveille sounded, the galley had been serving breakfast for more than 45 minutes, the Casualty Receiving (CASREC) department was fully staffed and ready to receive patients, flight quarters was set, and COMFORT was ready to provide comfort to the injured thousands of Haiti.

It didn't take long for them to get busy. By the time most of our friends back home were climbing out of bed, we had received our first casualties and were taking patients to the OR.

13 hours later, patients were still being processed in CASREC, and as we were being briefed on the plan for today, I took these pictures of the people present to hear the brief. They had been working almost non-stop for 13 hours, and many of them left the brief and returned to spend many more hours continuing the fight. When I gave up and went to bed, there were still seven surgeries that needed to happen to clear the decks for today's arrivals.

This is Dr. Tim Donahue, our Director of Surgical Services. He's a Hero. As I was turning in for the night, he was taking a patient to the OR. I don't know what time he got to bed, or even if he did, but today he was right back at it, prioritizing patients for the OR, coordinating with all of the surgeons, and trying to manage the flow of patients to the ship in a manner that would allow the best use of our resources to save lives.

But Surgeons aren't the only heroes onboard COMFORT. This is a picture of a midnight engineering marvel rigged by some of our Civilian Mariners (CIVMARS) in the middle of the night in an attempt to bring down the temperature in our ICU. The electric motor that powers the air handler that provides cooling air for the ICU burned up. A new one is on order, but it hasn't arrived yet. Last night, the temperature was 104 degrees in the ICU. We had been running portable Air Conditioning units all day in an attempt to cool the space, but this space also contains our negative pressure isolation ward which was drawing hot air into the space faster than the air conditioner could pump it out. So, in the middle of the night, they connected flexible ducting to the discharge of the air conditioning units and ran it up the stairwell and off the ship. It got the temp down to the mid 80's by the morning.

And as the morning broke around us, the patients started coming again. Helicopter after helicopter after helicopter, each bringing three patients at a time. And as they arrived, they were brought down to CASREC by a hard-working team of stretcher bearers where doctors, nurses, and Corpsmen evaluated each one, started IVs, ran lab tests, took X-rays, stabilized them, and made decisions on where they needed to go from there. I heard some of our Corpsmen say that they learned more in one day than they did in months of working at hospitals back in the States.

And still they come. As I write this blog, it is now just before 5:00pm on day two. I'm in my stateroom typing this entry and out the window I see helicopters still bringing more. They will fly until dark, and the CASREC and OR will work till past midnight. The ICU's and Wards will work all night, and tomorrow will come.

I would be remiss as a Medical Service Corps Officer if I didn't highlight the nerve center of CASREC. The Patient Admin Cell who tracks every single patient and escort who comes aboard the ship. They collect identifying information, register them in our computer system, print out addressograph cards, follow them throughout their stay here and will ultimately discharge them and process them off the ship.

Today was a day of firsts: Our first baby was born: Life coming amidst the death that is everywhere in Haiti today. And we had our first death: a young man who was crushed in a building collapse during the earthquake. I would like to think that it is our last, but I know better. Pray for the people of Haiti. Pray for us.

Anchored off Port-au-Prince

2010-01-20T13:41:00.002-05:00

At first light this morning we were approaching our anchorage off the city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We already had patients aboard from last night, and it didn't take long for more to start coming.

First we received patients that were transferred to us from the USS CARL VINSON and the USS BATON. Some of these men and women had horrible injuries and in short order were on their way to the operating room where our impressive team of surgeons went to work. As the morning progressed, more and more patients came and an awesome team of professionals took great care of them. It takes more than a doctor to care for these patients and our teams of Hospital Corpsmen, Nurses, and Patient Admin personnel combined with our patient transporters, security personnel, air crews and flight deck personnel did a great job.

Well, I have to run to our 1400 planning meeting.

Operation Unified Response, Haiti

2010-01-20T07:23:00.000-05:00

Wow! What a difference a week makes! One week ago, my wife and I were still enjoying our RV trip to Florida to visit our Son, Daughter-in-Law, and Grandson. Last Tuesday, we got home from our trip about one hour after the earthquake struck in Haiti. As the first reports started to come in, it quickly became apparent that this was a disaster of epic proportions and that there was no one more capable and ready to respond than the crew of the Mighty USNS COMFORT!!

If you're new to this blog, I encourage you to take a few minutes and look back at the posts that were made during our recent deployment to Haiti and six other Central and South American countries from March to August 2009. We visited Haiti in April.

Three and a half days after the earthquake, two and a half days after our activation, COMFORT was underway enroute to help in the relief effort.

I wish that I had the energy to relate all that took place to make that happen. But quite frankly, I'm too tired, and it was too much to possibly give all the credit to where it was due. The day of the earthquake, our ship was not only in it's reduced operating status (normally ready to deploy in five days), but we had construction going on on the ship with major renovations to our sanitation systems and electrical systems still under way. We had a new CT scanner that had just been installed and an Angio suite that is half installed. Several of our key crew members were on leave and due to the construction, all of our blood had been transferred to Bethesda.

Two and a half days after activation, the ship put to sea with a medical staff of over 500 people, a security detachment, an air detachment, 84 civilian mariners, a Public Affairs shop, imbedded media, representatives from USAID, a logistics specialist, and I can't even think of the rest!

During the three days of our transit to Haiti we have not only pulled together our team, but have developed plans that include the expansion of the Hospital to levels that have never been done before. With an influx of over 450 additional medical and translator persoonel, we will be ready to fill every patient bed on the ship, run every available operating room, fill every one of our 80 intensive care beds, and do everything within our power to ease the suffering of the people of Haiti.

Tonight was our last night to get a good night's sleep before the crush begins. At our 1900 confirmation brief (7:00pm) we told everyone to get to bed early and get a good night's sleep in preparation for our arriving at anchorage off of Port-au-Prince tomorrow morning.

Then the phone rang. It was the aircraft carrier USS CARL VINSON (CVN 70). And at 9:00pm we got word that our first patients were on the way: Two children, one with a head injury and one with a pelvic injury, both needing immediate surgery.

So as I write this first entry, we are waiting for the helicopter to arrive with these first of what will no doubt be thousands of patients. Our team is ready. Our ship is ready. May God grant us the strength to do what needs to be done.

Homecoming!

2009-08-07T08:43:00.004-04:00

Well, it's time to wrap up this deployment! We left Baltimore on March 13th and returned to Baltimore on August 4th. Since my last post, we stopped in Panama City for three days of much deserved liberty for the crew, While we were there, most of our NGO partners departed and a handful of our Active Duty staff. We then stopped in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for two days of "Media Availability" and about 107 of our staff left. After that, we set sail for Norfolk, where we arrived on July 30th. The original plan was for most of our remaining crew to leave then (the whole of the Mission Commander's staff, all the various detachments, and most of the remaining hospital staff) but, before we arrived, we were told that we would be having a special visitor greet us on Friday, the 31st.

There was a lot of back and forth about who needed to stay, but it was finally decided that all we needed to field was a rent-a-crowd of 250 - 300 people. So, we asked all of the people who lived in the Norfolk, Virginia area to come back the next day, as well as the people who would remain with the ship for the trip to Baltimore, and we were able to let the rest leave. So, another 100 or so of our crew left for good in Norfolk.

And on Friday, we were honored to be met by Mrs. Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States, who came to Norfolk to welcome us home from our mission. While I must admit, that originally I wasn't thrilled about her visit, I am glad to say that it was very nice and I'm glad that I got to participate.

So, to wrap up this blog, how about some numbers: During CONTINUING PROMISE '09 the crew of the USNS COMFORT did some amazing work. We registered and treated 100,049 patients. Performed 1691 surgeries. Provided over 432,000 healthcare services, trained over 39,000 people, treated almost 40,000 animals, repaired over $3 Million in medical equipment, built schools, clinics, and recreation facilities, and probably most importantly, we changed ourselves.

All together nearly 1600 people participated as part of the crew of CONTINUING PROMISE '09. 274 volunteers from Project Hope, Operation Smile, Latter-Day Saints Ministries, University of California at San Diego Pre-Dental Society, and Rotary International. 76 Foreign Partners from the Netherlands, Canada, Brazil, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Antigua Barbuda, Panama and Colombia. I actually heard one Project Hope volunteer comment that people wearing camouflage had always seemed so intimidating, but she learned that they were just regular people! We also had some camouflage wearing warriors learn that tree-huggers weren't so bad either! We all learned what great things could be done when we work together, each bringing their strengths to the table, and what a difference we can make in the world.

You may notice that there aren't any pictures in this post. That's because I can't seem to locate my camera since we got home! I'm sure it will show up sometime, but for now anyway, we'll have to do without! Thank you to everyone who participated in this mission. Every one of you made a difference! Thank you for those of you at home who "kept the home fires burning!" You made a difference too because you bore the sacrifice of having your loved ones gone and made it possible for them to do that. Thank you to those who made this mission possible and who invested the thousands of man-hours in planning all the things that had to happen to make this a success. And last, but certainly not least, Thank God for keeping us safe and returning us home to our families. And for the family of our fallen sister, Senior Chief Hospital Corpsman Pamela Branum, I pray that God will give you peace in knowing that she gave her life in the service of others.

Well, it's time to get to work planning the next mission of the Mighty USNS COMFORT! Until then. . .

Nicaragua! Lucky Number 7!

2009-07-14T20:36:00.005-04:00

Nicaragua is our seventh and final country for Continuing Promise 2009! That's got to be lucky, right! Wrong! But who needs luck!

First, Nicaragua came literally on the heals of El Salvador. Less than a day after leaving La Union, we arrived at Corinto, Nicaragua. It was only about an 80 mile trip. The bad part was that it gave our people almost no time at all to recharge their batteries. El Salvador was a very difficult country from a logistics perspective. It was a long boat ride every day to and from the shore, the weather was brutally hot, and the Pacific swell made it difficult to get back onto the ship. Nicaragua made El Salvador feel like a walk in the park!

The first couple of days, we sat at anchor outside the harbor of Corinto. Several times we needed to stop surgery because the ship was rocking so hard! Finally, one day, we took 14 degree rolls which made life pretty interesting on the ship: We couldn't operate, we couldn't land helicopters, we couldn't launch or recover boats, and lesser men weaved their way down passageways like they had spent a little too much time at the pub!

So, we put to sea, heading into the swell instead of rolling back and forth in it. We ran a racetrack course taking us 12 miles or so out to sea, and then coming back in toward shore in a perfectly timed ballet to meet our small boats as they braved the waves coming back to the ship. We did that for nearly a week.

Finally, the waves settled a little and we went back to anchor. Well, for a little while at least. Then we were right back to rockin and rollin, so in no time, we were back to the NASCAR circuit!

I usually try to get ashore on the third day of each mission. This time, it wasn't until about 10 days into the mission before I got a chance to go ashore. We were being visited by Dr. Rice, the President of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD. I was on the faculty of that school a few years back, so it was a pleasure to welcome him aboard! CAPT Ware and I took him ashore to show him one of our medical sites before he had to fly off. We flew to shore on one of the Army helicopters that are helping to support our mission while here in Nicaragua. It was a beautiful day!

Our Director for Administration, LCDR Danielle Wooten and our Chief Information Officer, LT Sean Kelley accompanied us.

But now we are reaching the end. During our last day in Nicaragua, we sent 164 of our Shipmates ashore for the last time. We said goodbye to our friends from the Netherlands, and from Project Hope. We also said goodbye to 55 Army reservists, and 45 Navy reservists. Most of our volunteers from the University of California at San Diego went home, and we said goodbye to several of our Host Nation physicians who have been with us for most of this journey:

From the Dominican Republic, we said goodbye to Dr. Salas.

From El Salvador, we said goodbye to Dr. Schonenberg.

From Nicaragua, we said goodbye to Dr. Perez and Dr. Nicaragua. Yes that's right, Dr. Nicaragua from Nicaragua. I guess he's kind of like their Uncle Sam!

Tonight we had our Close-Out Brief for Nicaragua and for the mission as a whole. This was primarily to recap all the work done in all seven of our Host Nations.

As always, the close-out brief was amazing to see and hear some of the stories from what happened in Nicaragua. Our pediatricians treated little children that would have died without their help. Our surgeons did amazing work. Our veterinarians treated thousands of animals and taught veterinary students as well. I wish that there had been a way to capture those stories and to share them with everyone, but maybe that's one of the rewards for being here: to hear first hand and to see with your own eyes the work of these truly great humanitarians.

I started writing this blog post back on July 14th. It is now July 19th and we are anchored in Panama City for three days of liberty. This is our first liberty port in 56 days. That's 56 days of working 16+ hours a day, seven days a week, in often sweltering heat and choking humidity. Because of the limited availability of boats to transport people ashore, it took over seven hours to get the portion of our crew who weren't on duty ashore. I went out last night myself for a couple of hours and had a delicious meal at a place called "Alberto's."

Today, I hope to get ashore again sometime this afternoon, but first, I'm hosting a group of DV's (Distinguished Visitors) onboard for a tour of the ship.

Tomorrow, I'm going diving! That should be a blast!

Follow-Up on Eduardo & Andreas!

2009-07-07T11:05:00.002-04:00

If you don't remember Eduardo and Andreas, look back at my Blog entry for Tumaco, Colombia. These were the two boys who were badly burned as infants and had grown up as abandoned children, begging for their existence.

These kids became instant celebrities onboard COMFORT for the 10 days they were with us! They took over the bridge, learnd about the magic of a soda fountain, and for the first time in their lives, knew what it was to be loved.

But now the COMFORT has moved on and we're currently bringing hope to the people of Nicaragua. But the change in the lives of Eduardo and Andreas isn't quite over yet. Today, we received the e-mail that I'll list below. The original was sent to one of our nurses on the ship who had worked with the boys (LT Cely), she in turn translated the essence of the e-mail and forwarded it on to the rest of the team. I'll include both e-mails below:

"From: Cely, Dinorah, LT
Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 7:57 PM
To: Marino, Mark G., CDR
Subject: FW: SALUDOS

CDR.,

Just got an email from Maria Jesus. The best thing is that someone (the name below) in the US already has contacted her and has expressed her desire to become a godmother to Luis Eduardo and pay for his surgical procedures necessary. Maria Jesus has begun to contact a clinic in Bogota to make appt’s. I have family in Bogota and will contact them for possibly having them stay there. I am so happy!
The boys send their regards to the COMFORT family.

v/r;

LT Cely

From: maria montenegro [mailto:marjm2002@yahoo.es]
Sent: Monday, July 06, 2009 9:33 PM
To: Cely, Dinorah, LT
Cc: MARIA JESUS
Subject: SALUDOS

Ipiales, julio 6 de 2.009

Teniente CELLY
La saludo y le envìo mucho ànimo para continuar en la misiòn humanitaria, le envìo muchos saludos de los niños LUIS EDUARDO Y CAMILO ANDRES, se estàn recuperando favorablemente.
Algo positivo que le comento es que una señora de nombre ANGELICA MARIA HOYOS residente en los Estados Unidos se ha comunicado conmigo con el fin de expresar que desea apadrinar a LUIS EDUARDO y le quiere apoyar economicamente en las cirugias necesarias, por tanto ya hice el contacto con la clinica del quemado en Bogota y solicitarè cita para valoracion en Agosto cuando pienso viajar con los niños y si es necesario tendremos que ubicarlos temporalmente en hogares sustitutos en esa ciudad. Esto que le comento son realmente buenas noticias y se que a traves de Uds se nos abrieron muchas oportunidades de ayudar màs a los niños.
LUIS EDUARDO Y ANDRES CAMILO les envìan muchos saludos, tambien han manifestado que desean que les escriban.
ANDRES CAMILO expreña de sobremanera a KATTY y RICARDO de quienes no han recibido noticias.
Que la distancia no sea un obstàculo para olvidar a tan especiales personas, al contrario que fortalezcamos esos lazos de amistad a travès de la comunicacion.

MUCHOS EXITOS EN TODA SU JORNADA Y QUE DIOS LA BENDIGA"

If anyone else would like to participate in the care of these children, let me know and I'll pass your name along.

Nicaragua has been interesting! The seas, which have been so calm for so much of our trip are now showing just how easy it is for them to throw 69,000 metric tons of steel around! Oh well, I'll write about Nicaragua later!

La Union, El Salvador

2009-07-01T09:09:00.010-04:00

We always eat well on COMFORT, but about once a month or so, we have some pretty special grub! Well this month, it was steak and lobster! Two of my very favorites!

That was delicious! Now I have the strength to go on with the blog!

La Union is a small town located in the Southwest portion of El Salvador, about a good stone’s throw from Honduras and Nicaragua. It is a beautiful part of the country with green EVERYWHERE!! We have a very aggressive medical mission here in El Salvador with a total of five medical site locations reaching from La Union up to San Miguel, nearly an hour by bus away.

During our time here in El Salvador, we were visited by Rear Admiral Dullea, the Deputy Commander of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. I was able to escort her ashore as we together visited two of our medical sites. CAPT Ware (Hospital CO) and CAPT Negus (Mission Commander) met us when we arrived ashore and together we visited the sites.

This has been a challenging port for us. Due to the geography surrounding La Union and the lack of port services, we are forced to be anchored out with an 11 nautical mile small boat transfer to get ashore. We also have a significant current to deal with depending on the tides, so the trip ashore can take between an hour if the tides are with us, and nearly two hours if they’re not. The waterway is also full of floating debris (trees, logs, etc.) making small boat operations too dangerous to do at night. Typically, we would move about 140 people ashore daily by small boat. That amounts to two trips each for our two “Hospitality” boats. If we were to do that here, it would take us four hours to get those people ashore and another four hours to get them back, only leaving a few hours in the day to see patients. Another confounding factor, has been the sea state. Typically in the afternoon, the sea state rises and makes it dangerous to transfer people by small boat back to the ship. The bottom line is that this has been a very difficult mission site from a logistics perspective.

That hasn’t stopped our people from excelling!! For every problem, there has been a solution. For every difficulty, there have been devoted people who work through the issue and continue to do what we’re here to do: Help the people of La Union. Even though working in dangerous heat (today’s heat index is forecast to reach 130 degrees!), with no Air Conditioning, our medical and dental teams have done amazing work. Averaging over 1,900 patients per day, our hospital staff spends four days and three nights ashore before they are relieved and return to the ship for a brief respite.

So how has this been received by the people of La Union? Well the Mayor of the city presented the Key to the city to our Mission Commander, CAPT Negus. This is the first time (including a visit by President Hoover) that the Key has ever been presented to an American. But of course, we’re not here to collect accolades, we’re here to help people, train ourselves and our partners, and build relationships that hopefully will last a lifetime!

Three Days at Sea!

2009-06-27T15:31:00.008-04:00

Tumaco was a great success, but now it's time to head North! We left Tumaco at about 11:00am on 17 Jun and started the three day transit to La Union, El Salvador. Usually, between each port, we take a day "Strategic Pause." After nearly two solid weeks of non-stop, early morning to late at night work, it is a single day where we let people sleep in, stop the planning rhythm, and usually try to throw in a Bar-B-Que on the flight deck, or in Navy parlance: A Steel-Beach Picnic.

Of course, no Steal-Beach Picnic would be complete without the band! So while the rest of us take the day off, the band plays on! I'll tell you, I was a little suspicious when this Air Force band showed up to set sail on a Navy ship, but these folks are great! They do a tremendous amount of work, supporting all kinds of events on the ship and off. And on top of that, they are GOOD!

So after three days, we dropped anchor off the coast of El Salvador, in the Southwest corner of the country in a town called La Union. El Salvador is known as the "Land of Volcanos" as there are over 200 volcanic peaks in this, the smallest country in Central America.

I worked with the deck crew to drop the anchor and took the following pictures as we anchored at about 6:30am.

I'll try to do another post tomorrow with some pictures of our operations ashore!

Tumaco Wrap-up

2009-06-26T17:51:00.013-04:00

It's been a very busy week this week, and I'll talk more about that in my next post, but before we move on from Tumaco, I need to share this with you. At the end of each country, we have a country wrap-up where each of our LOOs (Lines of Operation) get up in front of a group of about 200 or so filling the mess decks, and shares what was accomplished in each country. It's always a special time, but this time, we were told about two young boys. . . Rather than me telling you about it, let me share the story with you through the words of CDR Mark Marino, our Director of Nursing Services:

"We were able to do a lot of good things in Colombia that made everyone feel good about the mission. But the highlight was caring for Eduardo and Andreas.

They both came from six hours away to get help. And because they didn't have a place to stay until their surgery date, we brought them aboard the ship the first day and they stayed with us until we pulled up anchor 10 days later.

Eduardo was a toddler when he was home alone (mom is a prostitute and dad is in jail for drug trafficking) and he knocked a candle into his bed. He sustained severe burns to the whole right side of his body and he lost his right hand. When he was five years old, mom discovered that he could make some money begging because of his burns and missing hand. So he was pushed into the streets as a beggar. He went from relative to relative and then was abandoned and homeless at the age of eight. Fast forward through four years of homelessness and he is picked up by the Colombian equivalent of Social Services and placed in foster care.

Andreas was living under a bridge with his family when he was five. A car driving by flicked a cigarette off the bridge and onto his shanty setting it ablaze. He and his brother and sister sustained severe burns to their bodies. I don't know if it was stigma or cost of care, but they too were abandoned and have been in foster care for five years now.

Both boys came aboard to have their scars revised. Andreas (on the right) had limited range of motion to his neck because of the scarring. Eduardo could not completely close his right eye and that side of his mouth was in a permanent droop because of scar tissue.

This is where the fun begins! Neither kid had experienced anything like this. They came aboard on a helicopter and then the staff treated them like their own. Over a week, we took them all over the ship. They sat in the Captain's chair on the bridge and spent the time looking through binoculars the wrong way at all of us b/c we looked miniature! They thought it was hilarious! We got them into our flight tower where they talked on the radio to some of our flight crew and got to watch the helicopters lift supplies off the deck. They had no idea what to say on the radios so they just kept saying "hola" and our Spanish speaking pilot would answer back w/ a question only to get a "hola!"

I took them up to our galley where Eduardo was enthralled with all of the drink fountains. He had 3 separate drink glasses on his tray and drank 5 different sodas and juices. They ate so much ice cream, I thought they were going to pop. They played games with the staff, regularly had meals with us in the galley, and were just the greatest kids. Eduardo commented to his social worker that he never before felt so important or loved as he did on the ship.

A bunch of my nursing staff went up to the flight deck to see them off and both boys were crying and saying that they didn't want to leave. Heart breaking but also rewarding in that they had a week where they were just normal kids with no worries about their next meal or bed. And they got to do and see some really cool stuff that just about any little boy would love. It was a privilege to be there for them."

The people of Tumaco were gracious hosts and it was a pleasure to have been able to meet them and work together with the Ministry of Health to meet some of the medical needs of these people. We provided over 65,000 healthcare services to over 16,000 people in the 10 days that we were in Tumaco. Additionally, we were able to perform 247 surgeries from cleft lip and pallet repairs to forming an ear for a young lady who was born without her right ear! It's amazing to see what happens to radically change people's lives!
!"

As I write this entry this evening, we have already arrived in La Union, El Salvador and are hard at work in the "Land of the Volcanos!"

Change of Command!

2009-06-16T10:32:00.007-04:00

Command in the Navy is a sacred trust. The Commander is ultimately responsible for mission accomplishment, and the life and safety of his crew. Every command in the Navy can chart an unbroken line of succession from its creation or commissioning through to its ultimate decommissioning. Today, we participated in the transition of command for our Mission Commander, the Commander of Amphibious Squadron SIX. The Commander of Amphibious Squadron SIX, Commodore Bob Lineberry, was assigned as the Mission Commander of Continuing Promise '09 about a year ago. Commodore Lineberry led all of the planning efforts, pre-deployment site surveys, and finally the execution of this mission from our sailing on April 1st through today.

Today, his relief, Captain Tom Negus, relieved him of command and is now both the Commander, Amphibious Squadron SIX, and the Mission Commander for the rest of Continuing Promise '09.

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The Change of Command ceremony is very special in the Navy. It is a public display of the transfer of the mantel of leadership from one person to another. During the ceremony, the outgoing Commander reads his orders (directing him to detach from one command and report to another). His successor likewise reads his orders (ordering him to report to this command), and states, "I relieve you, Sir." The outgoing Commander then replies, "I stand relieved." At that moment, the new Commander assumes full responsibility for the command.

A Change of Command is always a time of mixed emotions. Commodore Lineberry has been a great leader and has been a true friend to this mission, and to the crew of USNS COMFORT. He will be greatly missed! But at the same time, we look forward with excitement to the leadership of Commodore Negus! He has been onboard the ship for about a week now, being briefed by a wide cross-section of the crew and observing first-hand how we conduct operations. He will bring a fresh set of eyes and a renewed enthusiasm to this mission that will no doubt reenergize our efforts as we push forward to the end!

Last night, our wonderful Air Force Band helped us say goodbye to Commodore Linebery with a great concert on the messdecks. The Commodore joined the band as they played "Smoke on the Water", some AC/DC, and finally some Blues. It was a great way to say goodbye!

A career in the Navy is full of hellos and goodbyes. It's never easy, but it keeps our Commands strong, nimble, and ready to face the challenges ahead. It battles complacency and the natural cycle of organizational decay that happens when we become stagnant in our thinking.

Commodore Lineberry, we wish you all the best as you move on in your storied career with the traditional Navy blessing of "Fair Winds and Following Seas!"

Commodore Negus, we welcome you as our Mission Commander and look forward to your leadership in the weeks ahead!

Tumaco, Colombia

2009-06-12T16:50:00.006-04:00

Tumaco Colombia is a small, sea-side town on the South-Western edge of Colombia. As in so many of the places we've visited, the need is great. Children, old people, and many in between stand in line for hours waiting to be seen.

As is usually the case, LCDR Hobbs (Current Operations for our Mission Commander) and I went ashore together to gain some situational awareness of what is happening at both our Medical/Dental sites and at other activities around town. In this picture, it's me, our Colombian Army guard, Danielle Wooten (our Director for Administration) and Big Al Hobbs.

This country is different than all of our previous stops because we have a contingent of our crew who are Remaining Over Night (RON)on shore instead of returning to the ship each evening. Because we're anchored out, this gives them the opportunity of getting a head start on the day and reduces the number of people we need to transport ashore each day. Our first stop of the day was to the hotel that is serving as our RON site. It is a decent hotel with Air Conditioned rooms, a satisfactory restaurant, and a pool. (I'm not sure I would swim in the pool, but it's there for the brave of heart!) Of course, by the time our people get there after working in the sweltering heat all day, I'm not sure they're much in the mood to enjoy the few amenities offered, well, maybe the A/C!

Our next stop was our engineering site. This site is the most ambitious project undertaken by our Seabeas. In less than two weeks, they are building four structures: Three separate classroom buildings, and a separate kitchen facility! We were there on day four of the project, and as you can see from the pictures, they are making some pretty awesome progress!

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Next we went to the Medical site. We are referring to this site as our "Super Site" because it really is a perfect location for this mission! It consists of a large, walled school complex with multiple buildings, plenty of space, and a relatively great place to separate patients, allow them to wait in chairs, under tents, and manage their flow effectively throughout the site.

Following our visit to the Medical site, we were taken to the Colombian Marine Base where we caught a Colombian Marine boat back to the ship. As we were getting ready to leave, I noticed the boat shown in this picture. This is some of the latest in Drug Running technology. These semi-submersible boats ride mostly under water, with less than two feet extending above the surface. They can carry eight TONS of cocaine! Well, this one won't any more!

On the way home, we took a Colombian Marine boat that has been supporting our efforts to move people back and forth. It was a pretty quick ride out to the ship, but it was a little bumpy! When we arrived at the COMFORT, we had a bit of a challenge getting back aboard. First we tried from the Port side, but the Pacific swell was pretty intense and only one person from our boat was able to make the leap of faith from the Colombian boat to one of our lifeboats that was lowered to the water. So after banging together a bit and subsequently parting the stern line from the Colombian boat, we went to the other side of the ship and eventually made it work!

Finally tonight, we've been employing some technology of our own. This is a picture of our VTC system that we have been using to share some of the really cool stuff we've been doing on this trip with Residents and Medical Staff at facilities ashore. This is an abdominal hysterectomy that was done to remove a uterus with huge fibroid tumors. Medical facilities from around the country were able to connect through a bridge and watch this surgery and speak to our surgeons real-time in the OR during the case. Pretty cool, huh!?

Crossing the Line!

2009-06-11T22:57:00.007-04:00

N 0 Deg. 0 Min. 0 Sec. by W 80 Deg. 50 Min. 41 Sec. Plug those coordinates into Google Earth, and that is where our ship, full of slimy polliwogs crossed the equator, came face to face with the terror of Davy Jones, endured his assault and paid the terrible price of one caught in the grip of the great Neptunous Rex! King of every creature in the sea!

After an evening of wogs, escaping from thier dungeons to reek havoc on the newly emerging pirate crew of the Barnacled lass, the witching hour was upon us. A faint calm came over the ship, and suddenly wogs started dropping like flies. Many barely made it to their racks when the smothering darkness of night carried them into a fitful sleep! He is Coming! He is Coming! Echo'd hollowly throughout the ship. And then blackness. . .

As the light of morning slowly broke across the eastern sky, commotion ran throughout the ship. Crusty Shellbacks ran through the ship, looking for those slimy polliwogs and gathering them together in Casualty Receiving. The details of what happened next are classified (I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill myself), but suffice it to say the slime that was the polliwog was revealed, and through a thorough cleansing process, the transformation to Shellback began!

Over 600 Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, Civilian Partners, and Foreign Military personnel participated in this time-honored Navy tradition! I've looked at hundreds of photos from the event, and the common theme is how big the smiles were on the faces of the wogs!

This was an unplanned part of our mission. In fact, one of the most frequently heard questions prior to June 5th was, "Isn't there any way we can go below the equator and have a Shellback initiation?" The answer had always been, "No! We can't." Then, COMFORT was asked to come to the aid of a Sailor who had some medical problems on one of our ships operating well to the South of us. In order to make that transfer happen, we had to steam much faster than originally planned and we arrived in the Tumaco area much earlier than originally planned. After picking up the ailing Sailor, we had some time to kill, so the request was made to FOURTH Fleet for permission to dip below the equator. That request was approved, and the next morning we crossed the equator!

Panama Canal! A Fitting Farewell!

2009-06-04T01:09:00.013-04:00

Today we transited the 42 nautical miles of the Isthmus of Panama through the Panama Canal. My first time through the ditch! I think the most striking thing is to recognize that this is nearly 100 year old technology, built in 1913, and it is an amazing blend of moving parts that quickly raises huge ships nearly 90 feet above sea level and then ushers them across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.

The locks are 1,000 feet long, 110 feet wide, and raise the ship nearly 30 feet at a time. If my math is right, that means that over 3 Million cubic feet of water must flow into the lock to raise the ship. That happens in less than 10 minutes as the ship steadily rises in the lock.

The lock doors are huge and nestle into the lock walls when open. Operated by huge hydraulic cylinders, they quickly move into place to allow the lock to fill. These doors are nearly sixty feet wide and with the part of the doors below the water level, are about 80 feet tall. They are thick enough to have a wide catwalk along the tops of them to allow workers to pass from one side of the lock to the other across the closed doors.

At the top of the Gatun locks is Lake Gatun a picturesque quiet lake that spans the center of the isthmus. This is where we held a memorial service for our fallen shipmate, HMC Branum.

A number of people participated, sharing their experiences with the Chief, reading scripture, and singing songs. The service ended with the singing of the Navy Hymn, Eternal Father. It was a beautiful ceremony.

As the afternoon passed we traveled through the Mira Flores locks and out into the Pacific Ocean. Tonight we closed out our mission in Panama with our Panama Brief, and had our Colombia overview brief as we prepare for Tumaco, Colombia.

Tomorrow is our Strategic Pause: The chance for our crew to sleep in a little, recharge their batteries and get ready to do it all over again!

Thank You Senior Chief, May You Rest in Peace.

2009-06-02T19:33:00.004-04:00

I had to modify this blog post today because yesterday, we received word from the Chief of Naval Personnel that Chief Branum was selected by the FY-10 Senior Chief Selection Board for promotion to Senior Chief Petty Officer. Her effective date of rank was set at 2 June 2009, the day of her passing.

There are many days on this deployment that have had their difficulties, but none have been like today. This morning, Hospital Corpsman Chief Pamela Branum, our Reserve Liaison Officer, was found to have passed away last night in her sleep.

Chief Branum came to us from Naval Medical Center, Portsmouth. She has been responsible for managing the tremendous number of staff rotations that are the hallmark of this deployment. Just this week, she coordinated over 150 arrivals and departures from the ship.

Working just a few feet outside my office door, I saw her everyday and was always impressed by her competence, her work ethic, and her dedication to this important mission. She will be greatly missed.

This evening at 5:30pm, as all her fellow Chief's formed a gauntlet of respect, she was piped ashore for the last time. Her flag draped casket passed between her shipmates as the bo'sn pipe played and all saluted. As the helicopter's blades began to turn, two bells sounded and on the 1MC: "Hospital Corpsman Chief, Departing" rang throughout the ship. On the pier nearly 700 of her Shipmates rendered honors as our band played the Navy Hymn, "Eternal Father."

Chief Branum spent much of her adult life in service to her country, as a mentor to her Shipmates, and as a leader among leaders.

For many years this sailor stood the watch.
While some of us were in our bunks at night, this sailor stood the watch.
While some of us were in school learning our trade, this Shipmate stood the watch.
Yes.. even before some of us were born into this world, this Shipmate stood the watch.
In those years when the storm clouds of war were seen brewing on the horizon of history, this Shipmate stood the watch.
Many times she would cast an eye ashore and see her family standing there, needing her guidance and help. Needing that hand to hold during those hard times, But she still stood the watch.
She stood the watch for all these years. She stood the watch so that we, our families and our fellow countrymen could sleep soundly in safety, each and every night. Knowing that a sailor stood the watch.
Today we are here to say 'Shipmate... the watch stands relieved. Relieved by those You have Trained, Guided, and Lead. Shipmate you stand relieved.. we have the watch..."

Tomorrow morning, as we transit Gatun Lake in the heart of the Panama Isthmus, in a beautiful, picturesque place of calm waters, we will come together on the Flight Deck to bid farewell to a very special member of the COMFORT family. To Chief Branum's family in Tennessee, we send our heartfelt condolances at this time of loss. We will pray for God's Comfort to surround you and bring you through this time of trial.

Thank you Chief. Thank you for all you did for all of us. May you forever Rest in Peace.

El Presidente! Panamanian President Visits COMFORT!

2009-05-29T15:35:00.005-04:00

I mentioned in my last blog that we expected being pier side would help significantly with the amount of care that we would be able to deliver. Boy was I right! We were able to see over 5,000 patients during our first three days of patient care!

Well, on Wednesday, I got a chance to go ashore and tour our medical sites and our engineering sites. Both medical sites were humming like a well oiled machine! There were hundreds of patients, neatly organized into our various service lines, the Ministry of Health was well engaged and working side-by-side with our physicians, dentists, optometrists, physical therapists, and others providing some amazing help for the people. Unfortunately, my camera did it again, and all those pictures disappeared! It's called a Pentax Optio V20. If you know anyone at Pentax, tell them that I love their camera, except those times (once a week or so) when all the pictures for that day disappear! Maybe they'ld like to send me a replacement!

Anyway,
At the engineering sites, one team was remodeling a small health clinic, putting in new windows, installing a security fence and some new plumbing. At the other site, our team had replaced the perimeter fence around a baseball field, painted the dugouts, and resurfaced the infield.

Back on the ship, we are humming along in the Surgery department with a full schedule for the days ahead.

Today, the President and Vice President of Panama and the United States Ambassador came to visit the ship, speak to some of their countrymen receiving surgical care, got to watch through a window as our Orthopedic Surgeon worked on an ortho case, and then joined a number of the crew on the adjacent pier for a reception. A couple of our enlisted Corpsmen (HMC Eric Davenport and HM1 Hector Cano) are from Panama and we were able to introduce them to the President as well.

OK, time to run to a meeting to talk to our new Tiger Cruise Coordinator, ENS David Uhlman. Ensign Uhlman will be working all the coordination issues for our upcoming Tiger cruise from Ft. Lauderdale to Norfolk. I'll include details on this blog as they become available!

Last minute news: My blog didn't publish while I was at our 1900 Confirmation brief, and that's a good thing! Turned out tonight, one of our Chiefs on the ship was promoted to Senior Chief! Chief Clay with our Security det was promoted to Senior Chief today by his OIC, LT Rupp. Here's a couple of pics!

Panama! The Fifth Inning!

2009-05-25T00:19:00.007-04:00

Today we arrived in Colon Panama. This is the first time on this deployment that we have been able to be pierside! I'm sure that will help to manage many of our logistical issues. We will get ashore faster, be ashore longer, and hopefully, see more patients.

But, more importantly, this is the half-way point for my deployment!! It's all down-hill from here! Debbie, I'm on my way home!

The only problem is: H1N1, commonly known as the Swine Flu.

Today, we have no incidence of H1N1 onboard COMFORT, and we have instituted a number of steps to protect ourselves from infection. As of Cartagena, we started screening everyone who is coming aboard COMFORT for signs of the H1N1 virus.

It's not that we are afraid of getting the virus onboard, it's that we're afraid of what getting the virus onboard will mean to our ability to complete our mission.

We certainly have the capability to take care of anyone who should get sick onboard COMFORT, but there is so much hysteria about this virus, that it could impact our ability to continue to provide medical care to the people of Central and South America. That would be a shame.

So, tomorrow, we start screening surgical patients from Panama, we start treating patients at our outpatient facilities, our Engineers start building things, our Vets start veting things, and our Trainers start training people.

Hopefully in the next couple of days I'll get a chance to get ashore and see what's happening at our sites, but I'm confident that we are doing great things for the people of Panama!

So, would you like to see the USNS COMFORT live! Heading through the Panama canal? Well, this is your chance! On Wednesday, June 3, 2009, log onto

http://www.panamacanallivecam.com/gatun-lock-cam or

http://www.panamacanallivecam.com/miraflores-lock

to watch as COMFORT moves through the locks of the Panama Canal. Unfortunately, I don't know when to tell you to watch those sites, but they are live web cams of ships moving through the canal. We will be going through the Gatun locks first, followed a number of hours later by our transit through the Mira Flores locks.

I'll try to send a post on this site to let people know when we're entering the locks, however, only people who follow this blog will get the word! So, if you're not signed up to follow this blog, now is the time to do it!!

I don't have a lot of pictures of Panama yet, but here's what I have! We're parked on a pier with a lot of containers all around us!

Liberty Call!! Liberty Call!!

2009-05-23T15:07:00.016-04:00

Nothing brings joy to the heart of a Sailor like those time-honored words: Liberty Call, Liberty Call! That is of course, unless your the Executive Officer!

"You mean we're going to turn 900 of these fun-deprived swabbies loose on a city with all kinds of 'fun' at your fingertips, and I'm the one who has to make sure they all behave and come back saftely? Are you nuts!?"

First of all, it's not all that easy getting 900 people ashore all at once when you need to check them out, provide them with briefing materials, make them sign some papers, log them into a spreadsheet, and then get them on a boat that will take them to shore! But after about three hours, we had most people gone.

Our first night in town, we had a "Mil to Mil" reception where members of our crew met with members of the Colombian military for a time of socialization and cultural sharing. That was fun and as always, it's nice to meet and greet with other military professionals. The Life Ring below was hand-painted on the COMFORT and given as a gift to the Colombian Military.

On Thursday, I got a chance to go check out one of the hotels where many of our people were staying, the Hilton in Cartagena. It was a beautiful hotel with very nice amenities, and as I watched our people unwind a little and enjoy themselves, I was tremendously proud of the way they carried themselves and monitored their behavior. Before I knew it, I even started to relax a little!

I had eaten lunch earlier in the day at the Hard Rock Cafe where I enjoyed my son's favorite meal: a great chicken sandwich! I had the opportunity to walk around the old walled city for ahile, and I had been able to do a little shopping in town for some souveniers. The best part of the whole day was that I was able to get a new battery for my watch! My watch had died our last day in Antigua Barbuda and it had driven me nuts for the better part of a week not having a working watch!

So now it was dinner time and it was time to enjoy some of the local delicasies. So we ate at the Hilton! I know, some of you are saying to yourself, how adventuresome! But it really was good local food. I had a seafood medley of Lobster, Shrimp, and Squid in a delicious local sauce with fried plantains and a nice glass of wine. OK, two glasses of wine.

I had been out all day with two of the Chiefs from our ROS crew (the guys who work on the ship with me all the time, not just for deployment): Senior Chief Clark and Chief Bone. We were joined early in the day by Chief Frith who is a member of the Public Affairs detachment on the ship, but she had to meet some other shipmates before dinner, so we dropped her off and went on. By the time we were done with dinner, we were all pretty tuckered out, so we headed back to the ship for an early evening.

On Friday, I got up bright and early, got all my gear together and went diving! The last time I was diving was in Italy, so I was really looking forward to this dive trip! And, I was not disappointed. There were six of us on the trip: Two Navy doctors (including a surgeon), an Emergency Medicine specialist from Project Hope, an Operating Room Nurse from the ship, and a Nurse from Latter Day Saints ministries who is serving on COMFORT, and me. In other words, just in case anything went wrong, I was covered!! So Debbie, I was thinkin' about you!

Our trip started with a 50 minute high-speed boat ride to a string of islands off the coast, probably about 30 miles from where the ship was anchored. When we arrived at the base camp, we were invited inside, given some fresh-squeezed fruit juice, asked to fill out some paperwork, and shown were we would be able to relax between dives and where we would be having lunch after our second dive.

Then we went back to the pier, put our gear together, got on the boat, and headed out to sea. It was only about five or ten minutes to our first dive site. Our dive was a drift dive, so three staff members from the dive center led the way with one in front, one in the middle, and one bringing up the rear. It was a large coral reef with the depth ranging from 30 to about 80 feet. The coral was very nice and while there weren't a lot of big fish, there were lots of little ones.

The water was beautifully warm and very clear with visibility ranging from 60 to over 100 feet. We drifted along exploring the reef for about 45 minutes and when we surfaced, the boat simply came to where we were and picked us up.

We went back to the dive center for some relaxing time and more fruit juice while the dive operator changed all of our tanks. It was nice to relax a little in the house, but before we new it, it was time to head out again!

This time, we dove on a reef wall, with the reef starting at about 20 feet from the surface, and the wall disappearing into oblivion about 100 feet below us. Again the corals were very nice, and we did see a couple of nice size fish, but most of them were aquarium size. Another great 45 minute dive and it was time to head in for lunch.

Lunch consisted of a whole fried Red Snapper, a wonderful rice dish, a small green salad, more fruit juice, ending with a candy desert. It was fabulous!

After lunch we had a chance to swim in their pool for a little bit, take a few pictures for posterity, and it was time to head home. Another 50 minute high-speed boat ride and we were back at the Mighty USNS COMFORT. Thirty minutes to drop off our gear, clean the sand out of our ears, and we were off to town for our last dinner ashore.

We went to a restaurant called "Olla Cartagena" or something like that. It had been recommended by one of our local drivers from the day before. Oh, My, Goodness! Was it ever good! I started by ordering Calamari for the table, and it came with a sauce that our waiter was sure to mention was hot. Now for those of you who know me, you know that "hot" is a relative term, and most of the time, what other people describe as hot, doesn't generally meet my definition of hot. Well this waiter was right! It was with out a doubt the hottest sauce I have ever been served in a restaurant. It was goooooood! The next course was some Lobster Bisque, with huge chunks of lobster meat, followed by Filet Mignon. It wasn't like you usually see Filet Mignon, it almost looked like the meat had been butterflied. It was not very thick, but did cover most of the plate. It was covered with some kind of sauce with mushrooms in it. I wasn't sure what to expect, because in the words of Pepper Lewis in The Cowboy Way, "I'm pretty particular about my steak! Just knock his horns off, wipe his nasty ass, and chunk it down here on my plate!" Well, I was not disappointed! It was probably one of the best steaks I have ever had. What a great dinner!

So now the tired, fed, relaxed, XO has to come back to the ship and find out if everyone made it back onboard. When we had been in Miami, we were pierside and liberty expired onboard at Midnight. It took until 3:15 in the morning to account for everybody and to make the report to the Ship's Master and the Commodore that everyone was present and accounted for.

In Cartagena, liberty expired last night at 9:00pm at the Boat Landing Zone. It's nearly a 30 minute boat ride from the BLZ to the ship. But even with that, I was given the word at 10:15 last night that all of our people were back aboard and accounted for! An awesome job by all the members of the Section 5 duty crew, and all the Departmental muster Petty Officers who did a great job mustering all hands in a timely fashion!

So I guess I don't need to worry about things in liberty ports any more! Well, we'll see!

So that was Cartagena. This morning we weighed anchor and set sail for Colon, Panama where we will arrive tomorrow morning. Colon should be exciting since this is the first port where we'll actually be pierside throughout the mission. No riding boats or helicopters to get ashore in the morning!

Farewell Antigua!

2009-05-16T21:32:00.009-04:00

Well, we have finished the third inning! Antigua is behind us, Cartagena is ahead of us!

Antigua was a bit of surprise for us. We didn't really know what to expect as we headed there. First of all, the population of the island is only 90,000, compared to over 9 Million in each of our previous two countries. Would there be a demand for our services? Would there be surgical workload? Would we be allowed to perform surgeries? But, when all was said and done, everything worked out very well: We saw over 12,000 patients, we provided over 40,000 total healthcare services, and we did 161 surgeries. All in just 10 days ashore!

And, last week was Nurse Appreciation Week in both the United States and in Antigua Barbuda, and corresponds with the 101st anniversary of the establishment of the United States Navy Nurse Corps. So, of course, we had to have a cake!

This is a picture of our most senior nurse and our most junior nurse cutting the cake.

And Commander Marino set up what seemed like about 200 Nurse Appreciation activities both on the ship and in the local community with the local nursing association.

From the "Blessing of the Hands" of a new batch of local nurses, to a Subject Matter Expert Exchange that for some reason involved nurses running down a beach in a three-legged race! It was a never ending tribute to the pride and professionalism of Nurses everywhere! >

Well, we weighed anchor this morning about 1100 and put Antigua behind us. These pictures were taken on our forecastle (pronounced foc'sul), otherwise known as the "pointy end of the ship!" The big chain you can see in the first picture is our anchor chain. In the second picture, I was standing at the very tip of the bow, looking aft at the bridge of the ship.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we are taking a "Strategic Pause" to let our folks rest, relax, and recharge before we do a Safety Standdown on Monday and get ready to start the Fourth Inning, our liberty port in Cartagena, Colombia! Ah, I can already smell the coffee!!

Antigua & Barbuda Ashore

2009-05-10T21:13:00.018-04:00

Well, I just spent an hour and a half uploading the pictures below to my blog! What a pain in the neck! Our internet connectivity is pretty limited. To put it in perspective, at home, I had Verizon FIOS Fiber Optic internet service that provided 20Mbps (20 Million bits per second) speed. On the ship, all 930 of us share a 1Mbps connection!

Anyway, the last two days have been pretty cool. On Friday, Big Al (the Current Operations Officer for PHIBRON SIX) and I went ashore. We started doing that in Haiti, and now we go ashore together early in the mission to enhance our situational awareness of operations on the ground. We wanted to get out a couple of days before that, but we kept geting delayed for one reason or another.

This picture is a shot from the bow, looking aft on the "Coral Ark," an amazingly expensive boat that puts along at less than five knots (just a little over five MPH). The beauty of the Coral Ark lies in her ability to take 175 of us ashore at one time! A huge advantage over the 30 people per trip that we can take in our Hospitality Boats (those are the small boats that the ship uses to do normal ship to shore movements).

On the trip over, we passed a number of pretty impressive little "cottages" perched on the hills surrounding the beaches. And speaking of beaches! Wow! They are beautiful!
In downtown St. Johns, we were allowed to use the city's Multicultural Center close in to the center of town. It is without a doubt the nicest place we have had to work so far on this deployment! The center was built by the Chineese a little over 10 years ago, but like a lot of things in Antigua, it is showing its age. There are fountains inside that don't work, but the commodes did and there was fresh running water.

As you can see from these first pictures, the town is nice! Lots of flowers and very friendly people.
Heres a great picture! That's me standing next to the tent we erect to provide shade for our patients, and that's a huge Royal Carribean cruise line ship in the background.

This is a much more prosperous country than either of our previous stops. It is a small place to live, about 90,000 people in all, and in the first three days of our time here, we've been able to treat over 3,000 of them, and we've been able to book about 150 surgeries.
Check out the inside of the Multiculteral Center! This was such a nice place to work! It was spacious, they had privacy screens set up partitioning the space into treatment rooms. In addition to the space you see here, our Optometry clinic was upstairs in this building and our Surgery Clinic was further down the hall in a whole other partitioned room. But the thing that really set this building over the top was the fact that it is AIR CONDITIONED!! And it had working toilets complete with toilet paper!! Out of habit, we ordered a bunch of porta-potties for our staff, but i doubt that they were ever needed even once!

Then Big Al and I headed over to the Mental Hospital (I was going to see if they had an extra room, but turns out they were full!) Our SeaBees are rehabilitating the Women's ward at the hospital. They're repairing the roof, putting in new windows and doors, doing a bit of plumbing work and electrical work. I'm sure it will look great when they are done!
So now we've moved out of the city to one of our outlying Medical/Dental sites. This is a place known as All Saints, the second largest town on the island. It is about the size of Apalachin! We are going to have a team there for three days probably doing about 400 - 500 visits per day.

So who are these goofballs? Well, that's me on the right, CAPT Hardy in the middle, and Big Al on the left. CAPT Hardy is a team leader for one of our two Advanced Coordination Element (ACE) teams. They arrived in Antigua about 10 days before we got here, and they did a phenominal job in schmoozin the people who needed to be schmoozed, working with the husbanding agent to put together all of the locally procured things that we would need: Chairs, Tables, Tents, Bottled Water, a bunch of vehicles, drivers, etc. They are the grease that makes this whole thing work!

Then we went back down town in time to catch the Air Force Band put on a two hour concert for not only the Antiguans, but to a lot of the visitors who had arrived on that big cruise ship! They are really good! I hope you get a chance to hear them play some time! They are tremendously busy. They typically have at least one concert, sometimes two, nearly every day we're in country
Ah, now there's a shot! Your's Truly during the flight today out to the island of Barbuda. Antigua is actually the Commonwealth of Antigua Barbuda. They are very different islands, but only located about 25 miles apart. About a 20 minute helecopter ride over some really pretty water!
So, me being the Captain, I got my pick of seat, and the best seat on the flight, at least I thought, was the rear, starboard seat facing forward. The doors would be open during the flight and I could lean out the door and get some really cool pictures. There's only one problem. I forgot about how windy that seat is. The people sitting next to me were able to open their goggles and sit comfortable in the seat. I had to spend most of my time holding my goggles in place because so much wind was blowing up under the goggles that I could hardly see! Plus, I have a bad head cold and the wind was making my nose run like a faucet! Oh well, it was still fun!
So this is the island of Barbuda. It is flat as a pancake. Their prime industry has been three tourist resorts that have all now closed and they don't know if any of them will be opening again. If you're looking to buy a Carribean resort, now might be a good time!
This is the one and only airstrip on the island. It is the narrowest runway I have ever landed on. it would be hard pressed for two cars to pass each other on the runway! We were dropped off here and had about 20 minutes on the ground while LCDR Welch got behind the stick for a little refresher flying. I guess it had been about six months since he flew last. So I got to spend a little time on the ground and got together with our Point of Contact on the island who has been a great help in helping us coordinate the visit to Barbuda.
This might give you an idea of what the beaches look like: All around the entire perimeter of the island, crystal white beaches!
And then it was time to go home, so we climbed in our multi-million dollar twin jet engine MH-60 helicopter, probably a product of Lockheed Martin in Owego, NY where my brother-in-law whips people to keep them working at an unfair wage! Great Job, John! Keep up the good work!

Now, if you look at the picture to the left, you will see the "Aft House" which is a section of the ship back near the smokestack with five rectangular windows across the front. Well, the last window to your right is my stateroom. That's where I am right now wrighting this thrilling account of the last couple of days.

So then as we were approaching the ship, I took a couple of shots of the Mighty COMFORT on our way back to the flight deck. I owe a big thank you to the crew of HSC-26, our helicopter detachment attached to the ship. I also owe them something else! They let me experience some of the capabilities of the helo as they did some hard yankin' and bankin'! It was like riding in a real cool rollercoaster. Nothing too over the top, but it made for an exciting trip!

Well, one more day is done. It is almost midnight, I've been working on this for well over two hours. I have a nasty cold and I took some medicine for it, so it I say something stupid in here tonight, give me a day or two to correct it!!

Five more days in Antigua then we are off to a much deserved liberty port in Cartagena, Colombia! I'm planning on staying on the ship each night. Since Debbie isn't able to be here with me, I don't feel like spending $160 for a room all to my lonesome. So, I'll go out for dinner, maybe go shopping for some good coffee, and then come back to the ship for the night. OK, enough for now!

Happy Birthday, CAPT Ware!!

2009-05-05T20:02:00.010-04:00

So, we've been underway on this mission for about seven weeks. Captain Ware has been the CO of the COMFORT Medical Treatment Facility for almost a year! But no one seemed to know when his birthday was!

Then one day about a week ago, I hear from my wife, who has heard from CAPT Ware's wife, who asked us to wish the good Captain a Happy Birthday!

Well, we don't do anything small on the COMFORT! So tonight, following the 1900 Confirmation Brief, I took the microphone back from the Comodore and started to tell everyone present the importance of Operational Security. How we all need to work together to keep sensitive information out of the hands of the devious! I talked about the importance of protecting our personal identifying information, like our Social Security numbers, our credit card numbers, and, our dates of birth!

I told them that we can't be too careful! We never know who might compromise important information. I said, "So let's say that we were trying to keep the fact that we had a birthday coming up a secret, but someone at home, let the cat out of the bag! You never know what a devious person could do with that information!"

Then I asked CAPT Ware to join me up front, and a couple of our cooks brought up a great big beautiful birthday cake, and one of our Directors, CDR Mark Marino brought up the present we had prepared for the Captain.

I really think he was surprised, and everyone had a great time both pulling this off and in enjoying the celebration! Thanks for the "Heads-Up" Mrs. Ware!

Hello, Antigua!

2009-05-05T13:57:00.007-04:00

That's pronounced, "An-tee-ga." And while I haven't been ashore yet, it surely looks like a beautiful place to visit from the Sea!

Today is our logistics setup day, so our helicopters are flying about 60 pallets of material ashore for the setup of our Main Medical Site at the Antiguan Multi-cultural center.

Tommorow we will start seeing patients there. I'm planning on going ashore tomorrow to check out our operations ashore. Hopefully I'll have better luck with my camera this time than I did in the Dominican Republic where I accidently deleted all my pictures while I was ashore!

It is about 6:30pm here right now. We have our daily confirmation brief for the upcoming day's operations at 7:00pm. Today is a special day onboard COMFORT. We have a contingent of Danish Surgeons and operating room staff onboard with us and today is the Dutch Liberation Day, when Allied troops liberated the Netherlands from the Nazi occupation of World War II. We're going to have a cake tonight to help them celebrate the event (it doesn't take much for us to come up with a reason to have a cake!). But the real surprise tonight will be for our CO, who I have been informed by the highest possible sources (his wife!) that today is his much-kept-secret birthday! Being the sneaky sort that we are, we have a little surprise celebration in store for him this evening. I'll take pictures and share them later!

All Work and No Play? Naaahhh!!

2009-05-04T20:54:00.012-04:00

Today was what we call a "strategic pause." A chance to take a breath, let our hair down a little, and have a little fun!

Today was our first Steel Beach Picnic!

The Air Force Band was ROCKIN'!!

The Junior Enlisted Association was COOKIN'!!

The Sumo wrestlers were WRASLIN'!!

The folks in the beach chairs were CHILLIN'!!

And a good time was had by all!

Tomorrow morning around 6:00am we will be arriving in Antigua! Top of the 3rd!

UNREP Enroute Antigua!

2009-05-03T11:08:00.007-04:00

Dominica is behind us, Antigua before us! We left the Dominican Republic yesterday around noon and headed south enroute to Antigua Barbuda, a small island nation in the eastern Carribean.

Only one problem: We're thirsty! This morning we met up with the supply ship USNS ROBERT E. PEARY (T-AKE-5) to take on JP-5 fuel for our birds and lots of pallets of supplies that are coming to us.

An UNREP is an awesome display of ship-driving expertise and teamwork. You've got about 100,000 tons or more of ships practically within spitting distance of each other, moving along in perfect synchronization, while helicopters are buzzing over head, waves are crashing between the ships, pallets are being loaded and unloaded, fuel is being pumped, and the professionals that make it all happen make it look almost effortless!

We've been busy so far on this deployment. We've finished two of the seven countries we will visit: Haiti and Dominican Republic. So far on this deployment, we have treated about 17,000 patients and they have seen a Physician, Dentist or Optometrist over 18,400 times. We have performed 383 surgeries, many of which were life-altering, and we have provided a total of over 73,400 Health Care Services (these include medications, lab tests, x-rays, flouride treatments, etc.).

As our Mission Commander, Commodore Lineberry is fond of saying, we've finished two innings of a nine inning game (seven missions and two liberty ports!). We're proud of what we've accomplished, but we have a long way to go!

Thank You from the Dominican Republic!

2009-05-01T09:06:00.004-04:00

Well, today is our last full day in the Dominican Republic. Tomorrow we weigh anchor enroute to the islands of Antigua and Barbuda. This afternoon we will have a closing ceremony where the leadership of the Dominican Republic, the leadership of our mission, and the leadership of the American Embassy will all say what a great thing it was for the COMFORT to be here. There will be lots of fanfare and celebration!

But yesterday, we got a note from Ms. Cathy Flynn, a Canadian who works in a little town called Puerto Plata, about a four hour drive from Santo Domingo, where the ship is. I want to share it with you. As we go through times of missing our families, and we all do, I think it helps to know that we're not just punching holes in the ocean. I hope that all of you at home are just as proud of all of your loved ones who are on this mission as I am. It truly is an honor to serve with each and every one of them! So anyway, here's the note, and a picture of the kids:

Dear Captain Ware and Crew,

Greetings from Puerto Plata! I am writing this email in an informal manner, I will write as a friend, because this is how I felt when I was on your ship last weekend.

I want to thank you, well, for quite a few things really. First and foremost, thank you for the wonderful Comfort Ship programme you are running and for helping our kids from Puerto Plata. Our 4-hour journey from Puerto Plata to Santo Domingo made our mission a bit trying, but with a lot of help from your end, it went smoother than expected. I’m sure you hear all the time that you change the lives of children that would never have the opportunity for surgery due to difficult financial reasons. This is so true with our kids. Without you all their surgery would NEVER have happened. I also had hands on experience with the families of each of our kids, trying to relate messages back and forth from the ship to the families of our patients. I hope you all realize the domino effect you have on the entire family. You are all like angels to them. All the families wanted me to send you all a big Dominican GRACIAS.

Thank you to your crew of course. Which I will from here on in, refer to as your team, because this is what I definitely witnessed on your boat. Not staff, but an incredible team always working together, always willing and able to help us during our stay. No matter where we went on your ship, someone always passed us by, said hello and asked us how we were, or just gave us a great big smile. Getting lost was part of our daily routine, but when we asked one of your team how to point us in a certain direction, we found ourselves constantly with a personal escort instead!

When we first arrived at the sports complex, we were met by Lt. Morlock, and Dr. Donahue who bent over backwards for us to be able to have our kids all sent over to the ship that day, instead of the next day as planned. They also worked very hard trying to schedule their surgeries around our Puerto Plata schedule. Then it was back to Puerto Plata for me where I received emails from Lt. Morlock and Lt. Marrs to keep me posted, and to arrange for myself and my translators to return to the boat that weekend. So many from the team helped us, HM1 Jeffrey Glick who took care of us making sure we were comfortable at the sports centre, the helicopter team, Javier that showed us around the ship, all the doctors and nurses that worked their miracles, and Lt. Battcock that explained to us the ins and outs of the US Navy. Even Lt. Osmond with his eye exams for all of us, and his witty conversation about Cousin Donny!

As I was walking down the corridors of your ship I found myself wanting to reach out and hug each and everyone of your team, from the doctors to the nurses, down to the dishwashers, just to remind them that we do appreciate what they do day in and day out. Everyone was super friendly and so attentive. It has been a long time since I have been around such contagious positive energy. Without each and every one of your team our kid’s lives would have been hopeless. You gave our kids a new outlook, and a new beginning. Not to be better than, but just to be like other kids, that’s all they really want. Thank you all for being so selfless, and so kind.

My daughter, Ally, was with me on the ship, she is 6 years old. So many of you stopped to chat with her, which made her feel even more important than she already felt on board. Afterwards, each time, one of you looked at me and told me how much you missed your own children. As a mother, I finally realized the sacrifice you all make being away from your families. If it is any consolation at all, even though you are missing yours, know that we will be forever grateful for your time spent with us.

So I write this as the ‘little guy’ who’s motto is, “You don’t have to change the world, just change a life”, and that you all have helped me to do! Thank you just doesn’t seem like enough to say really. Just know that we truly appreciate everything you have done to change the lives of our kids here in Puerto Plata.

Although I am Canadian, I find the need to say……….GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!!!

With much love and gratitude,

Cathy Flynn

Thank you Cathy, and may God bless you and all your work with the people of the Dominican Republic!

Day in the OR!

2009-04-28T20:48:00.003-04:00

Wow, was today a blast! Thirty years ago next month, I graduated from Operating Room Technician School in Bethesda Maryland and started a nearly five year run as an OR Tech. 25 years, four months ago, I scrubed my last case as I headed off to do other things in my Navy career. Today, that dry spell ended! I got to scrub in on two cases today: An umbilical hernia repair, and a hydrocele. The first case, I was scrubed in with one of the ship's Surgical Techs (they changed the name a few years back, now they're called Surgical Techs instead of OR Techs). But the second case, I was on my own!

Lot's of people here on the ship have asked me if it was like "riding a bike." I guess it was kind of like riding a bike, but it will take a while to not be wobbly on it! Hopefully I'll get a chance to do this some more in the days ahead!

Some Great Pics!

2009-04-26T15:37:00.000-04:00

Our Public Affairs Office has put together some fantastic composit pictures of our work so far in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The picture above is one of those.

Today was a great day! For the first time on this mission, I got a chance to get down to the OR and watch as some of our amazingly talented surgeons were doing some amazing surgeries! This picture is of a Cleft Pallet and Lip repair. I came in at almost the end and the results were amazing!
I viewed several surgeries and it brought back a lot of memories! For those of you who don't know, I was a Surgery Technician back in the late 1970s to the end of 1983. Things have changed a lot since then, but a lot of things are the same. While I didn't remember the names of all the instruments, many of them were very familiar. I plan to spend more time in the OR and hopefully will get a chance to scrub in again and assist directly with some of our surgical care.

Then there's the Big Tooth! Can you imagine how much fun it must be to wear this costume in 90+ degree heat for an hour or so? I have all the respect in the world for the folks who are bringing this educational opportunity to all these kids!

And speaking of educational opportunities, here is one of our Project Hope Nurse Educators teaching a class to a packed classroom in Santo Domingo! These folks are providing exceptional training to hundreds of our Host Nation medical professionals.

And for you Hillary fans: The Secretary of State swung by for a quick visit while we were in Haiti. She didn't make it to the ship, but she did tour one of our Medical Sites. That's our Mission Commander, Commodore Lineberry, showing her through the site.

A "High Five" is an appropriate Thank You to the hundreds of Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen, Public Health Officers, Foreign Nation Military, and Civilian Volunteers that are doing so much for so many!

Ashore in the Dominican Republic!

2009-04-24T21:07:00.000-04:00

Well, yesterday was not my day when it comes to this blog!

First, I went ashore and took lots of really great pictures of our various medical sites and activities. Then, I somehow deleted the whole folder, so all those pictures were lost.

Then last night, I wrote a long blog entry which I thought was published, but when I went into the blog today, it wasn't there!

Well, today is a new day. We are working hard in the Dominican Republic. We have over 200 people ashore each day doing everything from treating patients (human and animal), to teaching lectures, to fixing broken equipment, to building a new classroom for a school. Everyone is doing a great job!

Today our first rotation of Army reservists takes place. We have about 20 folks heading out and about 32 coming in. And in less than a week from now we will be swapping out about 100 others. This is a tough process and takes a lot of coordination. Most of that effort falls on our Director for Administration and her staff. LCDR Wooten and HMC Branum have spent hundreds of hours planning and coordinating this event!

Well, I have to get back to work!

Hello, Dom Rep!

2009-04-21T21:20:00.001-04:00

I woke up this morning and we were about to anchor off of Santo Domingo on the Southern side of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispanola with Haiti, but the two countries are about as different as night and day. In Haiti, the hills were bare, trash was burning, and the sea was full of debris floating by at all levels of the water column. Here in Dom Rep, the water is clean, the hills are green, and there is a modern city skyline in front of us!

But, we're not anchored in between two large peninsulas like we were in Haiti, so this afternoon, the ocean swells played havoc with our waterside platform!

Today was our setup day and we had about 30 people ashore setting up our two medical sites. Tomorrow we storm the beaches with about 240 of our folks going ashore to do great things!

Today also started our first rotation of personnel. During this deployment, we are having nearly 900 people come and go in roughly 30 day increments. This is the first time we've ever tried this, and this week is the first rotation. We already had two people leave tonight and over the next 10 days, we will say goodbye to about 150 of our crew, and say hello to another 150 who are joining us. I'll have to give my now famous "nothing goes down the toilet unless it comes out of your body or off a roll of toilet paper!" speach.

Well, it's been a long day and tomorrow will be here way too fast, so it's time for me to sign off and get to bed! I appreciate hearing from those of you who have been commenting on the blog! Keep it up! The only problem is that I can't seem to figure out how to click on something to reply back to you. So, feel free to send me your comments to my e-mail address: jdlarnerd@comfort.navy.mil.

Haiti in the Rearview Mirror!

2009-04-19T19:07:00.001-04:00

At about 4:30pm today we "shifted colors" and got underway headed out of Haiti. This has been an amazing experience: Being part of an awesome team, doing something that really changes lives, learning skills that enhance our ability to respond to disasters wherever they occur, and having a chance to share that with family and friends back home. I never even kept a journal before, let alone a blog!

So here's what we did: We had over 7,000 patient encounters providing over 30,000 healthcare services. We operated on 158 children and adults and had 4400 education encounters. These included thousands of Dental visits, Optometry, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Cardiology, Dermatology, Physical Therapy, Women's Health, Orthopedics, General Surgery, Pediatric General Surgery, Pediatric Orthopedics, Urology, Opthalmology, Plastic surgery, and no doubt others I can't remember off the top of my head. We built a new pharmacy for the General Hospital and rehabilitated the floor in a staff dormatory. Our Vets treated thousands of animals and our Bio-Med Equipment repair technicians repaired hundreds of pieces of medical equipment. We entertained 336 visitors onboard the ship, including surgeons and anesthesiology residents who worked side-by-side with our surgeons. We delivered 350 pallets of material for the Haitian people including 1.4 Million meals provided by Project Handclasp and Food for the Poor. Our U.S. Air Force Band played numerous concerts and taught introduction to musical instruments to a school full of children. Our Civilian Mariners and Boat Detachment provided training on small engine repair and inventory management for the Haitian Coast Guard. Our Chaplain led two projects that rehabilitated two parks and painted a new Surgery Center.

It has been such an honor to serve with every person on this ship! Most of us are working 14-16 hour days with many people working longer than that. Tomorrow I'm able to let most of our team sleep in a little: No boats getting underway to 5:45am! One day of rest, then back at it!

Well, I have to head down for our post-Haiti brief. Tonight we will wrap up Haiti. We're already on our way to the Dominican Republic.

Bye! Bye! Haiti

2009-04-18T22:59:00.000-04:00

We just finished our last Confirmation brief for Haiti. A confirmation brief is a description of the plan for the following day, as well as an opportunity to thank people who have made particular contributions to the mission. It was quite a night! We heard the plan for tomorrow's retrograde from Haiti (moving all our stuff back aboard the ship). We also heard some comments from Mama V, an American missionary who has been working in Haiti for the last nine years, building orphanages, medical clinics, and now a new surgery center.

We also heard from two of our Haitian partner surgeons who have been onboard working with our surgeons to care for the people of Haiti.

It's been a long day, but I did want to jot down some thoughts before I hit the rack.

Haiti has been such an eye opener! Here is a people, who for no fault of their own live in country about the size of Maine, with 9.2 Million people crammed in. I've seen my share of people in America, standing around piles of filth, begging for something. But I've never seen such a population where for an entire day, I was looking, I couldn't find a single person who was smoking, neither did I find anyone consuming alcohol. It was almost sureal. You could tell that the people were in great need, but their clothing was for the most part appropriate and clean. Mothers caring for their children to the best that they could. Men doing whatever they could to earn a living. They are a beautiful people.

Today, nine artists came aboard to sell their wares on the ship. I bought two things: A ceramic statuette of a mother holding her child, and a painting. I wanted a painting that would remind me of Haiti whenever I saw it. It was hard. Most of the paintings were beautiful buildings on tree lined, spotless streets. Exactly the antithesis of Haiti so that wasn't right. And then I found my painting: It is a beautiful abstract, painted with the vibrant colors of the carribean, and at the same time, capturing the death of Christ on the cross. The vibrance of life juxtaposed against the blackness of death.

I was going to title this entry "Haiti By Ship" and I was going to show you pictures of Master Chief Lohner sitting on the floor playing with the little kids. But I somehow deleted these great shots from my camera. Oh well, I did get a couple of pictures of kids and patients onboard the ship, and I'll upload those pictures when I get a chance.

OK, I can no longer keep my eyes open. I'll add pictures tomorrow. Good Night!!

Haiti from the Air

2009-04-16T13:41:00.000-04:00

Below is some of the pictures I took the other day from the air of Haiti. Haiti is one of the most densly populated countries in the world wiht over 800 people per square mile over the entire country. Here is Port-au-Prince, the density is many times that rate! There are people everywhere! Traffic is unbelievable with everyone pretty much driving wherever they can!

Well, I'm headed out to the flight deck for our first Cinema at Sea! Tonight we're watching "Taken" shown against the side of our Helo Shelter! Time to pop up some popcorn and head out to the movies!

Haiti Ashore

2009-04-14T17:09:00.000-04:00

Well I finally made it ashore in Haiti! I left COMFORT by helicopter at about 6:30am and we flew over our various sites before setting down at the Main Port HLZ (Helicopter Landing Zone). From there we traveled to the General Hospital to look at two engineering projects the SeaBees have been working as well as two education sites.

Following the visit to General Hospital, we went to the Cite Soleil Medical Site. At Cite Soleil I learned that CDR Vanscoy's family reads this blog, so here is a picture of the good Commander on site at Cite Soleil!

From Cite Soleil we traveled by boat to the other side of Port Au Prince to the Medical site at the Haitian Coast Guard base. From there we returned by boat to the COMFORT! Along the way, we circled the Coast Guard cutter THETIS who was here delivering Humanitarian supplies to the people of Haiti. Helecopters from COMFORT ferried the supplies ashore.

I will hopefully get a chance to get ashore earlier in each site that we visit. The trip today was very important to get an awareness of what our folks were facing ashore. Every one of our 150 people who go ashore each day do an awesome job in very difficult conditions. While we can't even begin to touch the need here in Haiti, for those several thousand who will receive care, they are getting it from true professionals who truly care for the people of Haiti!

Dinner!!!

2009-04-13T22:25:00.001-04:00

Ah what a great day in the kitchen! I got to serve dinner tonight to probably 500 of my closest friends! Meatloaf and Chicken Cachitore (sp?). It was me, the Commodore's Chief of Staff, and my boss, CAPT Ware serving food; and the Commodore was working in the scullery doin' the dishes! It was fun, but what I was doing was just a small part of what our Food Service Assistants do every day, that it really doesn't compare at all.

It was a mental release though! Every day I am dealing with all kinds of issues that make me have to think. It was fun for a little while to just ask, "Meatloar or Chicken? Noodles or mashed potatoes? Pease or squash? Do you want gravy on those potatoes?" I was working the line for about an hour and forty-five minutes, but it went flying by! I'm sure I'll do it again while we're out. We have encouraged all of our NOG's (Naturally Occuring Groups) to volunteer to spend some time in the galley while we're on deployment. So in addition to being part of the Command Leadership Team, I'm also a member of the O-6 NOG (Captain's on board), a member of the MSC NOG (Medical Service Corps Officers), a member of the ROS NOG (Reduced Operating Status group), and I'm a member of the Egg NOG. Actually, I just made that last one up!

Oh well, it's almost 10:00pm and my helo is taking off at 6:00am tomorrow to fly me over to the sites ashore so that I can see for myself what's happening. We've seen about 2,000 patients so far and have provided over 7,000 services. We've performed roughly 30 surgeries so far and will do another 120 or so before we leave. We did our first clef-lip repair today as well as our first club-foot repair. We are pinning at least two broken femurs (the thigh bone) which will allow the two patients to walk again.

Anyway, doing lots of neat things! I've got to get to bed!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T18:18:00.000-04:00

What a beautiful day today was in Haiti! The morning started out warm with beautiful blue skys! We sent our first boats ashore today at 5:45am, but for those who remained onboard, we celebrated Easter with a sunrise worship service on our flight deck. Normally, that wouldn't have been possible, because the helicopters start flight operations about 5:30am and no one is allowed on the flight deck once flight quarters is set.

But last night, the Air Detachment announced that they were going to be doing some maintenance on their birds today and that there wouldn't be any flight ops. So we quickly decided to hold a service on the flight deck instead of up on the bow where we would have battled the noise from large air intakes for the ship. It was a beautiful service!

I am including a few pictures of our shore operations from Saturday. I was planning on going ashore today, but that needed to be rescheduled for Tuesday, so these aren't pictures I took.

I've got to run if I'm going to get any dinner tonight! Happy Easter to you all!

Corpsman, Up!

2009-04-11T12:23:00.000-04:00

Corpsman, Up! A phrase that has been synonymous with the engagement of the Navy Medical Department in eleviating suffering for many years. The Navy Hospital Corpsman is the medic who accompanies our Marines in the field and provides the first level of medical care to the sick and injured.

Yesterday, Navy Medicine engaged the medical needs of the people of Haiti!

We had approximately 150 people ashore. They finished setting up our two Medical/Dental sites, our Surgical Screening site, and a Professional Education site. Patient care started as soon as they were set up, and hundreds of people were served.

Our Surgical Screening site scheduled the first 72 patients for surgery on COMFORT and our first patient arrived onboard for care. Her name is Neritza Dor, a 15 month old little girl. Her mom led the way up the brow from our newly installed waterside platform. We're not quite sure how this platform will work when we're anchored somewhere where we have heavy seas, but for now, it is working great!

Meanwhile, ashore, one of our OR Nurses, Ensign Kathleen Kostka gives a "High-Five" to one of the Haitian children at the site.

I will be going ashore tomorrow to see first-hand how things are going. I'll take pictures!

Arrival in Haiti

2009-04-09T09:16:00.000-04:00

We dropped anchor off the coast of Port Au Prince, Haiti at about 7:00am ths morning. There were fishing boats in the water as the coastline appeared through the mist.

Our first boat will go ashore in about 10 minutes as we begin our 10 day stay in Haiti. Today is a Logistics prep day. We will be moving lots of pallets of equipment and supplies ashore and will be setting up two Medical sites: One onboard the Haitian Coast Guard base at Killick, and one in the City Soliel section of Port Au Prince. Additionally, we already have SeaBees ashore renovating a dormatory at the General Hospital. Over the next few days we will have two teams of Bio-medical Repair people fixing broken medical equipment, Veterinarians treating livestock and other animals. We will have other volunteers painting and fixing up several projects around the city, and educators providing professional nursing and medical education to local health care providers.

We will also be running two outpatient medical sites, complete with optometry and dental services as well as Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Women's Health, etc. Our surgeons will start screening patients for the Operating Room and we will start our first surgies on Saturday morning.

Anyway, it's about to get busy! Got to go!

First Stop: Miami!!

2009-04-05T23:37:00.000-04:00

Three days underway and we pulled into the beautiful Port of Miami, Florida!

We were met by a fire boat who trumpeted our arrival with a water display. There were a couple of big cruise liners in port as we came in. People were on deck waiving at us as we past by. It was kind of funny: All those people paying all that money to have everything done for them, and here we are getting paid all this money to do everything for ourselves! I have a new slogan for the Navy: Mirror Image Cruises!

Miami has been very nice and very hectic. Yesterday we had about 325 visitors aboard for tours and about 100 people check-in for the mission. We had a VIP luncheon with five Flag Officers in attendance (Army and Air Force Generals), CEO's from several Non-Governmental Organizations. Just when we thought it was all going to settle down, we got the Miami-Dade County Commissioner onboard. By the time 6:00pm came around, I was wooped.

I went to dinner with our Chaplain, CDR Dave Oravec and our Director of Ancillary Services, CAPT Christine Howe. We ate at this great restaurant in Miami Beach called Joe's Stone Crabs. I should have known this was going to be expensive when everyone serving tables in the restaurant were wearing tuxedos. Not 20 year old, ratty looking tuxedos with yellow shirts, but nice, crisp looking tuxedos with spotless white shirts, studs, and perfectly tied bow ties.

I also knew it was popular because our wait for a table was one and a half hours! So we wandered around the area for awhile and found this nice Greek restaurant where we were able to sit down and blow the froth off a couple while we were waiting. It really had a great atmosphere with kids dancing on the tables, and Greek music playing. Made me think I was in My Big Fat Greek Wedding!

Well, this morning we set sail and put Miami to our stern as we head Southeast toward Haiti. Everyone is excited to get there and to start providing medical care! Our entire first phase crew is aboard: 906 people set sail today!

The Helos are aboard, our crew is assembled, the ship is steaming at full speed, and we're ready to hit the ground running!

GO!!!!

2009-04-04T22:33:00.000-04:00

And we're off!!! Continuing Promise 2009 is underway!!

We left Naval Station Norfolk at about 11:00am on Wednesday, April 1, 2009 and headed out into the Atlantic ocean, bound for Miami, Florida!

I said goodbye to the love of my life that morning on the pier. It is so hard to say good-bye! Debbie dropped me off in the morning and headed home to Maryland to help our daughter, Shannon, start painting the house they purchased on Tuesday! Congratulations Shannon on your new home! It will be a great place for Trey and Izzy to grow up, and I'm so glad that Debbie was there to help you get ready for the big move!

Debbie knew that she needed to get right on the road early in the morning to make it home in time to help Shannon, but it was so great that she was able to come down here with me for three nights before I got underway! And a big Thank You goes out to Justin and Shannon King for watching Ruffy for us while Deb was in Virginia!

There weren't a lot of people on the pier to say good-bye to us, but Debbie arranged for some dear friends of ours from the Tidewater area to be there to wish me well! Thank you Beth and kids for making my send-off very special! And thank you Debbie for making it all happen!

As we headed out to sea, we passed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, effectively marking the boundry between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

Then comes the obligatory "Abandon Ship" drill, where we all pretend we're screaming and gather on the flight deck, kind of like the last part in Titanic, just before the ship sank! This picture is of me, my boss (CAPT Ware), the mission commander, Commodore Lineberry, and his Chief of Staff, CDR Scott Battle.

Then it came time to prepare for the arrival of our helicopters. Shown in this picture is the flight-deck crew preparing for the arrival of our two MH-60 helicopters from HSC-26 out of Norfolk, VA. The detachment aboard USNS COMFORT have created their own special patch to signify this deployment. They are called "The Witchdoctors of USNS COMFORT" I'll try to get a picture of their patch in the days ahead!

April 1st is the birthday of the Chief Petty Officer community. We had a celebration with an AWESOME cake, baked especially for the occasion by our Culinary Specialists aboard! 116 years of tradition! Hammered into place, one nail at a time by our Command Master Chief, who was there from the beginning!

I thought our day getting underway was a long one, but that was only a precursor to what lie ahead! Typically my day starts at 6:00am when reville is sounded throughout the ship: "Reville, Reville, All Hands Turn To." It typically ends about an hour after Taps (10:00pm) and it's usually about 11:30pm by the time I hit the rack.

As long as those days are, it seems like they fly by. Before I even know it, it's lunchtime. Dinner is here before I know it, and one of the biggest challenges I find is in getting to evening "Chow" before the galley closes! I'm afraid I'm going to whither away to nothing! (Probably won't happen on this cruise!)

Oh well, CP-09 has begun and that means every day in is one day closer to the end! Here's a picture that shows some of the 550 pallets of donated material we are taking with us! Everyplace that we can stick pallets inside is full, so the Mariners along with our Marine Load Master, put a hundred or so pallets on the storeroom roof!

We're headed to Miami first! Followed by Haiti, Dominican Republic, Antigua Barbuda, Columbia, Panama, El Salvador, and Nicaragua!

Set!

2009-03-29T19:22:00.000-04:00

What a week! Non-Stop! We've loaded hundreds of pallets of supplies and gifts from various organizations for us to take on our mission. We've exercised our daily rhythm for the deployment. We've solved lots of problems and found even more!

Seems like lots of people want to come see the worlds finest Hospital Ship! We've had lots of tours. The pictures here were a tour with members of the Joint Forces Command Surgeon's Office. Speaking of which, I don't think I've really shared with our readers what this ship is like: The Mighty USNS COMFORT. To put her in perspective, she's 12 feet longer, 14 feet wider, and 17,000 tons heavier than the Titanic.

We are the fourth largest shock-trauma hospital in the United States. We have 50 casualty receiving beds (equivalent to a shock-trauma ER), 12 Operating Rooms, 20 Post Anesthesia Care Unit beds, 80 Intensive Care Beds, 440 Moderate Care beds, and 440 Minimal Care beds. Four digital X-ray suites, one CT Scanner, a fully capable Laboratory, a blood bank capable of carrying 5,000 units of fresh and frozen blood, an extensive Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Bio-Medical Repair, a Galley (Food Service Department) that can produce 7,500 meals per day, a Laundry, an O2/N2 plant that produces all our oxygen needs, the ability to make 300,000 gallons/day of fresh water from sea water, and we can go anywhere in the world to bring this care where it's needed!

I was able to take some of our staff to the USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH tied up across the pier from us. We had lunch with the Senior Medical Officer (CAPT Lee Mandel, MC, USN) and got a great tour of the ship. From the Bridge, we were able to see out across the flight deck and get an eagle-eyes view of the Mighty USNS COMFORT!! It must be exciting being on the BUSH and being able to look over at the COMFORT !!

I had to run home this weekend to take my car back up to Maryland and Debbie has come back with me to see us off! Only a few days left till the fun really begins!!

A few more days, and we're on our way! Ready, Set, . . .

Ready!

2009-03-24T21:38:00.000-04:00

Monday was our first day exercising our "Battle Rhythm." A Battle Rhythm is the schedule of events that takes place each day to accomplish our mission. It includes meetings to evaluate today's environment that we're working in; meetings to lock in all the logistics for the next day's events; meetings to evaluate the data that is coming to us for down-stream countries that we will be visiting in the future; meetings to plan for the next day's operations; evaluation of today's operations and any lessons learned to improve tomorrow's performance.

The day starts with reveille at 6:00am and basically runs till Taps at 10:00pm. Except for those people who will be working all night to crunch the numbers, make the steam, run the generators, etc. And for those people going ashore the next day, their day will start at 4:30am, and as the sun crosses the horizon in the morning, they will be loading boats and helicopters to begin the mad dash that will be that day's mission.

As we sit here in Norfolk, we're not launching boats at 4:30am, but our days are full, non-stop, and a real pre-cursor to what's ahead. So last night, as the day wound down, a number of our folks headed to the bowling alley to unwind, throw a few balls down the lanes, and get ready for the days ahead.

Of particular note was CDR Mark Marino. A man committed to the Zen of Bowling.

Focused.
(Be the ball!)

Professional.

Giddy.

And then there's the Fun Boss.

A graduate of Pennsylvania State University.

A man dedicated to the concept of "Taking Fun Seriously."

A man who proposed "Keg and Eggs" for Easter. (I'm thinkin', maybe not!).

Here's a guy whose job it is to insure we have fun! How cool is that! If he does his job, we have fun! If not, he get's fired! Makes me feel like the Rich and Famous!

Bottom line is we have a great crew, who works hard, and when the day is done, they can let their hair down a little (OK, tough to do with a crew cut!), and have a good time together.

Less than a week before we leave Norfolk!

One Week Down! 19 Weeks to Go!

2009-03-20T18:27:00.000-04:00

Well, we've finished our first week in Norfolk! I can't say it's been the most pleasurable week of my life, but it has gone fast!

Our Mission Commander, Commodore Lineberry, shifted his flag from his headquarters on Little Creek Amphibious Base to onboard the USNS Comfort.

Almost as soon as he and his staff checked aboard, our computer network went down. Couldn't have happened at a better time. Here we are trying to tie down a million loose ends, everything from getting our crew onboard (even getting them all identified!), getting our supplies here, coordinating the delivery of hundreds of pallets of donated Gifts-in-Kind, finalizing arrangements for our Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) partners, foreign national partners and arrangements with our host nations. Dr. Tim Donahue, our Director of Surgical Services, and CDR Mark Marino, our Senior Nurse Executive had to leave the ship and use their Blackberry's to get work done! (Or maybe they're texting each other, it's hard to tell!).

Our Commanding Officer and Commodore Lineberry went to Florida this week to Brief the NAVSOUTH Commander, RADM Kernan on our preparations to begin our mission. That left me as the Acting CO while Captain Ware was gone. Ah! It's good to be King!

I went out for pizza with several of our folks and took some nice shots of the Mighty USNS COMFORT sitting next to the Mighty USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH. While the BUSH is a little bigger than us, we certainly hold our own next to her!

The week came to a great end when I was informed by our Information Technology team that our network was up! The firewall was properly configured and we were back in business!! What a great way to end the week!

Anchors Aweigh!

2009-03-14T20:08:00.000-04:00

"Anchors Aweigh my boys! Anchors Aweigh!
Farewell to college joys we sail at break of day-ay-ay-ay!
Through our last night ashore, drink to the foam!
Until we meet again, here's wishing you a happy voyage home!"

If a bad day at sea is better than a great day ashore, what is a great day at sea worth?

We had a great sail from Baltimore to Norfolk yesterday. We shifted colors at 4:00am and was well on our way down the bay at daybreak!

It was early in the morning as we sailed past the Naval Academy on our way down the Chesapeake Bay. The sky was gray, the bay was calm and the temperature was in the low 30's.

I went down to our Hospital Admin department to see how things were going. Over the previous couple of days we had received the first 200 or our "Full Operating Status" crew and Admin was hard at work making sure everyone was properly checked in and accounted for.

Captain Anderson, our Director of Medical Services came by and announced that it was snowing outside! Me and snow? You know I had to go!

After I went outside to check out the snow, I swung by the bridge to see how things were progressing up there. Our ship is operated by a crew of professional civilian mariners. These men and women are civilian employees of the Navy who operate many of our supply ships, oilers, ammunition ships, and in our case, our Hospital ships. We have 69 Mariners aboard. They drive the ship, make the steam, make the water, make the electricity, process our sewage, dispose of our trash, etc. We may be a great hospital, but if you don't have steam, water, electricity or a toilet, your pretty much up the creek!

We had just past the mouth of the Potomac river. We were right on course, ahead of schedule!

Several hours later we approached Pier 14 at Naval Station Norfolk. With the help of some tugs, our ship's Master, Captain Tom Finger, expertly spun this 894 foot long ship on a dime and backed us into the South side of the pier. I was up in my stateroom as we started the turn and to my surprise, we had a neighbor on the North side of our Pier: The Mighty USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH (CVN 77). A good friend of mine is the Senior Medical Officer onboard BUSH! I called his cell phone and let him know we were in town! Next week, he and his folks will come tour the COMFORT and our folks will get a chance to tour the newest aircraft carrier in the fleet!

At about 8:00pm, all the work was done, the watchbill was posted, the crew was ready, and I announced "Liberty Call!" Thus ended our first day at sea!

One Week To Go!

2009-03-08T20:37:00.001-04:00

Time is getting short! The Final Planning Conference is over! Our 176 guests have gone their separate ways, and we are counting down the final days to our deployment!

Tomorrow starts the first day of our activation process. We will be having approximately 100 people check aboard tomorrow. These are our non-medical support staff: Electronics technicians, Information Systems Technicians, Culinary Specialists, Ship's Servicement, Postal Clerks, etc. We will welcome them aboard, get them checked in, assign them berthing and get them started to work. Tomorrow our Communications Center starts 24 hour/7 days a week operations. Some of our crew will start sleeping on the ship starting tomorrow night.

This is exciting. For the last two years, the ship has been in what's called Reduced Operating Status. While in ROS, the crew consists of only 60 active duty and 18 civilian mariners. We keep things running and plan for the day that we're activated and bring in the other 90% of our crew. Well, tomorrow starts that process! By tomorrow night we'll be nearly 200 strong, and by the time we deploy on Friday, we'll have over 300 people aboard. The rest of our crew will join us in Norfolk and by the time April 1st rolls around and we start our mission, we will have over 850 people aboard representing all of our services (Army, Navy, Air Force, Public Health Service, Coast Guard), representatives from about five non-governmental organizations (Project Hope, UCSD Pre-Dental Society, Operation Smile, FACE, and Latter-Day Saints Ministries), and people from five other nations who are joining us on this mission (Canada, Netherlands, Great Brittan, France, Chile).

Tomorrow's a big day! Let the fun begin!

Final Planning Conference

2009-03-03T09:24:00.000-05:00

Today started our Final Planning Conference for the upcoming Continuing Promise-'09 mission.

We have at last count 115 planners and operators joining us for a three day push to put the final touches on our mission plan. This is the culmination of over six months of planning that has led us from a concept to a "ready to execute" plan. We have representatives from all seven countries, Canadians, Frenchmen, and others. We have Army, Navy, Air Force, Public Health Service, and representatives from most of the Non-Governmental Organizations who will be joining us on the mission (Project Hope, Operation Smile, University of California at San Diego, LDS Ministries, etc.) We are quite the eclectic group!

COMFORT is still in the throws of our yard period, so in addition to welcoming our guests, we are also loading lube oil and aviation fuel today! The smoking lamp is out!

My crew has been outstanding in getting us ready for this event: The dirt and grime of three months in a yard period was scrubbed away the drivers were assigned, the registration desk was manned, elevator operators, tour guides, greeters, Chief Cook and Bottle Washer all showed up at 0600 this morning with bright smiling faces ready to show off our ship and to take care of our guests!

It is such an honor to be associated with such a great crew and with such an important mission! Only about a week before we shove off from Baltimore! This is where it gets fun!

Prepare to Get Underway!

2009-03-01T21:01:00.000-05:00

We are now two weeks from the beginning of our mission: Continuing Promise '09! A nearly five month long mission for the USNS COMFORT (T-AH 20) and her crew to Central and South America to provide humanitarian assistance in the form of medical care, surgical care, engineering projects, bio-medical equipment repair, education and training and numerous other ways to show that America cares.

Our mission will be to seven countries: Haiti, Dominican Republic, Antigua, Panama, Columbia, El Salvador and Nicaragua. We sail from Baltimore in mid-March headed for Norfolk, VA, where we will finish our outfitting and welcome aboard much of the crew who will join us in this challenge. On April 1, 2009, we will sail from Norfolk enroute to Haiti. 120 days later, on July 31, 2009, we will return to Norfolk to off-load remaining supplies and equipment and on or about August 5th, we will set sail for Baltimor and return to our berth.

Today we are finishing the final planning for the Final Planning Conference that is being hosted onboard the USNS COMFORT. God also saw fit to bless Baltimore with its first snow storm of the year! I had five inches of snow on my car this morning and it's still coming down! Oh well, Semper Gumbi, "Always Flexible!"

The ship is still under construction and we're about to have 100+ visitors including several Flag Officers and senior civilian officials, so today will no doubt be a busy one! So enough prattling on! Back to work!