The USS Kearsarge includes an intensive care unit and patient ward that rival those of U.S. hospitals. Navy Corpsman Stephen Heiss gave bloggers a tour and discussed how the hospital will be used in Operation Continuing Promise.
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That’s about how much fresh water the USS Kearsarge creates from the ocean as it travels. The ship is steam-powered, and if I understand the explanation in the engine room today correctly, one evaporator at each of end of the ship creates fresh water out of the steam at a rate of 4,000 gallons an hour.
That capacity alone makes the Kearsarge a great ship for humanitarian work. It can produce up…
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That would be the engineers in the heart of the ship. They keep it powered and running. They'll tell you themselves that they're the hardest workers onboard, but take a tour of their work area and you’ll believe them without question.
They have to wear earplugs and work in heat that rises to at least 130 degrees in some spots. I took the tour for five minutes and couldn’t wait until it was over…
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That’s what the USS Kearsarge is – on this mission in particular but also for all of its missions. The medical area contains one of the largest naval hospital's, according to a Navy communications officer.
“It’s an amphibious ship,” added 24-year-old Corpsman Stephen Heiss. “It’s designed to launch Marines from the ship, as well as receive the injured.”
The mission of Operation Continuing…
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Overheard in the hallways of the medical area aboard the USS Kearsarge, one Army veterinarian talking to another: “We have to keep them from getting so sick that the people can’t eat them.”
Somehow I suspect that the cattle and the lamb and the other animals of that will be treated as part of Operation Continuing Promise won’t be too happy about that particular U.S. military mission.
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Here’s an interesting factoid we gathered from lunch today with a Northrop Grumman contractor onboard the USS Kearsarge: His company pays the full salaries of any of its workers who are taken hostage while on the job. That includes the contractors recently freed from Colombia.
Good on Northrop Gruman.
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An Air Force nurse we bloggers met last night joined us for lunch this afternoon. Like all of us, he’s a first-timer on a Navy ship.
He wondered aloud whether all of us have started a betting pool on which blogger will barf first. This from the man who decided to “tough it out” and not take Dramamine.
Our Air Force friend also gave us a bit of advice: Keep our stomachs full to avoid motion…
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Last night in the wardroom, the mess hall where the officers eat, the ship’s physician only half-jokingly told us land-loving bloggers to take Dramamine on our short tour of duty, or we better not come crying to him if we get seasick. Most of us followed his advice.
This morning, the doc gave me this helpful bit of advice as the USS Kearsarge deployed Norfolk, Va., and as I wandered the flight…
The USS Kearsarge comes alongside the USS Laramie for an "underway replenishment," known by the shorthand UNREP. The slow dance at sea occurred about eight hours after the Kearsarge deployed from Norfolk, Va.
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The U.S. military gets a fair rap as a bureaucracy that wastes money right and left. So I was shocked today to hear that penny-pinching accountants in the Navy are hesitant to let photographers buy UV filters as protection for their camera lenses.
The filters cost $40. New lenses cost hundreds of dollars, and one wrong move in tight space on a ship or in the field could lead to cracked glass.…