Friday - October 12, 2007

Evil America and its Imperialist Empire Building Schemes 

America, evil to its core. Why we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, sending a military vessel to inflict such damage upon the peasants of South America. 

One of the U.S. Navy's two huge hospital ships, USNS Comfort, has just finished a four-month mission to 12 Latin American countries, during which it provided free health care to 98,000 people. VOA's Al Pessin visited the ship, along with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on the last day of its mission last week, off the coast of Suriname.

"Welcome aboard everyone," said Lieutenant Commander Tracey Kunkel. "Good afternoon."

After a 20-minute helicopter ride over the Atlantic, the huge white-painted ship with large red crosses on the side came into view. Inside, Lieutenant Commander Tracey Kunkel welcomed Secretary Gates, his counterpart from Suriname and other officials to the ship's main operating room.

"Welcome to the O.R.," said Commander Kunkel. "We are actually in the centerline of the ship, so fore and aft, starboard and port we're centerline. So the place on the ship where there's the least roll has been the O.R., which is very convenient. It came in handy on this trip."

The stable operating room 'came in handy' during more than 1,100 surgical procedures the ship's doctors performed on this mission.

During Secretary Gates' visit to the Comfort, several patients were still on the ship, in their final hours of post operative recovery.

Suriname's Minister of Defense Ivan Fernald chatted with one girl about how she was feeling.  Later, Minister Fernald spoke about the ship's mission.

"The doctors, nurses and health care professionals from the Comfort have done a very good job," he said. "I hope that we can look forward to other humanitarian assistance programs similar to that of the Comfort."

In addition to the on-board surgery, other doctors, dentists and nurses provided other types of care on the ship, and at local clinics on shore. The ship's military and civilian crew also took care of farm animals, trained local health care workers and repaired medical equipment.

"Especially, for a non-medical person like myself, it was pretty amazing experience," said Captain Robert Kapcio, commander of the Comfort's mission to Latin America. "I could probably tell stories for three or four hours."

"We had a 13-year-old boy come in who had cataracts in both his eyes, and basically blind," he continued. "He walked off the ship being able to see. The parents were all in tears. They hug you. They're just overwhelmed because you've changed their kid's life."  Read more....

Author: The Machiavellian
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