Chapter 1



“The Whale’s Asshole & Other ‘Tails’:

45 Days Aboard The USNS Mercy”

by

Willie Goldman

July 4, 2005

wgoldman@

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for this first time.”

-T.S. Eliot

“The journey’s the thing.”

-Many

Preface

“Be Careful What You Wish For”

“Do you have any camping gear? Sleeping bags, backpacks, those sorts of things?”

My mind was still drunk with anxiety at the news I just received. As my eyes swept the room, I took mental inventory of my gear: a bag of trail mix, a barely working flashlight, and my childhood sleeping bag - so old it still had “Willie” written in it in my mom’s handwriting. So of course the only response I could give the Admiral on the other end of the phone was, “Yeah, got it all right here.”

“Okay then, we’ll see you at Pearl Harbor in 12 hours.” Click.

Oh man, now I’ve done it. Still awash with incredulity, I called my family first, and let them know I’d be gone for an indeterminate amount of time, “Call us as soon as you get there my baby,” my mom said. Baby? I’m 32. “I don’t think they have phones on board, but I’ll do my best.” My friends offered up a broad spectrum of well-wishes, everything from “Have a blast!” to “Don’t get raped.” Comedians.

I scrambled like mad, plowing through some of the worst rain L.A. had seen in years, and bought everything I thought I might need: sunscreen, sunglasses, new socks, Dramamine, some DVDs, etc. Raced home, jammed everything into three bags, and grabbed some sleep for a few hours before heading for the Burbank airport. I had never been to Hawaii before, and from what I understood, we’d only be there for 24 hours before leaving the island. At least I could finally check another state off my "states visited" list – hell, by the time this was over, I’d end up crossing entire countries off my list.

While I *was* extremely nervous, I couldn’t have been happier to be leave the water logged streets and gunmetal grey skies behind. Just as we were taking off, I noticed the sun finally making a much welcome appearance over Los Angeles. The rays pouring into the cabin had a momentary tranquilizing effect, and added to my delight in having a few hours of rest over the Pacific. But just as I closed my eyes, it all hit me at once:

Is this really happening? What am I doing? What were these Navy people going to think of me? How would I be received? I’ve never even been on a real cruise before, let alone a Navy ship. Am I really up for this? How did I get here?

The quick and dirty version is that I had written a treatment for a television show pilot set aboard one of the U.S. Navy’s two hospital ships. In the real world, the USNS Comfort on the East coast had seen a lot more action than her San Diego based sister ship, the USNS Mercy. A week after the tsunami hit Southeast Asia, an international relief effort coalition was formed, the American arm of which was called Operation Unified Assistance. This prompted Washington to send the Mercy on one of her first real missions in years (the war in Iraq fell under the Comfort’s AOR, or area of responsibility).

Because we had already been working closely with the Pentagon on their assistance with the project, they called and asked if I wanted to do a ride along. Less than 24 hours later, I was on a plane over the Pacific trying to catch up with the ship on her way to “somewhere” in Indonesia.

It’s now months later now, and as friends and family continue to ask what the whole trip was like, I can never manage to find the right words. Words and clichés like, amazing, unbelievable, life-changing, etc. ring hollow. So much happened in such a short amount of time, there’s no way to reduce it into simple conversation. The best I can come up with is that the entire journey was two very different trips in one. The first, was just me getting used to “Navy Life.” I’ve never been at sea over night, have never been on any sort of real cruise, so all of this was astoundingly new.

Unfortunately, the ship is relatively slow, even at top speed, so there was a long stretch of time (and ocean) where there was not much to do. Perfect for me, as this gave me plenty of opportunity to meet everyone under non-stressful circumstances. If I had to use one word, to describe this leg, it would simply be, “fun.” The people were great, the ocean (by day and night) was mesmerizing, I had plenty of time to write, tour the ship, conduct interviews, and get to know everyone. Exactly the sort of research I needed to be doing. After cutting loose after our arrival in Singapore, and on-loading a few hundred docs and nurses, the atmosphere began to change. In just a few days, we’d reach our destination, and even thought we’d seen pictures and videos, no one knew what expect.

For me, the second half of our journey began the instant we woke up just a few hundred feet off the port bow of the USS Abraham Lincoln. It’s one thing to see a carrier on TV, on Pier 86 in New York, or even off Coronado Island in San Diego. But to see one here, live, commencing flight ops -- it was a searing jolt of reality. If that wasn’t enough, there was a land mass just behind it; we were here, Indonesia.

While the trip here (from an outsiders perspective) was fun and light-hearted, and I knew things were going to be different once we were here -- well, the entire tone of the mission was about to change. It was time for this crew to go to work. I’ll leave the summary of what happened once we got there to the text below, but, as a final thought, well, there was a large period in my life when I seriously doubted if real heroes existed anymore. Now, for the rest of my life, I’ll always know they do.

So back to the question, “What was it like?” It’s too impossible to sum up quickly, so I’ll let you read for yourself.

The following are the emails I sent home from the mission.

email one

“Hello From The Pacific”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Hello From the Pacific

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil, vitaligo@, winches@, OAshtari@, Grant.Anderson@, southpawwinnie@, SDSTUDIOS@, travrussell@, David.Brown@, brentbaumbusch@, Jay.Potashnick@, jguilfoyle@, heyjoe@ucla.edu, jenkaysmith@, ReelAmour@, trevor@mission-, nicholas.bonomo@, nick@mission-, will@mission-, scott@, reillymt@, dana_leiken@, duff@, harry@triotech.demon.co.uk, jherndon02@, weber@, ARC60@, Diana.Kania@, kjulipa@, sansone_b@, barryjones@, ryan.condal@, briangabriel@, dr.gman21@, kimkusek@, Justin@, philipkim@, ilovetelevision@, jmssts@, wgoldman@, evilgenius@, JHyphen@, raylai@, hmpowell@, lionheart.brw@, helitzer@unm.edu, alan_bender@totalise.co.uk, stillpro@, brian_sansone@, deathspa@, jasoneaton@, jblanks@, mayhemmax@, m.marks@, lionheart.brw@, bryan@, brian_leiken@, sw@, Ken.Hommel@, rob@, sansonew@, annafricke@, jcarver123@, Gary.Mednick@, directorbob@, ShawnMorgan13@, Mike_Azzolino@

Hey, we just got our computers up and running, here’s my first update (we’re currently two days out of Pearl Harbor, headed towards Singapore):

 -Willie

Day 2 (January 12, 2005)

I'm sitting here in main admin, wondering what the best way into this is?  How do I put into words something that is so vast in scope, so much bigger than I ever imagined -- without being, well, too dramatic (especially since you all know just how dramatic I am).  Since this is the first time I've been able to sit in front of a computer in days (a record for me) let me just start with a recap of the past 24 hours.  Yesterday was...

Day 1 (January 11, 2005)

I flew into Oahu from Burbank, so glad to leave the water logged streets and gunmetal grey skies behind.  It had been, what? One day out of the previous 19 that we had actually seen the sun?  Of course as we took off, the sun was finally starting to come out, and I hope it's cleared up since.  The flight was fine, landing in Hawaii was pretty breathtaking – we banked over Diamond Head, crossed the beach at Waikiki, and touched down at Hilo.

As I stepped off the plane, the first thing that hit me was the air itself -- it was alive with a delicious scent unlike anything I’ve ever smelled. At the terminal, I waited outside the baggage claim next to the Spam & Papaya stand, when a white van with a US Navy logo pulled up curbside. That logo - I held my breath - here we go.

A Lieutenant from the PAO (Public Affairs Office jutted his head out the window, his eyes lit with a magnetic severity as he asked, "You’re the writer from L.A., right?"

“Yup.”

“Hey, how you doin' - yeah, hop on in! You know, I'm a writer too." Me: "No, really?"

Him: "Yup, I've read all the Ted Field books on screenwriting." Me: "Syd Field?" Him: "Yeah, him too. Check this out, I just finished my first screenplay."

"Oh that's great, congratulations. They say the first one -- "

"Wanna know what it's about?" Me: "Uh, yeah, sure. Hit me."

"It's about a serial killer." Me: "Wow, sounds fresh."

"Wait, it gets better - it all takes place in the future - it's about an *outer space* serial killer. What do you think? Do you like it?" Channeling my inner Paris Hilton, the only response I could muster was, "That's hot."

Luckily Pearl Harbor is about 5 minutes from the airport, so we arrived at the base in no time, and headed straight for "The Pier." The Pier is just what you think it is, but about 40 times larger.  The sight that unfolded outside the windshield halted both our thoughts -- the van crested a rise, and out past the Arizona memorial, through the loading cranes, and beyond the “grey hulls,” there she was -- my new home.

Wow.

It's so hard to say exactly what it's like when you see one of these ships for the first time.  I remember the look on Mike and David's faces when we visited the Mercy in San Diego -- huge doesn't describe it, majestic comes close, but it's more than that...  Maybe it's the fact the ship is bone white from stem to stern -- or the gigantic red crosses painted on the sides -- reminding you that ship isn't about war, or killing, or imposing America on the world -- this ex oil-tanker (there's some irony there I'm sure) is sent in to heal, to care, to help.  The name's Mercy and Comfort so appropriate this ship and crew.  There's a plaque here in main admin just outside the captain's office that reads "steaming to assist" -- can't really say it any better.

Anyway, after the Lieutenant took me to the ship and we parted ways, he called back over his retreating shoulder, "Good luck man, remember: space serial killer - think about it." As I filed that thought in the appropriate drawer in my head, I turned to face a titanic steel wall of white at my eye level.

To actually get on board, I had to climb a huge gangway, and then cross a gantry about 4 stories high.  Once inside, my bags and I were searched by the Marines and the MAA (Masters At Arms He-Man fans) - remind me to never bitch about airport security again. While I waited for them to finish laughing at my Yoda boxers, my new, ship-based escort arrived: Lieutenant Commander Wiederholt (I’m going to write a paper on last names in the armed services). Like everyone I had met so far, she was great: warm, welcoming, friendly.  As she took me into the ship, she said our first stop would be Main Admin. This is where I’d check in, get issued an ID, lifeboat number (#13 of course), and assigned a berthing area that I’d be sharing with seven others.

Main Admin is the center of all hospital related activity on the ship; imagine a 100 foot by 100 foot bullpen with about 20 workstations in the center.  Around the perimeter are various offices: the Executive Officer, or “XO’s,” office, the main conference room, the media center (a SMALL television studio with two DV cams, and an Adobe Premiere workstation), the MAA staging room, an I.T. room (it's hilarious how no matter where you go, these I.T. guys are all like Jimmy Fallon on SNL). 

Along the rear wall are 5 large cubicles: the chaplain's office, the PAO's office (my temporary office), the JAG and NCIS office (we had two lawyers onboard, and a legal assistant), a "training" office, and a "patient care" office.  The desks and everything else were bolted to the floor: computers, lockers, Xerox machines.  All the office chairs have duct-tape surrounding the wheels to keep them from rolling with the ship (which is kind of funny, cause a few aren't, so you’d witness people slowly roll back and forth across the floor as the ship moves). 

Everyone has a ton of questions about who I am, what we're trying to do with the show, etc.  But they're all enthusiastic.  After a quick night out in Waikiki (everyone had to report back to the ship by midnight), it was time to get underway. I woke to the sound of the engines thrumming, and went “up top” to watch Hawaii grow smaller on the horizon behind us. Because the Mercy is a converted supertanker, it rides light and high since it carries no oil. This gives the ship a great deal of freeboard: the area above the waterline that acts as a giant sail -- pushing the ship to and fro.

It was without the sheltered harbor of Hawaii that I first experienced seasickness.

Overall the ship’s movement could range from “dead calm” to “kill me please.” Well, there was a major storm in between ourselves and Guam, so we have to steer around it. Easy enough with all the high-tech navigational gear on board, but you can’t escape something that big without feeling some of its affects -- in this case: massive sea swells that would shotgun into the ship’s hull. About every five to seven seconds we’d SLOOOOOWWWWLLY dip from side to side, or stem to stern. (This produced a strange symphony of sounds from locations unknown: screeches, grinding, scratching, banging, clanging, rolling and bowling.)

When it was like this, I was relatively okay, as were most of the others - but apparently these swells only rated a 3 on a scale of 10 (remember the Willie Goldman seasickness numbering scale for future emails) -- and they were about to increase in frequency and severity. You know the story about Eskimos having close to 100 different words for snow?  Well, I was told to expect some "weather" ahead – and I quickly learned that "weather" also has multiple meanings. On the Mercy, “Weather” is some sort of Navy code word for "You're Going to Puke Till You Bleed and Beg For the Sweet Release of Death." 

Luckily there is a wonderful drug here called Meclizine which is like a uber-Dramamine.  The good news is that you chew it about an hour before you think you'll be getting motion sickness, and it works okay -- the bad news is that it knocks your ass out.  Good for me, since I have free reign to sleep where and whenever.  Bad if you're a seaman on duty and all you want to do is curl up into the fetal position and die.  Anyway, they've given me a ton of this stuff, and I'm eating it like candy. 

(Personal note: as I'm sitting here typing this, there's a looming, what must be a marine, just glaring at me.  He looks like a boulder with a personality to match.  I'm one of the few people onboard not dressed in uniform, so I kinda stand out a lot -- maybe in a "fresh meat" way to some of these guys.  Anyway, just overhearing this guy talk I can hear he's crusty on the outside, crusty on the inside.  I've come up with little nicknames for people, so this guy I'll call "Saltydog Thundercock."  Now old Thundercock here hates me, hates the Navy, hates being on this “God damn ship” ("a floating coffin" I think I just heard him call it), hates just being alive in general.)

As far as sleeping, and I never expected this – when you’re lying down, the swaying of the boat is like, well, being rocked in a cradle.  My hand to God, these nights of severe swells are some of the best sleep I've ever gotten in my life.  Could be the drugs, but the ship's movement creates a sort of rhythm in my head that’s incredibly sleep inducing, like an internal lullaby song -- sorry, have to stop for a moment -- I'm getting a lot of curious looks, followed by mini visits from people introducing themselves.  I was wondering when and if I'd get a nickname (I thought it might be "Hollywood", "Candy-Ass" or "Bitch-Boy"), but everyone just calls me "The Writer" (except for one guy who insists on calling me "Mr. Williams").  

So what were my actual quarters (berthing it’s called) like?  There's basically three "levels" you can be assigned to: enlisted (lower decks), officers (mid-decks), and executive officers (state rooms).  I've been assigned officer's quarters, while I'm not sure what you're picturing in your head, but that's not it.  When I saw my "room" for the first time (and the EIGHT bunks within) I chuckled and said, "Yeah, this is great.  Didn't they film "OZ" here?" 

No one here has seen that show apparently, so the joke was only funny to me.  My internal hilarity subsided when I selected my bunk according to which mattress had the least amount of "blood/oil" stains on it.  I called it blood/oil because the only thing that could possibly have stained this relic from the 70s is the offal from the Linda Blair puke scene in "The Exorcist."  Okay, I'm exaggerating slightly, and they DID give me fresh sheets to cover the mattress up with -- but I know not to expect any mints on my pillow.

The room itself was located close to the center of the ship, away from the sides to protect the occupants from any external attacks (remind me to mention the pirates later -- laugh now, cause that shit's scary).  The room was pretty much dorm style, with a few lockers for our gear, and a couple of metal drawers.  Again, everything's bolted down, or set into the wall, so it's not really furnished.  There's a small table and fridge, but for 8 of us, it was really nothing.  I don't envision getting any work done there - nor would I want to: there's no window to speak of, and it takes a few minutes to climb the stairwell, to reach the hallway, to reach the cargo doors, that open up to, wait for it...  the outside!  Ah, fresh sea air -- THIS must be what they pump into Vegas casinos that enables them to rape you for all your cash.  Speaking of rape, let's discuss the showers, shall we?

First thing they asked me when I got on board, was do I have shower shoes?  "What's that?" I asked ignorantly.  After the XO and another officer exchanged a glance that pretty much read, "pussy" -- they pulled an escort for me to go get some "shower shoes."  Now these are basically flip-flops worn while you shower for a variety of reasons…

…Where or where do I begin?  Should we start with the fact that the shower doesn't really drain, so you're standing in a fetid pool of water.  On a ship.  That's moving.  Back and forth.  Bathing your feet gelatinous goo that would cause even roto-rooter to ball into a corner and call for mommy.  So while that's sloshing around your feet, you're TRYING to get the single pee-stream of water to hit somewhere, ANYWHERE on your body.  Now the hot water comes straight from the boiler room, so as I was showering one morning I noticed pieces of my flesh melting away -- I jumped out – naked, and screamed.  Everyone else laughed and said, "Yeah, some of these only have hot water."  Now there's hot, and then there liquid fire -- guess which shower I got?

All kidding aside, the accommodations were fine, and when I toured what the enlisted guys get, I was pretty grateful.  The food is what it is (more on this real soon) -- it's not great, but there are plenty of staples: peanut butter, fruits, sodas and such.  They eat early, so that’s taking some adjustment.  But everyone approached me in the mess hall and loved to share their stories for my research. I did think I'd feel a little "new kid on the first day of school in the lunchroom,” but the mess was actually a lot of fun, and there were TV's everywhere piping in videos and MSNBC on satellite.

Aside from the in-house cable channels, we did have the internet to keep us entertained and in contact with family and friends. I was pretty amazed that the net access on the ship was so good. Talk about being wireless. The data stream goes from the ship here, to a satellite, then to either Naval Station Pearl Harbor (where an underwater cable connects directly to servers in San Diego), or from the satellite directly to "The Hospital" in San Diego. 

It's interesting to note just how much this ship is really just a mobile extension of the Naval Medical Center in San Diego.  The crew here speaks of "The Hospital" a lot, and it's this constant communication with home that allows them to perform tele-medecine (remote surgery & consults).  I've also been told internet access is a huge priority because of the morale affect.  Sailors who are able to communicate with home and loved ones are happy sailors.  Me, I just wanna do some web-surfing and check my email. 

There's so much more to say, but I'll try and space it all out.  They're about to show "Open Water" in the lounge (not sure if showing a shark movie in the middle of the Pacific is a great idea, but apparently the movie guy has a sick sense of humor - Titanic is on tomorrow night).  Oh, there's a gym on board as well, but apparently running on the treadmill on a moving ship inside a weight room is about as intelligent as calling the 6'4" cinder-block of a marine glaring at me, "chuckles."  So treadmill may be off the list. 

I'll speak more of the crew later.  As for the mission itself, I know there are daily updates on the PACCOM (Pacific Command) website.  We're supposed to stop in Singapore to pick up 300 NGO doctors and nurses, so in my mind 300 Swedish hippies chicks who "Just wanna party man..."  Once we get to Singapore, they'll let us know exactly where we're going.  Most likely, we'll moor off shore, and helicopters and boats will bring patients on board.  I took the media crew out for drinks in Hawaii last night, and they said I could helo with them inland when we get "wherever it is we're going." Can’t wait to take them up on the offer. 

Took lots of pics already.  Internet MAY be up soon.  More on all that later.  I'm off to the weather deck to check out the stars -- they tell me it's unlike anything I've ever seen before -- and even without stepping outside, nothing on this trip is like anything I've ever seen before. 

Hope you all are well, miss you guys, and I'll report back in as soon as I can. 

-Willie

email two

“Surrender Monkey”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Surrender Monkey

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 3 (January 13, 2005)

The internet is still down.  The I.T. guys are scrambling like mad, trying to locate the source of the problem.  The data stream goes from the ship here, to a satellite, then to either Naval Station Pearl Harbor (where an underwater cable connects directly to servers in San Diego), or from the satellite directly to "The Hospital" in San Diego.  It's interesting to note just how much this ship is really just a mobile extension of the San Diego medical hospital.  The crew here speaks of "The Hospital" a lot, and it's this constant communication with home that allows them to perform tele-medecine (remote surgery & consults).  I've also been told internet access is a huge priority because of the morale effect.  Sailors who are able to communicate with home and loved ones are happy sailors.  Me, I just wanna do some web-surfing and check email.  Speaking of, not sure when the net will be back up, so I'm sorry in advance for the long email.  I wanted to send these reports out daily, but for now they're stacking up, so don't fell like you have to read them all at once.

Uh-oh, old Thundercock is glaring at me from across the bullpen. What’s up with this guy? He’s studying me the way a wild animal would study a threat.   I swear he;s got a permanent ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign tattooed on his face. God I wish I had powers of invisibility right now.  Here he comes – he’s slitting his gaze, regarding me like I killed his dog or something.  Oh man, with a furrowed brow he speaks:

Him: “You French? I hate the French”

Me: “No.”

Him: “You sure, you look French.  Yeah, you look like one of them cheese eating surrender monkeys.”

Me: “I’m sure.”

This prompts no further response from him. He simply works his jaw with tension, grunts, and then heads off to harass some other poor soul. As he walks away, I bravely muster one word under my breath: “Bitch.”

-Willie

email three

“Day Number Five At Sea”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Day Number Five at Sea

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 5 (January 15, 2004)

Before I get to the fun stuff, and in case the military is reading my emails as one of you so thoughtfully pointed out with this bit of wit:

“Hey, since it's a military boat, are your emails being screened? Wouldn't that be a hoot if "Thundercock" was the guy whose job it was to read each and every email, and he read yours, and marked you for a midnight towel and soap beating? Yeah. I know. "Hoot" doesn't quite do the thought justice. Maybe "Super Hoot." (I'm just thinking off the top of my head...)”

Anyway... I did want to let you all know how incredibly affable and welcoming everyone here is. My main contact until the Public Affairs Officer comes on board is the Lt. Cdr. Wiederholt (again, people in the military have the most Byzantine last names) who's right next to me in main admin in the JAG office. Capt. David Llewellyn (who's head of the hospital - one of our two captains, the other, Captain Smith, "drives the boat"), is extremely generous with his time, and loves to pitch me story ideas for the show.

He's provided with a wealth of research materials (including a rare Discovery Channel special they did on Mercy's sister ship, the USNS Comfort). Commander Henry Villarel (chief of the boat) is his number two, and has promised to show me all around Singapore when we get in (read: send money now).

I spend a lot of time interviewing various department heads, talking to the docs and nurses, taking photos, making notes, and yes, even checking email. Because of where we are now (22nd parallel I think), we have an uplink to a Navy communications satellite, but the bandwidth is slow - so no downloading porn (or any movies for that matter). It's REALLY hot outside, and can only assume it's going to get worse as we get close to

the equator. Our next stop is Guam to pick up a security contingent, called a “Mobile Security Force” (and some .50 cal machine guns) - but we're only be there 6 hours so we

can reach Singapore as quickly as possible. This ship's a lot slower than I thought she'd be - I think we top out at 14 knots (one of the reason some people in the Pentagon feel mobile field hospitals are more effective - I think it depends on the mission). We're supposed to reach Singapore at the end of January, and then it's off to our AOR (Area of

Responsibility) - in this case, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the majority of the Tsunami affected region.

My main buddies are the guys in the PAO (Public Affairs Office) – they work in a small studio off admin called "Site" - and there's a ton of cool gear in there for me to play with (including monitors that display some of the Navy video feeds, so it's kinda cool). We'll eat together at least once a day, but I've been asked to spend time with executive officers in their dining area as well (as opposed to the enlisted mess).

The one thing I think I passed over in all the research we did, was noting how young most of these people are. So many times I meet someone new and think, "My God, they're just kids." Maybe it's me getting older, but it reminds of the soldiers on the ground in Iraq, and how so many of these guys have their whole lives ahead of them. That being said, they're fully equipped to handle the job ahead of them -- which

I'm sure I'll watch with a mixture of fondness, envy and awe. Now a lot of the Executive staff skews slightly older, and because we're a hospital ship, the docs and nurses are older then most of the personnel on other military ships ("grays" they call them here, since we're one of the few Navy ships that's painted white).

Okay, now onto the food. All I can say is write your Congressman boys and girls, 'cause this shit sucks. I ain't complaining 'cause it's free, but I'm complaining. Yesterday we're all waiting in this cafeteria-like line, and the only description on the little placard on the sneeze guard read was, "MEAT." Meat my ass, this gurgling swamp looked more like Dagobah on a good day.

I'm like, "What the hell?" So as I approach the all too friendly girl behind the and politely ask, "Could you tell me more about the "meat"?" She just looked at me blankly, and shrugged her shoulders -- her give-a-shit meter was set to zero.

Me: "No, seriously, what kind of meat is it?"

Her: "I dunno, beef, I guess."

Me: "But it's... Yellow. And it's got that sauce all over it?"

Her: "Could be chicken then, dunno."

At this point in time, several of the big scary guys dressed in cammo behind me start grunting because they want their "MEAT."

Her: "You're holding up the line. What'll it be?"

"You don't have any Ice-Blended Mochas back there do ya?"

Her face twisted with attitude, then:"Did you just call me a mocha?"

"No, it's a joke. Nevermind. I'll just have a roll."

As I moved down the line, I overheard the others gleefully request, “Meat please.” Trying to prevent me getting my ass beat later for holding up the line, I gestured towards the meat with a "getta load of this" thumb -- and in my best shit-eating tone:

“Well it's a good thing we're on a hospital ship.”

This received nothing but further annoyed looks and blank stares. Tough room.

Navy personnel don't like people making fun of their food. Especially smarmy little civilians dressed in obnoxious T-Shirts that read, "No, seriously. Who let the dogs out?"

Again, I gestured towards our dinner as I rubbed my tummy and channeled my inner Neal from “Freaks & Geeks,”

"Get it. Meat. Hospital ship.”

Again, ZERO reaction from the crowd.

“Ahh, just forget it...”

-Willie

email four

“The Whale’s Asshole”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: The Whale's Asshole

Date: January 18, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 6/7* (January 16/18, 2005)

*crossing the international date line, so we’re time traveling, no Monday January 17 for us.

My apologies in advance for the length on this one, but if you only read one of these updates ever again, make it this one:

-Willie

***

Well, given the mission ahead, and the routine of the sea, I seriously thought I was going to run out of jovial material to send you all after awhile. Oh. My. God. Was I ever so wrong. So very, very, wrong. Short of photographic evidence, accurately reporting the following story will not only test my mettle as a writer, but challenge my sanity in an "oh my God, did this really just happen?" sort of way.

Apparently after days at sea, people start to get a little bit punchy. Weeks, and well, the tendrils of lunacy reach into the brain. Years? Put a fork in 'em. As gorgeous as it is, the ocean sure does some funky shit to the minds of men. My head is still spinning in holy-shit wonder at the fuckmuppetry that just transpired. Let me paint you a picture, set the stage if you will...

One of the reasons we thought this concept would be such a good TV show is the whole element of duality it has going for it. Not to sound pompous, but here you have a gigantic ship with 2 very different crews: it's not entirely a Navy ship, and it's not entirely a civilian ship - it's a kind of hybrid with two crews: military (medical) and merchant marine (the boat drivers, or Civmars). Two captains: one for the boat, one for the hospital. And two very different missions: to assist our armed forces in times of war & conflict, and to offer humanitarian aid when called upon. Talk about opposing ideologies. This ship is a cocoon of conflict and drama: 2 crews, 2 captains, 2 missions, 1 boat - which brings me to a little known sea tradition called...

…The Whale's Asshole.

Now I don't know what comes to mind when you hear the words "Merchant Mariner", but there's one fella on the ship who is EXACTLY that guy. He's not big. He's a continent. Big bushy beard, wiry hair in perpetual disarray. Topping off this cliché were two massive forearms with, I swear, an "Anchor" tattooed on one. The only thing missing was one that read "Mom" (and yes, I did have a nickname for this guy, but it's been replaced with the one you're about to read).

One day I noticed some of the Merchant Mariners cutting up various bits of spare nylon fire hose (the thick fireman stuff). They were fashioning this 1 1/2" flat hose into strips about 3 feet long, and then tying little knots around the end. Kind of like a simple medieval mace, but made of carbon-fiber instead of metal. Later I’d catch glimpses of a few of these guys swinging these things coyfully -- like they're up to something. It actually reminded me a lot of Ben Affleck gearing up for his hazing rituals in "Dazed and Confused" (remember this for later). Anyway, they'd whistle and offer a broad smile as I'd pass them in the corridors. "Hey Wog", "Hello Wog", a few of them would call me.

After about the fourth "Wog", I decided to ask the XO exactly what that meant. He called me into his office, asked me to sit down, and shut the hatch behind me. As I took a seat on his couch, he leaned in, steepled his fingers, and explained:

"YOU are what's known as a Wog, a "Pollywog" actually. See, there’re lots of traditions out here, nicknames and labels help us keep track of who's seen lots of time at sea, and who hasn't. For instance, we just crossed the 180th parallel -- so now we're in the "Realm of the Golden Dragon." Once you've crossed the Arctic Circle, we can call you a "Blue Nose." If you've been out long enough, you'll get to the big one -- crossing the equator -- once you do that, you're no longer a 'Pollywog', but a 'Shellback.' The difference between the two matters not so much in life, but in death. For if you're a Shellback, on your death you travel to "Fiddler's Green" - a majestic eternity where there's plenty of whiskey and women. If you go through life a Pollywog, you may very well end up in "The Other Place."

Me: "Que pasa amigo?"

Him "A place so horrid, all the bottles have holes in them -- and none of the women do."

"Sounds like a bar I know in West Hollywood. Okay, I'm sold. Love to be a Shellback. Where do I sign up?"

A slight smile creased his lips, "It's not like that. One has to be initiated."

"Hey, I'm down, let's do this." (I was thinking, "Navy", "Initiation Rituals." No problem. Never, ever, ever again will I utter the words "Let's do this" in ignorance.)

"You went to college, right? Ever go through any crazy rituals?"

Me: "Oh yeah, my lacrosse team had us drink beer out of sweaty cleats."

His demeanor indicated, “Oh, real tough guy,” "You drank beer. Out of a shoe?"

With complete pride I responded, "Yup!"

Again, I'm regarded with a look that reads, "Pussy" (I was getting to be way to familiar with that look). I REALLY wanted to tell him that the beer in question had just been poured down the Grand Canyon known as our goalie's ass crack, but then I'd think he think I was crazy. (Mistake number 13 on my part so far if you're keeping track.)

"Sweet baby ears of corn - Lacrosse. That's not a sport. That's some sort of pansy-ass, rich-boy, Pollywog, after school 'activity'."

Me: "Well, we'd hit people. I broke my collarbone. Twice!"

A look of calm settled over his face, "Did it hurt?"

Me: "Fuck an A. Sir."

"Ah, okay. Good. You're used to it. That'll be all."

And with those words, I was dismissed. "Hmpf" I thought, "That's it?" Oh well. So after a not so memorable dinner ("MEATballs"), and an even less than memorable screening of "Resident Evil 2," I went off to bed...

...not knowing this would be the last time I was to sleep without fear, without the screams, without visions of the carnival of jackassery that awaited my immediate future. Just as I drifted off to Neverland, the knocking came. From outside my cabin door I heard a bellowing, gravelly voice, "Pollywog. Your time has come. Awaken!"

Me being the naïve idiot I am, I hopped down, threw my pants on, opened the door and proclaimed to the Sailor sent to summon me, "Sweet!" (Mistake number 22.) He handed me a blindfold and said, "Put this on, Wog."

Me: "Oh, okay, so it's like this?

Him: “Do it now!” Me: “Sure, I'm game."

Now when a patient is brought onto the ship, there's this gigantic trauma hallway that's angled downward to allow a gurney to be rolled from the helicopter, into the ship, down two stories to Casualty Receiving (ER) on the main hospital floor. Again, it's angled. So if you put a ball on it, it will roll all the way down the ramp.

So anyway, as I was taken from my berth, up the elevator, I heard some sort of eerie chanting / humming. I felt meaty hands grab my arms as I was led down a corridor. The ship was still rocking thanks to Stormzilla in the North, so trying to keep my balance while blindfolded is a real treat. Finally, as the chanting grew louder, we came to a stop.

My blindfold was removed and I'm at the top of the trauma ramp -- looking downward -- but now it's been “decorated.” The only way I can describe the decor is as a cross between the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance from "Back to the Future" and the Buffalo Bill 'Lotion Well' from "Silence of the Lambs." If The Gimp from “Pulp Fiction” fucked “The Little Mermaid,” this would be their child's bedroom.

At the very end of the hall, which I noticed had a very slick sheen applied to it, like it had been greased or something (guess what, is has!) -- was a gigantic mountain of trash, fruit rinds, half eaten portions of the infamous "meat", and God knows what else. Above it was a home-made sign that read, "The Whale's Asshole."

Standing at some sort of attention, aligning the walls were dozens and dozens of the crew -- whom I noticed were all wielding the small pieces of fire hose I had seen earlier. I'm not sure at what point alarm bells went off in my head. My heart thudded like the beat at a rave. I tried to run, but someone grabbed me and said, "There's nowhere to go Wog - don't worry, we're not going to really hit you." So the Seaman start wailing on the ground with their hoses (did I just type that?), and chanting "Whale's Asshole, Whale's Asshole" in some sort of orgasmic rhythm right out of "Eye's Wide Shut."

"Off with his pants!"

"Great", I think - this is just like the shower. So I drop trou, then immediately hear a cry from the crowd, "Oh Jesus, keep your boxers on man!" Up the boxers go, and then my emissary explains the baptism proceedings:

"Welcome to King Neptune's Court, 'Pollywog.' Here's what's going to happen. First, you are going to back up, get a flying start, and run down this gauntlet as fast as you can. The hoses will drop behind you, but we promise not to hit you. Midway through, you'll need to jump into the air, slide on the grease -- and go head first into The Whale's Asshole down there."

You know that whole flight or fight thing? Yeah, that completely failed me here.

"Then, once you're through the Asshole, you will enter Davy Jones' locker (a room just beyond shit mountain down there). It is here you will meet King Neptune himself. Kneel before him, and do not meet his gaze. You must follow his every direction to the letter. If you successfully run the gauntlet, pass through the asshole, and receive King Neptune's approval - you will leave the world of the 'Pollywog' behind, and forever be known as a 'Shellback.' Do you have any questions?"

"Who do I have to fuck to get off this ship?"

Him: "Are you ready?” Me: "Nope." Him: "Time to fly, Superman."

At this point everyone starts chanting, "Pollywog", "Pollywog", "Pollywog." Adrenaline forked through my veins - all right, screw it - it will at least make for a good story later on - if I survive.

So I took off like a rocket, and WHOOSH – I immediately went down faster than Paris Hilton in the men's room at Chateau Marmont. The second my foot hit the greasy floor - BLAM! A collective "ohhhhh" overtook the crowd. This was followed by, "You have to go in head first!" Well luckily I had so much momentum going in, I did a few 360s all the way down the ramp -- and by the grace of God, was able to enter the Whale's Asshole headfirst (again, words I'd never thought I'd type).

How do I even begin to describe the inside of this thing? 5 days worth of sea trash? Is that spaghetti? What's that smell? Oh, there's my friend The Meat? Hi Meat! "GET ME THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!" From outside cries of, "Crawl!" "Crawl" "Crawl!" shotgunned into my ears. So I shuffled out of there as quick as I can, hands sinking into days old pasta, fish, and half eaten bagels as I went.

Finally I escaped the chute that would give Dante nightmares -- and emerged in "King Neptune's Court." In the center of the room I saw a chair elevated on some sort of box - like a makeshift throne. And seated inside was a sight that's going to take 20 years of therapy to erase.

Remember that Merchant Mariner? Surprise, Surprise. Guess who it is? Looking like a cross between Aquaman and the Michelin Man, holding onto some gigantic, God-forsaken, golden trident. And the best part (yeah, like that wasn't it) – he had a mop over his head -- like some sort of sea-hag wig...

Now while several things about this scene concerned me, let me just get to the main one: flanking the King there were two of the Nurses from B Deck. Oh wait, did I mention old Kingie there was shirtless? Anyway, in the Nurses hands were two large sticks of butter -- WHICH THEY ARE RUBBING ALL OVER HIS BELLY!!

So I start to freak, lips trembling, I look up and heard, "Do not meet his gaze Pollywog!" And then notice the men and women from the gauntlet had now entered the room and were chanting, "Kiss the baby's belly! Kiss the baby's belly!"

Finally, Neptune’s eyes narrowed as he spoke, "Kiss mA beLL-EH Pollywog. Recite the Mariner's code and become one of us."

Luckily someone whispered in my ear that this was the end, all I had to do was kiss the belly. While I was dubious, I just wanted my mommy. So I shuffled over, the Nurses grabbed my hand – my teeth chattred as I swallowed hard... and I, and I -- wait for it -- gave King Neptune's Buddha belly a little peck... …a hush of momentary reverence fell on the crowd…

...and then the room went crazy. These seasoned sailors turn into a titanic human exclamation point, and started dancing around the room like free beer night in Zion.

Again, Neptune spoke: “Willie has been found worthy to be numbered as one of our trusty shellbacks, has been gathered to our fold and duly initiated into the solemn mysteries of the ancient order of the deep. Do you swear to uphold the mariner's code?"

Me: "Yes sir, Mr. Neptune, Lord of the Deep, sir."

King Neptune: "Congratulations "Shellback" - you are now, One of Us."

These words sent a collective din rocking the hallway, more chanting, "One of Us. One of Us. One of Us."

So I guess now that I've crossed the equator, ran the gauntlet, and have survived the biggest Clown-Midget-Fuckdown-Rodeo I have ever has the rueful displeasure of being a part of, well, I am now, officially and forever, "One of Them."

Send. Helicopter. Now.

-Willie

***

PS: Oh, here's some links on where we are and what we're doing:









email five

“Hollywood & The High Seas”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Hollywood & The High Seas

Date: January 21, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 11 (January 21, 2005)

Dear Ndugu:

As I’m sitting here trying to bury the memories of the previous evenings events deep in the recesses of my head, I wanted to recall a story from a few days ago. As I was typing up an interview from my first day, I was approached by a young sailor. Friendly enough, but he spole with an awkward, flat, monotone timbre (think Stephen Wright),

Sailor: "So you're a screenwriter?"

Me: "Tryin' to be."

Sailor: "I got an idea for a movie, wanna hear it?"

Well this must be my lucky day, story ideas are coming AFTER ME. "Go for it."

Sailor: "It's about a serial killer."

I thought wrong.

Sailor: "Do you want to read it?"

Me: "You already wrote this screenplay?" (He looked about 12 years old.)

Sailor: "Nope, I wrote three. It's a trilogy, like 'Lord of the Rings' and the old 'Star Wars'"

Me: "A serial killer trilogy? Wow, let me get you my manager's email

address, he loves this stuff.” (hehehehe.)

Pretty soon the ship was underway and pulling out of Pearl Harbor. I was fine for a few hours, but it wasn't too long 'till I experienced the queasiness in my stomach as seasickness came over me. A friend of mine back in L.A. made me promise to make my way to the bow of the ship, throw my arms into the air, and wildly proclaim "I'm the king of the world!" (note: this was also the same friend who suggested I sneak my Frodo costume from Halloween on board, and run around the ship in the middle of the night trying to freak people out.)

While I had zero intention of doing either of those things, my stomach was telling me it WAS just about time for me to get acquainted with the railing at the front of the ship anyway. So I head up the stairs, make my way outside, and am in the middle of my yak when I hear a voice behind me:

Voice: "What are you, some sort of pussy? We left Pearl less than an hour ago."

I turn around, and who do I see? None other than Saltydog Thundercock (this being our very first encounter).

Me: (re: the puking) "Just wanted to get a head start."

Him: "Oh you're the guy they were talking about. The writer, right? I thought you'd be taller."

No response from me, just more puking.

Him: "Hey, you ever bang any hot chicks out there in HOLLLEIEEEwood?"

Delirious, confused, and seasick; none of my mental inhibitors in place. My mouth just started to move: "I was once chicken fighting with Lucy Liu in a swimming pool, does that count?"

Incredulity washed across his face: "You? Had Lucy Liu? On your shoulders? In a swimming pool? Man, there's one for the spank bank."

Me: "Come again."

Him: "You know, the 'spank bank.' The mental rolodex where you store all your masturbation fantasies."

Again, the only reaction from me was vomiting. Picking up that I needed a moment, he looked out over the open sea, the unbroken horizon, drew a deep philosophical breath and said:

"You speak any French? You look French?"

Me: "The only French I speak is, 'I surrender.'"

"You sure you're not French?"

Me: "No dude, I'm not *French* - I'm Jewish."

"Jewish? Jesus! -- Hey, did you just call me dude?"

Me: "Yup"

"I didn't know they were letting your kind on board."

Me: "Jews?"

"No, writers. Man, this whole Navy's going to shit. What kind of stuff do you write?"

Me: "Movies, T.V. shows, that sorta thing."

"I wrote a movie once."

Me: "Don't -- let me guess. Serial killer?"

"How did you -- ?" Me: "It's a gift."

So after I lost the remains of any and all decent food in my system, I headed back down to my work area. I settled in, fired up the computer. I’ve been meeting more and more of the crew lately (and this story is no way indicative of everyone I meet, you hear that mister person who reads my email) – especially while having some "chow" in the "mess" (ooh, cool Navy slang). A few days later, as I'm trying to dissect what it is I'm eating, an elderly gentleman with one of the friendliest faces I've ever seen glides across the cafeteria and takes a seat next to me, "I hear you're the writer?"

Me: "It's a myth." He laughs hysterically, surely arrested by my acerbic wit, “Seriously. I've got this -- "

Me: "Stop! Script about a serial killer?"

"Nope, not at all."

Me: "Oh thank God. Thank you, Jesus. I was worried there for a second.

You see, everyone I meet -- "

“It's about serial killerSSS!”

As my face fell, all I could eek out was, "Sounds great. And what do you do here on the ship?" As he stuck out his hand to shake mine:

"I'm Pastor Wallace. Nice to have you aboard."

I am so going to hell.

-Willie

email six

“Greetings from the Philippines.”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Greetings from the Philippines  

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 16 (January 26, 2005)

Don't you hate it when you get sent on a "pleasure cruise," and find a small, solitary spot on the deck of the ship that you claim as your very own -- a spot you discovered one night while roaming the decks with your iPod, dreaming of warm breezes, cool cocktails, and ice blended mochas -- a spot so serene, and positioned so perfectly, that you catch a

steady refreshing mist of sea spray -- it's cool, salty taste truly the nectar of creation -- and then -- after being at sea for weeks, and making this part of your nightly routine, you decide to go that special space during the day -- cover your face with the gentle ocean spray -- only to have your ears pierced by the howling laughter of your shipmates? And then after you inquire, "what's so funny?" One points at the drainage pipe just below the railing -- the brown/yellow water-goo STREAMING out of the side, dumping into the sea -- you know, the one labeled, "Sewage." Anyone else hate that, or is it just me?

-Willie

P.S. Save me.

email seven

“The lost email”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: lost

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 16 1/2

Speaking of religion, THE Nighttime sky really wAs nothing short of spiritual - talk about loVelY and REAlly amazing. No photograph can accurately capture it, and my worDS can only give you a partial hint of its Magnificence. I guess the nighttime skY at night isn’t rEally soMething you see, it’s something you experience. A few hours after the sun melts Into the ocean, the sky becomes a Luminous Glowing gauzE of whiTe, MEteOrs streak to the sea, and the Full moon itselF coaTed the ocean silver. As tHe shIp’S bow kniFed throUgh the water, you Could witness Killer small balls of glowING biolumineScence and greenisH-blue Foamy phosphorous waves fan out and fade away. It waS HypnotIcally Perfect…

email eight

“Two Days To Singapore”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Two Days to Singapore

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 17 (January 27, 2005)

You know what else I hate? Anthrax shots. Anyone else hate those? It's like mainlining PEANUT BUTTER. Good times indeed. I won't be able to move my left arm for two days (lots of humor there if you think about it). I can't believe how many shots these masochists just gave me. My God, there were two nurses on each arm with 3 shots each -- at the same time!! Usually 2 nurses at the same time would be a cause for celebration, but not like this... Argh, I just got poked by more needles than Jasmine St. Claire in her last "Best Of..." video (I need that back by the way - you know who you are).

Okay, I sent a few of you the Ice Cream story, here it is for the rest of ya: the other night, I begged the chef for some chocolate ice cream - and he said we've got some in the freezer upstairs. So we climb this ladder with a bowl and spoon - enter the freezer, and he scoops me two huge mounds of chocolate. I hadn't seen mounds this perfect since the

Josie Maran Victoria Secret photo shoot. So we go outside, I prop myself against the wall and start eating like a pig. As I take in the room I said to him, "I didn't know you guys had an auxiliary freezer up here?" He laughed and said "We don't." He then moved to the right, and that's when I saw the placard on the wall: "morgue."

Anyone else just throw up in your mouth, or again, is that a "just me" thing? And to the person who pitched me the "Period piece rom-com about a Serial Killer whose victim falls in love with him. The twist, though, is that she's ALREADY DEAD!!" Thanks. Heard it several times on this trip so far…

Make it stop.

Anyway, I'm extremely thrilled we'll be hitting land soon -- finally get the mail and some real food. People get PRET-TEE weird when they're out at sea for this long. When I first got here, "Hello" was the common way we all greeted one another in the passage ways -- that gave way to various grunts and grumbles -- as people started grating on other people's nerves -- now, a sick, twisted sense of humor has descended on the crew -- "Hello" has been replaced with, "Bitch! What are you doing out of my bunk?!" Funny when guys say it to one another. Kinda hot when the girls say it to one another. But downright hilarious when the Pastor says it to the Captain.

Oh, before I go, they taught me this really cool new song everyone's been singing. I'm a little fuzzy on the lyrics, but I think it goes something like, "In the Navy, You Can Sail the Seven Seas... In the Navy you can get down on your knees."

Mommy.

-Willie

email nine

“Photo Day”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Photo Day

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 24 (Thursday, February 3, 2005)

Not a whole lot time for me to do an update today - we're pulling into the Banda Aceh region in a few hours, and people are getting ready to bring the first patients on board.

Singapore was amazing, and I'll have a full account for you all as soon as I get a moment. In the meantime, here are some more pics off the Navy's photo server. We've taken on a crew of what's called "Combat Camera" or ComCam - they're going to be with us for a few weeks, taking pics "in country" and posting them on our local servers, and on the web. I think I'll be able to get a few aerial shots as well.

Oh, our time zones are now flipped, it's almost 1 am here, which is 9 for those of you in L.A. - so if you don't get an email back from me right away, it's cause we're sleeping, and vice versa.

Miss you all,

-Shellback Willie

email ten

“The Singapore Report”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Day Number Five at Sea

Date: February xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 25 (February 4, 2005)

Sorry it took so long for me to report in on Singapore - it's been a crazy couple of days; and with all the new crew, we have to share computers and internet access.

While there are plenty of internal dangers, there are numerous off the ship not to be ignored. There is a very narrow body of water between Malaysia and Sumatra that was the site of 82 out of the 182 worldwide piracy attacks in 2004, the infamous Straits of Malacca. The attacks were highest in the area around One Fathom Bank, in Malaysia, although the majority of the pirates hole up in Indonesia.

The Navy mobile security force personnel were posted at the bow, on the flight deck, and on the stern – and were authorized to open fire on any vessel that approached within 300 meters of the ship (after 9/11 and the bombing of the USS Cole in 2002, the Navy’s rewritten the rules of engagement). Despite this being a humanitarian mission, men and women in camouflage uniforms were constantly on patrol, toting M-16s, grenade launchers, and holstered Berettas. They even mounted .50 caliber machine guns on the railings of the ship. Kind of a jarring site, especially on a ship embarked on a mission peace.

After passing through the straits of the Philippines between Mindanao and Leyte, we entered the Bohol and Sulu Seas, where the dual threats of terrorism and piracy sprung to life. I simply thought that if real pirates were to attack the ship, we could just feed them some food from the mess deck -- that’d show ‘em for sure!

Anyway, I've spent so much time talking about the fine people I've met ON the ship, let's take a moment to look at those I've met when we pulled into our first port: Singapore.

The island of Singapore is a country 221 square miles in size, 75 percent Chinese, 15 percent Malay, and the rest Indian and European. The city of Singapore lies on the southeast side of the island along the Singapore River. Everybody on the boat was looking forward to this visit – I was just dying for Starbucks – and nearly burst out into tears when I learned L.A.’s very own Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf had decided to venture internationally into Singapore. Ice Blended Mochas for everybody.

We pulled into a NATO base in the town of Sembawang, on the Strait of Johor, on the northern part of the island, and just south of Malaysia. There we picked up over 100 volunteer doctors, nurses, a few social workers, and a veterinarian. For a reason I’ve yet to figure out, the vet worked closely with the cooks in the mess hall. Anyway, I've spent so much time talking about the fine people I've met ON the ship, let's take a moment to look at those I've met when we pulled into our first port. Get comfy, ‘cause here’s a little tale divided into two: one for males, one for females.

READ IF YOU'RE MALE:

A few days before we pulled in, I began to hear whispers of a mystical Shangri-La just down the street from the Hard Rock Café. A little place called "Four Floors." The night before we arrived, I was hanging out on the deck, checking out the stars (which are UNREAL out here), when I hear a snorting/grunting behind me. I whirl around, and surprise, surprise, it's my favorite human mortar shell, Saltydog. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, but I could tell he was clocking me. Mustering up the courage, I eek out:

Me: "So... Nice night, huh?"

More grunts and snorts.

Me: "I hear were going to Singapore..."

Him: "You're a regular, freakin' Magellan. Who knew the writer was also a NAVEEEE-GATOR?"

All right then. Guess I'll go fuck myself. [Sigh] Oh well, I tried speaking to it. After a few moments of silence, he pipes up with this gem:

Him: "You know what 14 dollars buys you in Singapore don't you?"

While my interior dialogue was screaming, "A chance to see your mother again," self-preservation kept my pie-hole and sphincter tightly shut.

Me: "No idea. Enlighten me."

Him: "A lot. You need to try 'Four Floors' - best in the city. Right near the Hard Rock Café."

Me: "Yeah, what is this place I keep hearing about?"

Him: "You'll love it, try the Thai, it's my favorite."

And then he recedes back into the ship (probably down to berthing to admire his complete collection of Maxim magazines). "Sweet," I think, I'm so there - I could use a good food court. Anything to get away from the "food" on the ship. So I head back to my room to get some decent sleep -- especially if I was going to be doing a ton of running around the next day.

Now we had pulled in really early in the morning, so by the time I woke up, there was a ramp erected from the ship leading to the dock. This was the first time any of us had a chance to step food on dry land, and I couldn't wait to get off (save it).

We pulled into a multi-national NATO base in the town of Sembawang, there they had a little shuttle that would take us directly to the MRT (the Subway/Metro) - and from the Yishun station you could take the train anywhere you wanted. Since my buddies all had duty 'till four, I decided to take this little jaunt on my own - most everyone spoke decent English, so getting around was no problem.

Me: "Excuse me, do you know where the Hard Rock Café is?"

Subway Worker: "Ah-ha! Four floors!"

Me: "Yes, yes, the Flour Floors."

So the kind soul takes my money, hands me a fare card, and sends me on my way. Since Singapore is actually a really small island, finding the right stop was no problem. I got off at the Orchard exit, my mouth watering at the sight of Starbucks, Coffee Bean, Burger King -- and yes Long John Silvers. I had to remind myself that I was here to experience new cultures and new foods, not dine on the same burgers and coffee I can have anytime back home (this attitude prevailed for about 3 hours by the way).

So I finally come to the Hard Rock, look across the street, and spy a building with a large neon "4" on top. "That must be it," I thought, "But it sure doesn't look like a restaurant..."

I made my way into the smokey lit interior -- and immediately the smell hit me. Was it the delicacies of this unique Asian nation -- well, yes and no -- the smell reminded me less of food -- and more of -- well, certain massage parlors on Spring Mountain Road in Las Vegas.

"Uh-oh," I thought. This ain't no food court. I mean, it's kind of like a restaurant in that you can order your favorite international dish: "Chinese," "Thai," "Japanese," "Italian," "American," "Pot Luck" or the spiciest one, called "Russian." (For some reason you need a note from two doctors to try the Russian - luckily for me, I knew about 12 of them from the ship were right behind me.)

So imagine my surprise when I realized this was no food court at all. It was like landing at the airport in Hawaii where the Lai girls were REALLY, REALLY friendly. The "waitresses" kept appearing from behind the beaded curtain - and kept asking me for "green quarter" - which I figured was a reference to my US dollars (that, or they watch a lot of Just Shoot Me). Next, one of the most genial ladies I've ever met, emerged from the "kitchen," arms opened wide, and in perfect English said, "Welcome to the Four Floors of Whores."

Anyway, what happened next isn't really appropriate for email screened by the U.S. Navy, but let's just say if you remember the "Dominican Face Hat" from the hooker on the short lived TV show called "Action!" well - they do those here (Not. That. I. Would. Know.)

READ IF YOU'RE FEMALE:

Today I photographed sunsets.

-Willie

email eleven

“A Thousand Words”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: 1000 Words

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 25 (Friday, February 4, 2005)

I think I need to put some sort of chapter stop here. While I’ve been able to keep everything light and humorous up to this point, our whole reason for coming out here was rapidly approaching. I probably subconsciously tried to keep things cute and witty for as long as I could, for the sole reason of preparing for what was ahead. Like everyone else at home, I’d seen the news the day after Christmas: witnessed the tsunami’s damage on TV, the video of those on or near the beaches moments before the waves came.

A new sort of energy and spirit cocooned the ship as I watched and took vigilant notes on the crew as they prepared to bring the first patients on board. We were about to arrive to a place not only had I never heard of, but I don’t think I could even pronounce if I tried: Banda Aceh, Indonesia (Bahn-DAH, ah-CHE).

After one month, we finally arrived off the coast of Sumatra. Indonesia is composed of 13,500 islands. Only 6,000 of which are inhabited. The city is rimmed by the tall, green volcanic peaks of the Barisan Mountains, which line the western edge of the island -- the sixth largest in the world.

On Friday, February 4, I woke up and went outside to an amazing site: the USS Abraham Lincoln a little over 100 yards off our starboard bow. They were on their way back from Iraq when the waves came, and were reassigned to the area until the Mercy and others could arrive and assume point on the US contribution to the relief effort. This was the first time in military history that a ship-of-war has been relieved of its mission by a hospital ship.

This is us pulling up next to the Abraham Lincoln yesterday. They're leaving today so they can continue on with their original mission, and we're assuming point on the relief effort from here on out. This is the first time in US Military history that a ship-of-war has been relieved of its mission by a hospital ship.

 

email tweleve

“Photos & Fun”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Day Number Five at Sea

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 26 (Saturday, February 5, 2005)

Got a bonus email for you all today (yeah, I know you love it). Anyway, one of the questions everyone keeps asking me is, "What do I miss most about home?" Is it the three "F's" (Food, Friends & Family)? Of course - but what do I **REALLY** miss the most?

Sci-Fi conventions.

Yup, the opportunity to dress up with my fellow undersexed, overweight, and unwashed. Ladies and gents, THIS is what I miss most about home:



(and PLEASE, if you only ever click on one link from me - make it this one!)

***

Okay, here's some more current photos from the region:















***

And finally, here's a joke making its way around the ship:

One of the sailors stationed onboard recently received a "Dear John" letter from his girlfriend back in San Diego. It read as follows:

Dear Ricky,

I can no longer continue our relationship. The distance between us is just too great. I must admit that I have cheated on you twice, since you've been gone, and it's not fair to either of us. I'm sorry. Please return the picture of me that I sent to you.

Love,

Becky

The sailor, with hurt feelings, asked his fellow sailors for any snapshots they could spare of their girlfriends, sisters or ex-girlfriends. In addition to the picture of Becky, Ricky included all the other pictures of the pretty gals he had collected from his buddies.

There were 57 photos in that envelope.... along with this note:

Dear Becky,

I'm so sorry, but I can't quite remember who the **** you are.

Please take your picture from the pile, and send the rest back to me.

Take Care,

Ricky

***

Have a great weekend,

-Willie

email thirteen

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Day Number Five at Sea

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

“Untitled”

Day 35 (Monday, February 14, 2004)

I know it's been a little while since the last update - ever since we've arrived in the AOR (area of responsibility) the intensity dial of this ship & crew has been turned up to 11. We're constantly receiving patients from the shore, and the docs and medical staff are consistently going a million miles an hour. I just got back from my first helicopter

tour and visit into Banda Aceh, and I promise a full report after I process everything I saw in the past 24 hours. I may save it as my final report from the area, as the tone will be a little different from my past emails.

Words kind of fail the enormity of the mission here, but there really is something amazing at work with this entire multi-national relief effort. I'm not sure what kind of press the mission is getting back at home – or if tsunami news has given way to what J. Lo had for lunch, who Michael Jackson may or may not have molested this week - but it is astounding, heartbreaking, and awe inspiring to watch.

There are ships from several nations out here: the Germans, Aussies, Kiwis, Japanese, and several others. One of the fun things everyone loves to do is trade MREs - those infamous Meals Ready to Eat, all-in-one package thingies. Despite the old joke that MRE stands for Meals Rejected by Ethiopians, believe it or not, the American MREs taste

pretty good - and seem to be the ones most desired by the soldiers from other ships.

I swapped some poor Australian corpsman my "Meal #13" (Cheese Tortellini) for his "Meal" (that's all the package was labeled). Feeling bad for the guy, I went up to the mess, scored him a Coke, and we shared our packaged food on the Lido Deck (01 level). While he tore into his American MRE with complete zeal, I simply regarded mine with

curiosity - so of course I broke into laughter when the first thing I found inside was of tube of Vegemite.

"What's so funny?" he asked.

I jiggled the tube in my hand and channeled my inner Men at Work, "He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich."

Him: "Hadn't heard that before, mate."

Anyway, I open the tube, spread the Vegemite on some crackers, and am hit with a stench that could only have come from Satan's asshole. "No offense, but no way am I eating this."

He laughed and said I needed to put the "sauce" on it.

Me: "Oh, my bad."

As I stared at the sauce, then back at the Vegemite & cracker I asked him, "You guys have the expression 'You Can't Shine Shit'?"

Never mind. So as I begin to dabble some sauce on my mini sandwich, my new friend stops me short, "Careful mate, spicy that is."

Uh-huh. I eat lightening and crap thunder, how spicy could it be? So I open my

maw and chomp...

AHHHH!!! Not only does this SMELL like Satan's asshole, it's just a few degrees hotter. My first instinct was to hop the railing and drink the entire Pacific, but I just gobbled a ton of plain crackers to quench the supernova in my mouth. Of course he starts laughing hysterically as I'm screaming, "What the F--- is this shit!"

After squirting down every liquid in site, my nose running, eyes watering --

Him: "I forgot to tell you the name we have for that sauce."

Me: "What's that, Chuckles?"

Him: "We call it... 'The Sauce of Hate.'"

Well thanks for the warning pal. Enjoy the tortellini.

Anyway, aside from the MRE exchange, foreign crews come aboard looking for better food than what they're getting on their own ships. Man, did they come to the wrong place. I took two of the German guys up to the trash bin behind the mess deck and showed them a box labeled: "For Prison Consumption Only." The scary part is that it didn't seem to bother them.

The food here itself really is abysmal. Now I know our men and women in uniform are supposed to make the ultimate sacrifice, but let me ask you, should that really start in the commissary? No lie: someone found a tongue ring in her omelet the other day, I was personally served a sandwich with enough penicillin on it to vaccinate half of Paris Hilton's ex-boyfriends, and a friend of mine found some sort of hoof-gristle-talon-toenail thing in his meal. And he ordered the vegetarian. [Sigh] But I digress, let's get to the fun stuff – a little story I like to call, "Willie Rides in a Helicopter."

After we picked up all the NGOs in Singapore, I had to move my work area into the media office called Site TV -- this room is staffed by most of my buddies, the JO's (Junior Officers) and the ComCam team (Combat Camera). Much to my bewilderment, ALL of them have been dreading going up in the copters. "Why?" I asked?

JO 1 Josh: "Are you kidding?"

JO 2 Chris: "How many times do you turn on the news and hear about some chopper going down?"

ComCam Smith: "Do you really trust your life to a 10 year old flying Volkswagen that's upkeep and maintenance is done by people whose favorite movie is 'You Got Served'?"

Attempting to thwart their efforts to scare the beejezus out of me, I shot back: "Oh, come on, I’ve traveled 6000 miles for this -- it'll be fun. I can't wait!"

So they all just exchanged looks that read, "Dipshit."

Anyway, Lt. JG Mann enters our office and tells me today's my lucky day. Get my camera, 'cause it's my turn. "Sweet!" Well, one of the guys in my office asks him, "Hey, LT, what kind of helo is taking Hollywood up?" He responds, "The 46." (In civilian that means the CH-46 - the "Sea Knight.")

So the second he says this, the room goes nuts: "Aww man! "You're screwed" "Say your prayers" "Can I have your laptop?" That sort of thing.

Comedians.

My one friend grabs me and says we need to do an air-worthiness test on the ‘46 before I go up. "Okay," I say, "How do we do that?"

Him: "Simple. We can do it from here."

Me: "Really?"

Him: "Yeah. Just go to Google and type in 'CH-46 Helicopter Accident.'"

Again, the room explodes with laughter. Then another one of my buddies

actually goes and does this:



And that ladies and gents, is our United States Navy air-worthiness test: Google.

God help me.

-Willie

(oh, the ride was fine, we actually went out and back in a Seahawk which is a much safer helicopter - again I'll write more about the actual trip in a later email).

P.S.: Here's a map of where we are, and the other US ships in the area (there are several from other nations as well):

[pic]

[pic]

email fourteen

“Fan Mail”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Day Number Five at Sea

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 43 (February 22, 2005)

Aside from the free catered food, killer Christmas presents, access to some incredibly talented individuals, and free Nike shoes, one of my favorite memories of "E.R." will always be the fan mail. I mean who can forget the one viewer who felt Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys should by related to Noah Wyle's character, John Carter? Or the guy

named 'John' in Chicago who tried to sue us because we used the name 'John' on the show? Or the she-male from Key West who wanted to dress George Clooney in a tu-tu, grease him up like a pig, and offered to take him a few steps down the evolutionary ladder? Classic.

Needless to say, it looks like viewer mail has followed me from So Cal, across the Pacific, to the shores of Indonesia. Ladies and gents, I present an actual letter, from an actual viewer named Crystal, a 5th grader from the Mercy's home port of San Diego:

-Willie

(Translated text: “Dear Navy People, I was shocked when I heard people got hurt and got their houses destroied (sp) and many people lost their families because if the tsunami. I’m glad that it didn’t happen to the U.S. I also heard about the family of pigions (sp) on the ship. What did the pigions (sp) eat?” [note: the pigeon’s actually started gnawing on one another. There were pigeon parts all over the deck, which would explain the “chicken” nuggets we had for lunch that day.] Did they peck you while you were sleeping? [Use “Peck” and “Sleeping” and write your own joke here.] “Did you see fish in the water? How was Hawaii? Did you eat dried banana chips over there? I am a very questionous third grader.” [Best. New. Word. Ever.] “I love reading, math, fractions [this girl’s obviously a liar, no one loves fractions], swimming, and playing the violin. San Diego is great except it is too cold in the morning and too hot in the afternoon.” [Just like my ex.]

Sincerely, Crystal

email fifteen

“Another Perspective”

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Another Perspective

Date: January 22, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

January 22, 2005

Kelly is onboard USS Abraham Lincoln with a super hornet squadron (VFA-2)

Date: unknown

Subject: hard work...

Thanks so much for all the emails, I'm so behind on answering all of them. I'm still aboard the ship, but have a little bit more of an idea of what's expected:

Our squadron (and the others I believe) have broken ourselves into 5-man working teams -- about the number of people they can squeeze onto a helicopter.  We have put together about 30 of these teams from our squadron, and I'm the team leader for #9.  Assuming we keep up the pace of getting a team ashore every other day, I'll be on deck in about a week. From the guys who have made it ashore, most of the work is non-stop unloading supplies from the big-wing cargo carriers (C-130's, etc.) staging them, and then loading up the helos as fast as they can so that they may ferry them deeper into the country.  Each team goes ashore for a full day of labor and then returns with the last helos to the ship before sunset.

Our helo guys are working their asses off. A good friend of mine from high school is actually a pilot in one of the two helicopter squadrons we have aboard.  I ran into him in the wardroom between meals a couple of days ago, and he was visibly exhausted from being in the cockpit for seven hours straight.  I heard he appeared on CNN during a brief interview within the past few days.  Mark Leavitt -- great guy.  His and other friends' stories are very sobering.  The number of orphans they saw is just crushing.

One day, a 737 carrying supplies hit a water buffalo during landing roll out, tearing up much of the land-ing gear as it skid to a stop in the middle of the runway.  Everyone was ok (except for the animal), but the single landing strip was now obstructed, preventing any more supplies from arriving.  Pushing and pulling the huge aircraft off to the side was futile. Eventually, someone back here on the ship thumbed open the F/A-18 operators manual, looked inside the front cover and found the phrase, "for any aircraft emer-gencies, please call Boeing at 1-800-12......".  He picked up the satellite phone, called the number, and at 4am Seattle time, was met with, "Hello, this is Boeing emergency services, how can I help you?"

"Ah, yes...I've got a 737 that hit a water buffalo."

"Is this your 737?"

"Uh...not really."

"Ok...well, what exactly is the problem?"

"Well the landing gear was trashed and we can't push or pull it off the runway."

"I see...I think I can help you...."

...And he did.  Our folks got him in touch with the folks on site at the runway, had the equipment put in place to lift the behemoth, and start getting it out of the way.  I believe the cargo planes should be back in business this morning.

In the meantime -- and I'm not sure you all realized this -- the entire rest of the airwing is essentially grounded.  The hangar bay is stuffed with planes, and what jets are left up on the flight deck are tightly packed into clusters to make as much room for the helos as possible.  Our deck is used as the gas station for all the US helos working in this area. And it's full service -- helos land, keep their rotors engaged, and a fuel hose is run up to them.  Ten minutes later, they're removing the chocks and chains and returning to Bandar Aceh for more supply runs.

Unlike my last deployment, I'm not anywhere close to the people who make decisions out here; so I'm like everyone else wondering how long we're going to stay out here doing this.  But, if I were, I'd think that the decision of when to leave would not be based on keeping our homecoming schedule.  As long as we're saving lives, I don't think we're going to leave unless we're relieved by another US command structure which can provide at least the same airlift capacity.  Those of you who are Navy friends of mine I'm sure are wincing because you're familiar with all the CQ currency issues which are certainly going to become an issue at some point. 

Everyone is out of the 7-day window as of today, i.e. Joe Barnes, a friend of mine who spent his day ashore humping bags of rice yesterday, said a Red Cross worker came up to him and thanked him for the lives the Americans had saved.  Sometimes, after a helo drops off a load of supplies at a remote village, they take onboard badly injured men, women, and children -- whatever they can carry -- and bring them back to the Red Cross folks at the airfield.  Some of these people wouldn't have survived without the medical attention they received at Bandar Aceh. Because of stories like that, I feel it would be a grave mistake for us to leave just to make it home "on time" -- politically and morally.

For the time being, I'm just like all of you -- sitting on my hands, wishing I could do something. I'll try to answer as many emails as possible.  And I'll be sure to keep you informed on what's going on out here.

-Kelly

email sixteen

“Banda Aceh”

(the serious chapter)

From: goldmanwj@mercy.navy.mil

Subject: Banda Aceh

Date: January xx, 2005 8:38:20 AM PST

To: Distribution

Day 44 (Wednesday, February 23, 2005)

Well, it looks like I’m headed home.  There are only two opportunities for any of us to get off the ship, one now, and one late next month.  Getting back to Singapore is going to be like our own version of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” but I'm sure I'll have more for you on that later.  Luckily I’ve just completed my last crew interview (with the Chief Engineer), have rewritten our treatment, and feel like I’ve got a good handle on the material.  While I could easily enjoy more time here, I need to get back to L.A. and find some sort of job – maybe Starbucks is hiring…

All right, well, I knew I wasn’t going to get out of here without sending at least one serious email.  This one may be a bit of a buzz kill compared to the others – I think my tone in all the previous ones was my way of preparing for what lay ahead.  This is certainly the longest one I’m sending, so don’t feel obligated to read it all – print it out, and give it a gander if you’ve got some time - I know I’m not a fan of reading long emails at the computer.  If you do give it a read, you may wanna take a look at some of the pics on the ship’s website to get an idea of some of the stuff described below. 

***

Banda Aceh, Indonesia

The night before I was scheduled to go out on the helicopter I couldn’t sleep.  My “stick” – or flight, had to muster at 6:00 a.m. for a 7:00 a.m. helo flight.  I don’t have an alarm clock, so I was worried about not waking in time (there are no windows in our room – so it is impossible to tell time without a clock), my chucklehead friends had me anxious about the actual ride out, and finally, I was apprehensive at what the land would look like once we got there.  I’d seen pictures, but everyone who comes back from the region says no photos can paint an accurate picture of the devastation. 

To board a helo, your group gathers in Cas Rec (casualty receiving), for a quick flight briefing, and then you take an elevator up to the flight deck.  There you gear up: helmets with goggles protect your eyes, ear coverings muffle the rotors and turbine engines, and a small lifejacket/rescue harness – all before you actually step out onto the flight deck itself where the Seahawk sits idling. Surrounding the flight deck is a sort of safety net, designed to catch objects (read: people) blown off, and as we approached the helo, I understood why – the downdraft of the rotor can easily send one rolling right off the edge if they were to lose their footing (especially when combined with the movement of the ship). Our group hurried towards the copter and strapped ourselves in.  The helos max out at taking no more than 10 personnel to the beach (with four seats for the crew, including the pilots), and the first morning I went out, we had a full load: all doctors and ship personnel, plus members of our assigned security team.

They try not to waste ANY time loitering, as every second costs a ton of money in fuel, so we were airborne the instant the last person clicked himself in.  The inside was astoundingly loud, even with the ear muffs on, so I just concentrated on the view outside. I saw nothing but ocean for a few minutes, but then we made it to the beach – or where the beach used to be – and that’s the single instant the trip changed for me.

First off, there was no more beach – it looked like a gigantic hand angrily clawed the land – inlets and streams reached as far into the city as far as I could see.  Clustered everywhere were pools of water: large, small, in the foundations of homes and buildings.  I was amazed that even a month after the tsunami hit, there was STILL so much water trapped inland.  You would think a “big wave” would come in, and go out – but this wave (I think there were 4 total) physically changed the landscape.  As the waves receded, they carried a cocktail of debris that contained everything from homes, cars, boats and everything in-between; those lucky enough to escape the inland incursion dealt with an even more menacing threat as it receded.  Boats were scattered everywhere, some still on the tops of buildings.  Only rubbled foundations remained where homes once stood, debris and rubble spread nimbus like around them.  With photographs, you only get whatever particular section has been captured in picture – seeing it live like that, with the ability to swivel your head around and take in the whole landscape – it’s simply overpowering.  It was a living, haunting, color photo of Hiroshima.

Sitting off the shore on a small rock out-cropping was a lighthouse – from the air I guessed it had to be 100 to 120 feet tall.  What amazed me the most was that the entire top assembly had been shattered and knocked out – I’m not sure how tall the wave was that came in, or if it was a piece of receding debris – but whatever hit it had to be enormous.  I can only imagine what it was like for the people on the ground. There was a photograph of a child’s drawing of the wave, and it has to be one of the most frightening images I’ve ever seen.

As our helicopter continued over land, everyone was stunned silent – dropped jaws were topped with eyes etched with sadness.  I assumed the devastation would be lessened as we flew further inland – but I was wrong.  It was everywhere.  Roads were gone, or washed out, fires were burning, debris and rubble was strewn about like tinker toys, and again, boats and vehicles of all sorts had been tossed miles inland.  I swallowed hard in anticipation when I heard the helicopter’s turbines shift pitch as we approached the U.S. Navy landing site at what was the local University Hospital.

Stepping out of the helicopter, as clichéd as it is to say, the first thing that hit everyone was the smell – it’s hard to describe: a burning, ashen smell mixed with something else.  Many something-else's I would guess.  We were told later that there are still tens of thousands of buried victims that they hadn’t gotten to yet.   When one of our force protection soldiers stepped out of the helo, the ground was still so saturated, her foot sank almost all the way up to her knee.  A few of us helped her out, and then made our way to what remained of the main courtyard.  The Seahawk had set down on a make-shift landing pad, with a strong plastic net laying the path to the hospital so we wouldn't sink.  If it was ground, it was unsafe.

The first thing we had to do was “muster” at the American camp.  This lets the Navy keep track of all the personnel coming off the ship – kept us accounted for should anything happen.  As we made our way there, I noticed a massive Australian camp – they occupied a small portion of the hospital near the airfield.  Now the University Hospital is not a traditional U.S. hospital – it’s a series of single level buildings, arranged like a college campus.  We were getting there a month after the fact; they had been cleaning it ever since the tsunami hit – and it was still a wreck.  Furniture had been buried in the sediment – sticking out halfway like an abstract art exhibit – it was all so surreal (there were bodies like this as well).  One of the locals explained to us that on the day the wave hit, every patient in the hospital was killed, along with 2/3 of the medical staff.  Most were killed lying in their beds, those ambulatory, drowned, or were knocked around by debris.  The single-story building had no roof, nor a safe place to go (not that there was time).  What shook us all were the incubators – they were found by recovery teams, filled with mud, debris, and…

It was all so overwhelming, I needed to go walk around, get out of the hospital, and away from the medical aspect of it all.  My grandfather was an Army medic in WWII – when I was a kid, my brother and I used to sneak looks at some of the photos he had personally taken of the camps – there was one, of a mass grave, that always stuck in my head – bodies on top of bodies - and I remember never really being able to process the image.  As I walked around, I knew there were similar sites right here – for some reason I felt compelled to see it all, for this was the very reason the ship was out here – to be in this place, here, now – but as I continued, the images starting piling up, and an overwhelming sadness took me over.  I had gone far enough – it was time to head back.

As I re-entered the compound, I heard this horrific screaming – the locals were panicking and feverishly darting about.  I felt more than a little uneasy, figuratively and literally - I knew something was wrong, but it took me a good 10 seconds to figure it out: the ground was moving – I mean REALLY moving.  I didn’t notice it all at first since I’d just come off a ship – movement is simply something my body had been accustomed to.  But since we were on land, it was simple: aftershock.  The painful memories flushing back to the faces of people still suffering from post traumatic stress.  Weeks prior we had been told that as much as surgeons, they could use psychiatrists, and instantly I knew why. 

The aftershock subsided and I headed past the German section of the hospital (they had erected a field hospital, complete with tents and mobile surgical facilities – think MASH).  Walking down the center, I started to focus in on all the patients, the DPs (displaced persons), and the kids – they were everywhere.  Most of the young ones were friendly, excited to see the soldiers and all the toys they brought.  I had made my way back to the airfield and was photographing helicopters when one came up to me and started mimicking my every move.  As I held the camera up to my eye, he pantomimed the same motions with an imaginary camera.  He spoke no English, so I handed him the camera and showed him how to operate it.  We spent the rest of the time going through the goodies in my backpack – I tried to give him some candy, a USNS Mercy hat – but he didn’t understand that I was just offering them to him for free.  It was time to muster for lunch, and I wanted to share my MRE with him, but we were told not to share American food because of the local religious beliefs. Before I knew it, he was gone.  One of the locals explained that a lot of the orphaned kids came here to gather and hang out – because this is where the “helicopters came.”  But most of the orphans had been moved to the UN camp – and these were most likely kids from the surrounding neighborhood.

As we all gathered and fired up the heating elements in our MREs, we noticed a mud line on all the walls ABOVE our heads – this was where the debris and water had settled before the hospital was cleared.  We were on a raised platform, so that demarcation had to be about 7-8 feet above the ground.  All the hospital beds in the patient’s rooms were well below the line.  As we ate, someone called us over to one of the pools of water: swimming around inside it were thousands of mosquito larvae – I later noticed all the other pools were the same.  Not good – now I know why they have all these preventative medicine personnel out here as well.

After lunch, our docs and nurses went back to treating patients, and assessing them for possible transport back to the ship.  If they couldn’t treat it here on site, they would radio back to the medical staff and get the patient cleared for transport – be it for surgery, cat-scan, or other treatment.  A lot of the kids were being treated for something the docs called “Tsunami Lung” – basically lung damage caused by inhaling water, debris and dirt.  There is one kid you may have heard about on the news, Iqbal, who was found days later floating on a piece of driftwood.  When we got to the area, he was one of the first patients medevaced out.  His story was probably the most moving, as without the equipment on the ship, he wouldn’t have made it. Iqbal had an incredible team of docs working on him, and was finally moved out of the ICU within a week of surgery.  When he woke, he had no idea where he was, or how he got to the ship.  One day I saw him down in the barber shop getting his hair cut – a smile spread across his face.  He had the power to reduce EVERYONE on this ship to tears, even our hard-boiled Merchant Mariners, and had become the de-facto center of our role in the relief effort.

On Wedneday, February 23, I got the news that I would soon be heading home. There were only two opportunities for any of us to get off the ship, one then, and one in late March.  Getting back to Singapore turned out to be our own version of “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” more on that another time.  Luckily I had just completed my last crew interview (with the Chief Engineer), had rewritten my entire research treatment, and felt confident I had gained an even greater handle on the material.  While I could easily have used more time here, I knew I needed to get back to L.A. and find some sort of job – maybe Starbucks is hiring…

This pic was taken by the ComCam (Combat Camera) team from a helo above the area. That's the Mercy in the background off the coast. Many locals remarked that floating on the sea’s horizon, was a symbol of hope, mercy, and comfort.

***

Throughout the mission, I had frequent thoughts of my grandfather and his military experiences, and I know in his time, the thoughts of the Germans and the Japanese working side-by-side with the U.S. Navy would have been unheard of. Before I sign off, one of the more positive things I took away from this experience was that the whole relief effort was far from just an American endeavor; the Australians, Germans, Indians, Japanese, Russians, and everyone else had come together with one goal in mind.  Given the current global political climate, seeing our ship surrounded by vessels from over a dozen nations, offered, for me at least, a hopeful glimpse of a more unified future.  A thought I clung to as I flew home.

-Willie

March 2005

Appendix

The following is a letter from one of the sailors onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, the carrier we relieved when we got here last month (ironically, this was the first time in U.S. Naval history a ship of war has ever been relieved by a hospital ship – an indicator of how quickly the traditional roles of the military are adapting to the ever changing demands for their assistance). (Thanks to Wally Sansone and Kent Carroll for the excerpt.)

Our son-in-law, Captain Larry Burt is the Air Group Commander (CAG) aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.  In his command are all seven aircraft squadrons, pilots and maintenance personnel aboard Lincoln. The ship was on deployment in the western Pacific and was diverted to the Northern tip of Sumatra just off the coast from Banda Aceh on December 26th after the earthquake and tsunamis hit Southeast Asia

Following is an excerpt from Larry's email that our daughter Maureen received.  Incidentally as CAG prior to deployment he qualified to fly helicopters as all helos aboard Lincoln are in his command:

"We are into day 6 off the coast of Sumatra. The destruction and death is indescribable. On any given day, I see anywhere from 10 to 25 bodies. And those do not count the piles we see stacked up at the mass graves. In Banda Aceh itself, where we are flying out of, they have recovered about 30,000 bodies and they estimate there are another 60,000 to go. The lower section of the city is completely destroyed and most of it sweep out to sea. What used to be a city is now a wet sandbar.”

“Today I flew a mission into a village to talk to the elder.  Yesterday we tried to deliver food and he would not let us.  He made a shooting signal with his hands. The aircrew decided it was not a safe village to be at and they left. So I took an interpreter with me and two doctors. We talked to the elder and it turns out he wanted the aircrew to wait for the soldiers to come and control the crowd before we start distributing the food. He said only the soldiers can control who gets the food.  Sad but true. The good side to the story is we went into town where all the displaced people were and the Docs found an 8 month pregnant mother with her husband. They lost their two other children and their home to the tsunami. We also found a young boy whose leg was broken in three places. He had sticks from the woods tied to his leg as a splint.  We MEDAVAC these three back to Banda Aceh where the doctors could take better care of them.”

 

“Yesterday we found the Grandmother of an orphaned little boy the Australians had been caring for. He lost his whole family and was so traumatized he would not talk. Our doctor gave him a sedative and he started talking. We were able to learn his name, what village he was from, and that he had a grandmother and Aunt in a nearby village. I loaded an interpreter and Doc onto the next helo and sent them to the village with a full load of food. They were able to find the grandmother and united her with the little boy.”

“The engineers on the ship have been able to restore power and electricity to a hospital that was damaged. The Germans and many other countries are sending doctors and nurses to this Hospital. We are going to fix the water supply tomorrow and are hoping that in a couple of days the hospital will be open. There are only two other Hospitals in the area and they are overflowing with patients.”

“The stories keep going on. There is so much suffering here. Whole towns were completely wiped out. The TNI (Indonesian Military) are very brutal in their treatment, but necessary in this case because so many people They have become desperate.  I'm not getting much sleep due to the pace here. I fly into Banda Aceh every morning at 0625 and return to the ship at 1900.  We have a planning meeting that goes until 2100. I usually don't get to the normal paper work until around 2300 and I'm wiped out by then. I am in the hot tropical sun all day long.  Lots of sunblock on, but still getting burned.”

“The Air Wing is doing great work. The helos are the only guys flying but everyone else is pitching in. I have the maintainers from the other squadrons come ashore in teams to do work. They help load the helos with humanitarian aide, carry patients off the helos over to the medical tents, unload the cargo planes that arrive, fix the hospital, etc. We usually have about 100 ashore each day."

The NGOs (Non Government Organization) we picked up in Singapore were from a group called “Project Hope.”  The following is a letter from one of their doctors we brought on board:

Letter from Banda Aceh

By Laurence Ronan  |  February 16, 2005

THIS CITY of 400,000 is in shambles, a third of it completely wiped off the earth, another third under water and mud. Imagine if a wave took out Dorchester, South Boston, Back Bay, and the South End, leaving only a few sticks that were trees and no buildings, just foundations. Well over 100,000 people died here and along the nearby coast.

At the University Hospital all 300 patients and most of the staff drowned or were buried in the mud when the tsunami came. The hospital lost everything -- people, equipment, and buildings. They are still pulling bodies out of the mud.

The hospital director lost his wife and children but showed up the next day to dig out his hospital. Heroic.

We're taking the sickest patients on board our hospital ship Mercy. One of our newest patients is a little boy who was found floating on a board by fisherman two days after the tsunami. He was sent first to a refugee camp, where an uncle found him and told him that his mother and father were dead.

The boy has developed a serious case of ''mud pneumonia" from all the water he swallowed and is now on a respirator fighting for his life.

He is a favorite of the ship's medical team because he represents the struggles and courage of so many of the people here hit by the tsunami. Every person I meet has a similar story. To put this in perspective, our medical team visited a small school in the nearby town of Lamnos yesterday where only 20 of the 120 kids are left.

If I could dream, I'd fix the hospital's pediatric building, truly one of the saddest places I've encountered. It smells of urine, incense, mud, and human excrement. It's dirty and filled with flies and mosquitoes. There are no toys for the children.

It, too, went under the giant wave and the mud that came next. Nearly all of its patients were lost in the tsunami. A few survivors are here, huddled in cribs or cots in corners throughout the building with their parents or siblings camped beside them. Many of the kids are suffering from ''mud pneumonia," having been overwhelmed by the tsunami; they swallowed and aspirated seawater and mud. These children are slowly dying, daily growing thinner and breathing more heavily.

One child sits outside with the cats and dogs, his 12-year-old sister beside him. They lost their parents and four brothers in the flood. Terribly devoted to one another, they share one plate of food between them and make sure each carefully has his or her proper share.

Most of the parents are in shock. Many live in the displaced persons camps. All have lost someone and hope for their return. The great horror of the tsunami is not knowing what happened to a loved one.

Stressed, a mother delivers prematurely, a 30-week-old preemie, 4 pounds. We likely would save this child in Boston; here, she dies slowly, quietly, in front of our eyes.

The children are listless and won't play. They don't cry. And they don't respond to our offers of beanie babies.

Our psychiatrist says the kids and their parents are depressed and suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome. We had the children do crayon drawings -- unbelievable what they remember: the massive wave, lifeless bodies.

I had brought my camera but really can't bear to photograph them because what is in front of me is so awesome, sad, and overwhelming. Indeed, at times I can't even muster my professional skills in the face of this.

Our nurses staff the hospital during the day to give the on-site nurses -- local and international -- a break. The Belgian nurse volunteers are real heroes, but they, too, look and act exhausted and defeated; they've been here as volunteers for weeks now, working without a break.

When we go back to Boston we'll begin to think how we can help to rebuild the medical center. We'll start with one small wing of the hospital for TB and pulmonary patients because rebuilding the pulmonary disease ward is a doable project with huge consequences for people's immediate and long-term health. And the Indonesian medical leadership gave this to us as their priority. They'll need an X-ray machine, TB equipment, beds, air conditioners, and a laboratory.

Most of all they'll need the aid the world promised them back in January before the spotlight of attention turned away.

Dr. Laurence Ronan is aboard the hospital ship USNS Mercy off Banda Aceh with a 42-person medical team from the Massachusetts General Hospital organized by Project Hope.

'USNS Mercy' continues helping tsunami victims

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post

The eyes of Moh Iqbal, 12, sparkled as he spoke to his uncle Zulkifli sitting next to him in one of the intensive care units (ICU) aboard the USNS Mercy. The U.S. Navy hospital ship has been specially deployed in Aceh for the past three weeks to help treat tsunami victims.

"We have been here for 12 days, and he is much better now. We are very thankful for that. I thought there was nothing that could save Iqbal as other hospitals in Banda Aceh and Medan had given up," said Zulkifli.

Iqbal was swept away by the tidal wave along with other family members. He swallowed a lot of mud and dirty water, but he managed to survive. For Iqbal, Zulkifli is the only relative he has left, with his father, mother, and brothers all perishing in the tragedy. The hospital ship has been anchored several kilometers off the western Aceh coast since Feb. 1.

One of the Mercy's press officers, Lt. Bashon Mann, said that around 68 patients with various ailments, including broken bones, lung problems, and burns, had been treated aboard the hospital ship since Feb.5 while thousands of others have been treated on land by the ship's medical crew in several areas of Aceh.

"We are currently treating 37 patients aboard the ship after we sent home other patients. Not all of them are tsunami victims because we have also received (general) patients from Aceh and North Sumatra during this emergency phase. You see, people in Aceh can't go to the hospitals in their areas because all them were swept away by the tsunami," he said.

Bashon, however, explained that not everyone could be treated aboard the ship as they need to be recom-mended by a doctor in Aceh or North Sumatra. Commanding Officer of the USNS Mercy Captain David M. Llewellyn said that their medical officers often didn't understand what the patients wanted, and they needed the services of several interpreters. "However, when we touch them they can feel our hearts, and know our sincerity in helping them," said Llewellyn.

A volunteer doctor from the Project Hope, an international non-governmental organization committed to helping people after disasters, David M. Systrom, said that the presence of the ship in Aceh waters had been helpful.

Much equipment and expertise aboard the ship cannot be found in other hospitals on the ground, including a CAT scanner, which was very helpful in treating cases of head trauma and lung injuries, said Systrom.

Converted from a supertanker in 1986, Mercy is one of the largest floating hospitals in the world. Its primary mission is to provide a surgical medical facility for the U.S military that is flexible, capable and uniquely adaptable to support expeditionary warfare. Mercy's secondary mission is to provide full hospital services to support U.S. disaster relief and humanitarian operations worldwide.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Winkenwerder said that the ship would stay at least another month.

Disaster area 'looks like Hiroshima'

By Dan Meisler of the DAILY PRESS & ARGUS

"We take a lot for granted in Michigan." That's how Dr. Mark Cook sees things from a relief ship off the coast of Indonesia, where he is one of about 30 physicians volunteering to help victims of the Asian tsunami.

"It looks like Hiroshima, and that's not an exaggeration," said Cook, an eye doctor from Brighton. "There's nothing left but the foundations of buildings."

Cook is living on the USNS Mercy, a U.S. Navy hospital ship that arrived in the area Feb. 2. Cook and the other volunteers go ashore every day to provide health care to people living in the areas stricken by the Dec. 26 tsunami, a disaster that claimed more than 287,000 lives at last count.

The volunteer effort was organized by Project HOPE, a group founded in 1958 that has health and education programs in 34 countries. Cook said he and the other eye doctors treat about 150 people a day, and the patients' needs are pretty typical - eyeglasses the like. Cook said he's seen a few injuries related to the tsunami, but nothing serious. He said the Indonesians he treats are friendly despite the language barrier, and they don't mind talking about their ordeal.

"They're more than willing to tell you their stories about the tsunami," Cook said. "Sometimes they do it with a smile on their face, then you can see the sadness or grief begin to creep over their faces."

He said there was between 1 foot and 3 feet of mud deposited by the gigantic wave, and that buried bodies are still being found. He hasn't seen any fatalities himself, Cook said.

This isn't the first volunteer mission for the 55-year-old Cook, a member of the Brighton Rotary Club. He's been to Central America several times, providing eye care. His first trip was in 1977. He said he can't really answer the question of why he was attracted to volunteering.

"It's just something that's inside of you," he said. "I can say you get more out of it than you give." Cook said his wife, Rebecca, encouraged him to go. The couple has three grown children.

"My wife was very quick to say go ahead and go, “Cook said. "My family said, 'Go do it.' " He said he learned about the Project HOPE and its relief efforts through an e-mail. Cook flew to Baltimore in January to receive training on a sister ship to the USNS Mercy. Then he flew to Frankfurt, Germany, and on to Singapore, where he joined the crew of the Mercy.

Project HOPE dates back to the late 1950s, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower donated the first peacetime hospital ship, the SS Hope. Its maiden voyage was to Indonesia.

Jeff Hayden, the optometrist who shares an office with Cook, said Cook was very decisive about going to Indonesia. "That day I came in to work and he basically said, 'It is as important to me as breathing,' " Hayden recalled. "When he said that, I just said, 'OK, no problem.' "

Hayden is picking up some of Cook's patients and administrative work while he's gone.

"I think it's great," Hayden said of Cook's trip. "It's good that he's available to go and that he's willing to go and do that."

Cook is due to return at the beginning of March, when he can start to reflect on what he has seen.

"I have a hunch the effect won't hit home until I come back," Cook said. "The culture shock will be when I come back to the States, where things are normal."

He won't have much time to relax; Cook is headed to Honduras two weeks after his return. He said his time in Indonesia has been "challenging." For one thing, there were aftershocks in the area the day before he arrived, prompting fears of more tsunami waves.

"There's always concern it that's going to happen again," adding that the people show "all the signs and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder."

Others locally have responded and been affected by the Asian tsunami. There have been several fund-raising efforts, the latest a concert in Hartland over the weekend.

A group of churches from around the county - consisting of St. John Catholic in Howell, St. Agnes in Fowlerville, St. Augustine in Deerfield Township and St. Mary Magdalen in Brighton - is planning a youth event called the 30-Hour Famine. Participants will not eat for 30 hours on Friday and Saturday to raise money for World Vision, a Christian charity helping tsunami victims.

Dr. Mohammed Nadeemullah, who has practiced internal medicine in Howell for 14 years, and Valory Graham, a registered nurse from Fenton, also were planning a trip to Sri Lanka to help victims.

The daughter of a Howell family, Angie Foust, is presumed dead after failing to return from Thailand on her scheduled flight.

Not sure I included the following photo in the last round, but here's a pic taken by the ComCam (Combat Camera) team from a helo above the area. That's us in the background off the coast. Many locals remarked that floating on the sea’s horizon, was a graceful symbol of hope, mercy, and comfort.

[pic]

Postscript

The USNS Mercy provided medical services in Banda Aceh, Indonesia from February 2 through March 2005, with the help of volunteers from the U.S. based non-government organization, Project Hope, as well as American military and other health officials.

At the end of March, having completed close to 20,000 medical procedures, the Mercy and her exhausted crew left the area to begin the return trip to San Diego with stops along the way in Alor, Indonesia, and Dili, East Timor, to conduct Medical and Dental Civic Action Programs. Mercy’s medical teams treated more than 8,000 patients in six days.

However, tragedy struck Indonesia once again March 28 when an 8.7 magnitude earthquake hit Nias, an island located off the northwestern coast of Sumatra. In less than 72 hours, at the request of the Indonesian government, Mercy turned around to bring emergency care to local residents in what the crew called, “Operation U-Turn.”

Mercy spent nearly a month off the coast of Nias, performing 123 surgeries and more than 19,000 medical procedures.

When the Mercy finally returned home on June 8th, after close to half a year at sea, and traveling 36,000 nautical miles, some 100,000 patients had been treated, including close to 500 surgical and operating room cases.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain

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