Mercy Musings

Thursday June 12, 2008 - Off the coast of the Philippines

Well, I’ve been on the U.S.N.S. Mercy a month already, and since trying to e-mail everyone to keep up with what I am doing has been difficult, I’ve been talked into blogging. I wished I had started it a month ago but I was too chicken. Hopefully, I can be your eyes and ears on this adventure of a lifetime. Not easy dragging a child of the ‘50s into the 21st century, but probably a much better way of keeping in touch with people and recording some of my experiences. Some days, such as this one, it may be very lengthy, sometimes not. This will not always be grammatically correct, there will be misspellings, and I may have to eat my words every now and then but here goes.
One day I got a call at a conference. “I hope you don’t mind but I volunteered you for something”. Knowing it was my graduate advisor Dr.Frost, who has done so much, so quietly, for so many people, I had very little hesitation in accepting and answered “Sure, what is it?” “How would you like to go on the Mercy?” I couldn’t believe my luck! I had been on the Mercy to Banda Aceh and Nias, Indonesia in 2006 and really wanted to go again but was in the middle of graduate school for Global Emergency Preparedness and Response at San Diego State University. I was thinking it would be for a couple of weeks or maybe a month at the most. The Mercy was planning on going to several countries including Vietnam, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia. I was stoked! Little did I know that I would be on this venture for nearly four months. At the planning meeting for the trip I asked, “which leg of the trip do you want me to go on?” I was trying to figure out that if I had to choose between Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, or Micronesia, which would I pick? When they told me the whole thing, I inwardly gulped, knowing what a challenge it was to live on the ship for a couple of weeks much less for an extended period of time, but excited non the less. Would I have the mental and physical stamina? (We’ll find out)
To tell you the truth, I never even thought I would be a nurse, (I wanted to be an archaeologist) much less voyaging across the Pacific in a Navy ship with nearly a thousand other people. Currently my area of interest in nursing is in International Civilian/Military Collaboration for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response. This was the perfect opportunity as the Navy is working with several Host Nation and U.S non-government humanitarian agencies to deliver assistance to these countries.
Well, enough about how and why I got here. We are finishing our first leg of this trip and will leave the Philippines in a few days. I’ll try and recap what we’ve done and post pictures when I can, but I just remembered I have laundry to finish, (yes, you have to do laundry on the ship) and then head to the mess deck for an ice-cream social celebrating Independence Day here in the Philippines. Looking forward to some time on the ground in Manila.