We were in Hong Kong enjoying a little bit of time off. Most of the people I was with (including myself) were buying suits and clothes and you could get them pretty nice for a decent price here. In between fittings we would grab a bite to eat or pass the time with the much missed internet and all of it's offerings. As the browsed we started seeing more and more stories about the typhoon that was making it's way to the Philippines and we all started asking the same question: are they going to call us in to help? It's something we've done in the past (Fukushima in 2011, Haiti and Katrina as well) and we were probably the closest option. Sure enough we all eventually get the word passed through email and Facebook to come back to the ship early. While they never told us why we all knew and began to get a little bit excited.
When I choose to go to Japan, that was really half the choice, the other half was exactly what helicopter to fly. For simplicities sake, there are two main helicopters that the Navy uses, the 60S and 60R (referred to as the Sierra and Romeo respectively). Each has their advantage, and I'm not going to go into all of the differences, but the Sierra is much lighter, has way less equipment, both of those things making it the optimal platform for search and rescue (which is about 99 percent of what we do) as well as logistics (fancy word for moving supplies and people). Both missions, at their best, were something that appealed to me. So with that being said, when we were called to help with the Philippines we knew that our aircraft would be the most heavily used throughout our time there.
It took us about three days to get there, and along the way we began all of our planning. Lets figure out how much weight we can carry, do we have pictures of places that we can land, do we know what areas were hit hardest, the JAG on the ship came and talked to us about any legal snafus that we may come across (one particularly motivated pilot asked if they would be giving us firearms to protect ourselves, they of course did not).
Side story: when I was at the academy as a freshman there was a lot of random, seeming useless things that they would have us do, and at some point about halfway through the first summer there I began to see that these seemingly random and annoying tasks actually had purpose. Saluting all seniors who had more than three stripes wasn't pointless, it was meant to get us to start looking at people collars insignia so we could actually see the rank of officers. Having us rip the sheets off of our bed and remake it in under a minute wasn't meant to be just a time waster, but to teach us the sense of urgency, without sacrificing quality of product. For the 2 and a half years before I made it out to Japan I went through various stages of flight school and while all taught me various aspects of flying they all taught me one aspect of life: it is best to be flexible. Often times I would show up expecting to fly a specific mission but due to weather or crews or available aircraft, I would be canceled or end up flying something totally different. At the time it was annoying, spending hours preparing for something you wouldn't do, but on this deployment, and especially in the Philippines I began to see the value.
Our carrier, and specifically our helicopters were very much the tourniquet for the wound that was suffered after the typhoon. A disaster occurred, and we were the closest to the area. We did not have specific training as many other organizations do, and we may have not been the best equipped, but we were close, and we were well trained. All those years of being flexible, not knowing what to prepare for, ended up becoming incredibly important. We were going to an area we had never been to before, to do a mission we had never explicitly done or even trained for, but we were all ready and excited to go.
Over the course of ten days my squadron alone moved close to 500,000 pounds of water, over 300,000 pounds of food and supplies, and over 1000 people, ranging from people who needed to be transported off of isolated islands to doctors making it to remote places to treat those who needed it most. Over the course of my life I have certain things that are ingrained in my brain in such a way that I can vividly remember every aspect of what happened. The sound of the pads as they clacked together as I made the best hit I had ever made on a kid in a football game in 7th grade, seeing my dad jump up and down after i scored my first goal on a team where i was younger, smaller, and less talented than every other player, but decided to work hard. The smell of my grandpa's room where I would sit and listen to his stories. To that I will add the plethora of images I saw while helping people who truly needed it. I saw a helicopter get mobbed by people seconds after landing in a field that seemed empty. I saw 2 navy crewmen fit 5 people in a rescue basket designed for 2 because a woman refused to leave her children behind. I saw a man punch a child for a bag of water. I saw the look of panic in people's eyes as I pulled out an orange to give them what I had, and I remember the pang of guilt as I knew that I wouldn't be able to help them nearly as much as they needed. I remember flying over an island that looked like a nuclear bomb had just gone off, and after a week seeing roads cleared, people fed, and civilization restored. And I remember, and will always remember, seeing a child, standing on a beach, wearing the most poignant shirt that I have ever seen.
Never Give Up.
