Mercy begins humanitarian mission

By Rosemary Heiss
MSC Public Affairs

As Mercy pulls away from the pier in San Diego, 2nd Mate Art Davis looks out from the deck to get measurements for navigating out of the bay. Civil service mariners will navigate the ship throughout Pacific Partnership 2008.

On a cool, sunny day on Pier 1 at 32nd Street Naval Station in San Diego, waves of people climbed the brow of Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Mercy for the last time. They were the sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives saying goodbye to the mariners and Sailors who would spend the next four months underway for Pacific Partnership 2008.

The May 1 departure began the humanitarian, civic-assistance mission to Republic of the Philippines, Vietnam, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and the Federated States of Micronesia, though, because of Mercy's specialized capabilities, real-world contigencies could divert the ship from its mission at any time.

Pacific Partnership is a mission that will take medical, dental, veterinary, engineering and civic assistance to Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific to build on relationships that have developed during previous missions, such as the 2004 and 2005 tsunami relief efforts, Mercy's 2006 deployment and amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu's 2007 mission.

"In the 2004 tsunami, we stumbled into something great: ‘stethoscope diplomacy,'" said Mercy's Chief Engineer Joe Watts, a civil service mariner with MSC.

Military Sealift Command hospital ship USNS Mercy 3rd Mate Rich Paramore drives one of the ship’s two 33-foot utility boat, which will be used to transport patients between ship and shore during the four-month humanitarian mission.

Since then, civil service mariners, along with uniformed military personnel and nongovernmental organizations, have conducted humanitarian operations using Mercy and its sister ship Comfort, both 894-foot-long, white hospital ships.

During Mercy's 2006 mission, the ship visited the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia and East Timor and stayed in each country for about seven days.

"Every time we take this ship out, we get smarter about how to use it," said civil service master Capt. Robert Wiley. "What we learned from the 2006 mission was that we could have stayed in each country twice as long and never run out of ways to help the people there."

For the 2008 Pacific Partnership mission, Mercy will serve as a platform from which U.S. and foreign militaries and nongovernmental organizations can coordinate and carry out the humanitarian and civic activities in each country for up to 14 days each.

Mercy Engine Utilityman Bobby W. Waters welds a handle onto the new platform that the deck crew will use to move patients from utility boats into the ship. The new platform is more stable than that used during Mercy’s 2006 deployment because it will lock into position on the side of the ship instead of floating on the water beside the ship.

Much of Pacific Partnership's aid will be medical. In addition to military medical personnel from the United States and other countries, nongovernmental organizations will embark throughout the mission. During the 2006 mission, these organizations brought surgical capabilities and equipment that solved medical problems, one of the most obvious being children's cleft pallets.

"Out of all the jobs we have, this is the one where you can see the difference," said Watts. "Seeing kids walking around with deformities that we can help is pretty cool."

"Is this a ship that's a hospital or a hospital that's a ship?" asked Wiley rhetorically. The 10-foot by 10-foot red crosses say it's a hospital, but the propeller that moves it at up to 18 knots says it's a ship.

"It doesn't really matter," he concluded. "We all work together to make sure the mission is successful."

The 67 civil service mariners aboard are responsible for the ship's navigation, propulsion and engineering services. During the ship's 18-month reduced operating status prior to the mission, 12 mariners maintained the vessel.

The mariners' experience aboard Mercy for previous missions, combined with their expertise of life at sea, enabled them to quickly get the ship ready for the mission.

The engineering department pretested and inspected equipment, ordered all the necessary spare parts, and transferred 350,000 gallons of potable water that would sustain the ship until it could start using its distillation plant to produce up to 300,000 gallons of fresh water a day.

According to Watts, refrigeration Engineer Eddie Uy, Electronics Technician Dave Rowley, Deck Machinist Emelito Kabalican and 2nd Assistant Engineer Bruce Johnson were largely responsible for the effort that also included making sure everything worked perfectly – including air conditioning, light bulbs and electrical sockets in berthing.

"I like to think of Mercy as a five-star hotel," said Watts. "I want our passengers – the doctors and nurses, nongovernmental organizations and the uniformed Navy – to have everything they need while they're here."

Because of Mercy's size, the ship will not be able to pull pierside in any of the countries, so in addition to engineering and navigation, civil service mariners will also operate two 33-foot boats to ferry people between ship and shore in all five locations. The other mode of ship-to-shore transport will be two embarked H-60 helicopters. The boats have twice the passenger capacity of the helicopters, so the boats will greatly increase the number of people who will benefit from the mission.

The concept of using the utility boats to transport patients was developed before Mercy's 2006 mission by civil service mariners from the deck department. During the 2006 Mercy mission, the civil service mariners worked 14-hour days, transporting up to 600 people a day.

Boat operations are rigorous work for members of Mercy's deck department, but they love doing it, said 3rd Mate Rich Paramore, who smiled broadly as he talked about interacting with the people in the countries.

"[Able Seaman] Dale Witham – a gentle giant – always had swarms of kids around him because he'd hand out candy, and he'd patiently load older people who couldn't see into the boat," he said.

Though many of the civil service mariners are back on Mercy for the second or third time, some of them are new to the mission that is so different from other ships' in the MSC fleet.

"I've heard some of the stories about people who have been treated," said 3rd Assistant Engineer Spencer Pierce, who is on his first hospital-ship mission after spending his first year with MSC on an ammunition ship. "I'm anticipating a life-changing experience."