Sunday, January 17, 2010

... a Haitian Comfort zone ...

... one day, not so long ago ... a floating symbol of sanctuary, immunity and hope pulled into my world and dropped anchor ... the bold red-crosses-on-white-background altered the view for long enough that vacancy seemed palpably wrong when it left ...














... every day for weeks I had a great view of the itinerant coterie operating from USNS Comfort ... I observed them at work and came to know their patterns ... the ritual clacka-clacka of choppers readily invoked images of M.A.S.H. and war-zones ... I was witnessing one arm of the octopus that is U.S. influence in the Central American and Caribbean arena ...

... if my observations are anything to go by, the drills executed during weeks of non-crisis service will serve everyone well in the coming months in Haiti ... many a doctor has commented since international earthquake response began, on the need to evacuate critical cases from field units to medically equipped locations ... Comfort comes fitted, stocked and trained for this sort of situation ... they run a continuous succession of round-trip sorties, by air and sea, moving medics, patients and supplies, to and from the converted tanker ...

























... sailing from home port Baltimore this mercy craft/support vessel which saw duty in 9/11 Manhattan, the Iraq invasion to remove Saddam Hussein and hurricane Katrina, will reach Haiti in a matter of days ... this adds a flight deck which accomodates the largest helicopters, a thousand hospital beds and distilling plants which can turn 300,000 gallons of sea water per day into potable water ... not to mention the logistical expertise ...














... when raw power in imagery of stark destruction combines with emotionally demanding stories by the thousand, there has to be an attempt at balance with hopeful counterweight ... that's where my psychic energies go ...

... as Comfort drops anchor in Port Au Prince, hope finds another place to hang her hat ...

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