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The NY Times reports on unfortunate news from the ship I’d most like to sail on, the Hospital Ship Mercy. They write:

Though countries in Southeast Asia have, with American help, been making some headway against terrorist groups in the region, as Eric Schmitt reported in The New York Times today, there are also “worrisome signs that the threat could rebound quickly,” Mr. Schmitt reported.

Right on cue, then, comes the news today that the United States Navy is calling a halt to a humanitarian mission in Mindanao in the strife-torn southern Philippines because someone shot at and hit one of its helicopters.

The Associated Press reports that the helicopter had flown inland from the U.S.N.S. Mercy, a hospital and relief ship, to pick up 11 passengers, and when it returned to the ship, mechanics found two holes in it:
“The holes appear to be an entry and exit point from a single bullet,” said Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis, a Navy spokesman.

It is unclear if the bullet struck while the passengers were on the helicopter, he said. There were no injuries, and the aircraft’s commander was unaware of any bullet striking the aircraft during the flight, Davis said.

Who would shoot at a helicopter on a humanitarian mission? Continue Reading…

While the ship is owned by the United State’s Military Sealift Command (the civilian branch of the US Navy) and the hospital is staffed primarily by Navy personel the ship itself is run by civilian mariners. In a previous post we write:

The Hospital Ships Comfort and Mercy are maintained in reduced-operating status (ROS), at their homeports, on standby to sail within five days of notification. While on ROS, the ships have only small crews. The Comfort, for example, has 58 Navy personnel and 18 civilian mariners on board, explained her civilian captain, Master Mariner Dean Bradford, in a tour of his vessel.

A full description of the ship’s mission can be found HERE.

Back in June we brought you the departure of one of our favorite ships, the USNS Comfort hospital ship. You can read that article including ship details HERE. Today PilotOnline has news of the ship’s return to the states. They tell us;

America’s high-tech, smart-bombing Navy could be seeing its future in a pair of hulking former oil tankers and their patchwork crews of civilian and military mariners and medical specialists.

Adm. Gary Roughead, the Navy’s chief of naval operations, on Friday told the crew of the hospital ship Comfort that its four-month cruise points the way toward other medical missions aimed at adding combat prevention to the Navy’s warfare portfolio.

“There’s another part to defending our country and another part to advancing our strategic interests,” he said, “and that’s to reach out to other people and to cooperate with other people.”

Roughead, who took over as chief last month, said fostering international goodwill has always been one of the Navy’s missions. But the Baltimore-based Comfort’s cruise, along with a similar Pacific deployment last year by the San Diego-based hospital ship Mercy, heralds an intensified effort to use the Navy to strengthen America’s image abroad, he said.

The Comfort’s medical staff treated more than 98,000 patients in or offshore from a dozen countries during its voyage, straightening teeth and fixing cleft palates, administering about 32,000 vaccinations, and dispensing more than 24,000 pairs of prescription and reading glasses.

The ship also carried a group of engineers who went ashore in several countries to dig or repair wells and sewage treatment facilities.

Read the full article HERE.