Courtesy of the Pious Agnostic, who got it from the Diplomad, we have the lovely tale of a sailor besieged aboard his own ship: the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is currently helping tsunami survivors in Indonesia.
Who is besieging him? you ask. Well, the answer would be relief workers. And reporters. And various officials who want to get in on the action.
{...}What really irritated me was a scene I witnessed in the Lincoln’s wardroom a few days ago. I went in for breakfast as I usually do, expecting to see the usual crowd of ship’s company officers in khakis and air wing aviators in flight suits, drinking coffee and exchanging rumors about when our ongoing humanitarian mission in Sumatra is going to end.What I saw instead was a mob of civilians sitting around like they owned the place. They wore various colored vests with logos on the back including Save The Children, World Health Organization and the dreaded baby blue vest of the United Nations. Mixed in with this crowd were a bunch of reporters, cameramen and Indonesian military officers in uniform. They all carried cameras, sunglasses and fanny packs like tourists on their way to Disneyland.
My warship had been transformed into a floating hotel for a bunch of trifling do-gooders overnight.
As I went through the breakfast line, I overheard one of the U.N. strap-hangers, a longhaired guy with a beard, make a sarcastic comment to one of our food servers. He said something along the lines of “Nice china, really makes me feel special,” in reference to the fact that we were eating off of paper plates that day. It was all I could do to keep from jerking him off his feet and choking him, because I knew that the reason we were eating off paper plates was to save dishwashing water so that we would have more water to send ashore and save lives. That plus the fact that he had no business being there in the first place.
{...}As a result of having to host these people, our severely over-tasked SH-60 Seahawk helos, which were carrying tons of food and water every day to the most inaccessible places in and around Banda Aceh, are now used in great part to ferry these “relief workers” from place to place every day and bring them back to their guest bedrooms on the Lincoln at night. Despite their avowed dedication to helping the victims, these relief workers will not spend the night in-country, and have made us their guardians by default.
When our wardroom treasurer approached the leader of the relief group and asked him who was paying the mess bill for all the meals they ate, the fellow replied, “We aren’t paying, you can try to bill the U.N. if you want to.”
In addition to the relief workers, we routinely get tasked with hauling around reporters and various low-level “VIPs,” which further wastes valuable helo lift that could be used to carry supplies. We had to dedicate two helos and a C-2 cargo plane for America-hater Dan Rather and his entourage of door holders and briefcase carriers from CBS News. Another camera crew was from MTV. I doubt if we’ll get any good PR from them, since the cable channel is banned in Muslim countries. We also had to dedicate a helo and crew to fly around the vice mayor of Phoenix, Ariz., one day. Everyone wants in on the action.
As for the Indonesian officers, while their job is apparently to encourage our leaving as soon as possible, all they seem to do in the meantime is smoke cigarettes. They want our money and our help but they don’t want their population to see that Americans are doing far more for them in two weeks than their own government has ever done or will ever do for them. {...}
Go read the whole thing. (They've been having issues with their server. If you can't get through the first time, keep checking. It's worth the extra effort.)
Ugh. This tale reminds me of the time when I was living in Iowa. During the summer of 1993, the 500 year flood rolled through. To put it lightly, the entire state was thoroughly soaked and flooded and Des Moines, in particular, had some issues with clean drinking water as their poorly placed water works had been taken entirely offline by the flooding. The husband, who at that time was "The Boyfriend", was drafted on a hot, sunny Sunday, by his Des Moines-living parents to bring bottled water down to the homefront because they had no potable water. After cleaning out the local Hy-Vee, we drove down to Des Moines and let me tell you, that was one car ride I'll never forget.
Getting into town was exceedingly tricky. There are two rivers that flow through the city: the Raccoon, which comes in through West Des Moines and flows in a southeasterly direction toward downtown, where it meets up with the Des Moines river, which comes into town from the northwest. Because both rivers had slipped their banks, numerous freeways were blocked off. We finally made it into the city by taking the South East 14th Street bridge, a sturdy, utilitarian suspension number that was originally designed as a railway bridge, but had been converted to carry cars. The bridge wasn't pretty, but it got the job done.
That was one scary ride. The river was about two feet below the bridge, where, when the river wasn't flooded, there was usually about fifty feet of space. I remember vividly that there was a huge tree that was working its way downstream as we were crossing. If it didn't clear the bridge, well, that bridge was toast. Did I mention that, since this was the only accessible bridge that there was a bit of a traffic jam going on? Well, there was. You live in a city with a quarter of a million people and suddenly there's absolutely NO drinking water, and you'll be stuck in a traffic jam as well, because everyone and their mother is out scavenging for water for their families. I remember sitting there with the husband and trying not to freak out about that tree. It did clear the bridge. Just at the right time, the tree sunk into the rushing water, as if God had pushed it down, and the next thing we all knew, it was floating through on the other side. We made it to the inlaws house and all was well, but the situation in town was exceedingly dire. No water for a quarter of a million people? That's bad news, baby. And something had to be done.
Over the next couple of days, the National Guard and the Red Cross had a chance to get things under control, and slowly things worked themselves into a sense of normality. People would bring plastic jugs to water trucks stationed all over the city. No one knew when the water would be back up and running, but it was time to focus on getting that job done, because the essentials had been taken care of. While the panic was apparent on that Sunday, by Tuesday, priorities had changed and at the top of that list was to get the water works back up and running. The Iowa National Guard had put out a call to civilians to come and fill sandbags. The situation goes something like this: fill sandbags, carry them to the water works, clear the water works of river water, clean the water works from top to bottom, get the water works back online.
A Simple plan, no? But it was tricky: more rain was expected. And anyone who's ever lived through an extended flood can tell you that once you have loads of water standing around, the weather changes. That water evaporates into the atmosphere. If it's summer, there is heat involved. Because of the heat, and the standing water, you have your own thunderstorm building machine. That summer we didn't have to wait for some weather system to work it's way over the Rockies, or to come up from the Gulf of Mexico: we had our own source of water to provide weather. Ultimately, this water turns into more rain. And more rain will cause more flooding. Hence, time was of the essence to get things under control, before even more flooding happened. The Iowa National Guard, God Bless Them, was working their tails off to make it happen. They even brought in a Chinook helicopter to be able to ferry more sandbags where they needed to be. Everything was working smoothly.
That is until Bubba Clinton came into Des Moines to feel our pain.
Des Moines International Airport is a small airport. Dinky. Three or four gates total if I remember correctly. Omaha's airport is bigger, even if it doesn't have one daily flight to Canada which allows for it to use the word "international" in its name. Hell, Billings' airport is bigger and that's in Montana for crying out loud. Des Moines' airport has one runway. The aforementioned Chinook was taking off and landing there: it was the only place where there was enough space to operate this massive two-rotored beast, and it was very close to the water works. The airport was ideal. Until Bubba showed up on Air Force One. Because the airport was so dinky, and because there are certain safety regulations the Secret Service employs whenever Air Force One lands, the Chinook had to stop operating: there wasn't room at the airport for both of them to operate. That and the fact that the airspace was automatically closed because the Prez was there.
So, for a period of about five crucial hours, the very necessary Chinook was shut down. No work was done on getting the water works back online because it made no sense to fill sandbags if they weren't being ferried off.
And all because Bubba had to feel our pain. If I hadn't been convinced Bubba was a sleazebag before then, well, that would have convinced me. Of course, none of this was reported when Dan Rather delivered the nightly news in his hip waders from the Fleur Bridge, where the sandbagging operations went on.
I feel awful for the tsunami survivors, because what aren't they getting because of these people's selfishness? Is someone going hungry or thirsty because food and water didn't make it to them as that helicopter was too busy ferrying reporters around? I feel for the men and women on the Lincoln. They are there to help: and to not be able to do their jobs and help solve the problem must frustrating as hell. They're also unable to do their original jobs because of this greediness. And, to add insult to all this injury, to be abused by their guests in the meanwhile? Ugh.
If this sailor's story didn't convince you that the UN is a waste of space, that the sense of entitlement that comes with bureaucracy runs from top to bottom within that organization, what exactly will?
Posted by Kathy at January 22, 2005 12:59 PM