01-20-2005
Guest Column: No Relief in Sight for the Lincoln
By Ed Stanton
It has been three weeks since my ship, the USS Abraham Lincoln,
arrived off the Sumatran coast to aid the hundreds of thousands of
victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami that ravaged their coastline. Id
like to say that this has been a rewarding experience for us, but
it has not: Instead, it has been a frustrating and needlessly
dangerous exercise made even more difficult by the Indonesian
government and a traveling circus of so-called aid workers who have
invaded our spaces.
What really irritated me was a scene I witnessed in the Lincolns
wardroom a few days ago. I went in for breakfast as I usually do,
expecting to see the usual crowd of ships company officers in
khakis and air wing aviators in flight suits, drinking coffee and
exchanging rumors about when our ongoing humanitarian mission in
Sumatra is going to end.
What I saw instead was a mob of civilians sitting around like they
owned the place. They wore various colored vests with logos on the
back including Save The Children, World Health Organization and the
dreaded baby blue vest of the United Nations. Mixed in with this
crowd were a bunch of reporters, cameramen and Indonesian military
officers in uniform. They all carried cameras, sunglasses and fanny
packs like tourists on their way to Disneyland.
My warship had been transformed into a floating hotel for a bunch
of trifling do-gooders overnight.
As I went through the breakfast line, I overheard one of the U.N.
strap-hangers, a longhaired guy with a beard, make a sarcastic
comment to one of our food servers. He said something along the
lines of Nice china, really makes me feel special, in reference
to the fact that we were eating off of paper plates that day. It
was all I could do to keep from jerking him off his feet and
choking him, because I knew that the reason we were eating off
paper plates was to save dishwashing water so that we would have
more water to send ashore and save lives. That plus the fact that
he had no business being there in the first place.
My attitude towards these unwanted no-loads grew steadily worse
that day as I learned more from one of our junior officers who was
assigned to escort a group of them. It turns out that they had come
to Indonesia to assess the damage from the Dec. 26 tsunami.
Well, they could have turned on any TV in the world and seen that
the damage was total devastation. When they got to Sumatra with no
plan, no logistics support and no five-star hotels to stay in, they
threw themselves on the mercy of the U.S. Navy, which,
unfortunately, took them in. I guess our senior brass was hoping
for some good PR since this was about the time that the U.N. was
calling the United States stingy with our relief donations.
As a result of having to host these people, our severely
over-tasked SH-60 Seahawk helos, which were carrying tons of food
and water every day to the most inaccessible places in and around
Banda Aceh, are now used in great part to ferry these relief
workers from place to place every day and bring them back to their
guest bedrooms on the Lincoln at night. Despite their avowed
dedication to helping the victims, these relief workers will not
spend the night in-country, and have made us their guardians by
default.
When our wardroom treasurer approached the leader of the relief
group and asked him who was paying the mess bill for all the meals
they ate, the fellow replied, We arent paying, you can try to
bill the U.N. if you want to.
In addition to the relief workers, we routinely get tasked with
hauling around reporters and various low-level VIPs, which
further wastes valuable helo lift that could be used to carry
supplies. We had to dedicate two helos and a C-2 cargo plane for
America-hater Dan Rather and his entourage of door holders and
briefcase carriers from CBS News. Another camera crew was from MTV.
I doubt if well get any good PR from them, since the cable channel
is banned in Muslim countries. We also had to dedicate a helo and
crew to fly around the vice mayor of Phoenix, Ariz., one day.
Everyone wants in on the action.
As for the Indonesian officers, while their job is apparently to
encourage our leaving as soon as possible, all they seem to do in
the meantime is smoke cigarettes. They want our money and our help
but they dont want their population to see that Americans are
doing far more for them in two weeks than their own government has
ever done or will ever do for them.
To add a kick in the face to the USA and the Lincoln, the
Indonesian government announced it would not allow us to use their
airspace for routine training and flight proficiency operations
while we are saving the lives of their people, some of whom are
wearing Osama bin Ladin T-shirts as they grab at our food and
water. The ship has to steam out into international waters to
launch and recover jets, which makes our helos have to fly longer
distances and burn more fuel.
What is even worse than trying to help people who totally reject
everything we stand for is that our combat readiness has suffered
for it.
An aircraft carrier is an instrument of national policy and the big
stick she carries is her air wing. An air wing has a set of very
demanding skills and they are highly perishable. We train hard
every day at sea to conduct actual air strikes, air defense,
maritime surveillance, close air support and many other missions
not to mention taking off and landing on a ship at sea.
Our safety regulations state that if a pilot does not get a night
carrier landing every seven days, he has to be re-qualified to land
on the ship. Today we have pilots who have now been over 25 days
without a trap due to being unable to use Indonesian airspace to
train. Normally it is when we are at sea that our readiness is at
its very peak. Thanks to the Indonesian government, we have to
waive our own safety rules just to get our pilots off the
deck.
In other words, the longer we stay here helping these people, the
more dangerous it gets for us to operate. We have already lost one
helicopter, which crashed in Banda Aceh while taking sailors ashore
to unload supplies from the C-130s. There were no relief workers on
that one.
Im all for helping the less fortunate, but it is time to give this
mission to somebody other than the U.S. Navy. Our ship was supposed
to be home on Feb. 3 and now we have no idea how long we will be
here. American taxpayers are spending millions per day to keep this
ship at sea and getting no training value out of it. As a result,
we will come home in a lower state of readiness than when we left
due to the lack of flying while supporting the tsunami relief
effort.
I hope we get some good PR in the Muslim world out of it. After
all, this is Americans saving the lives of Muslims. I have my
doubts.
Ed Stanton is the pen name of a career U.S. Navy officer currently
serving with the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group. Send
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