...and sending the Navy at taxpayers expense.
I don’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity or cry and rage.
Civilians run the ship. The navy owns it. The only military presence on board are a few of the MD’s. I sailed one trip as 2nd Mate on her right after the conversion. She was only medium-sized for a tanker, so the whole ‘almost 3 football fields long’ thing is relative.
I’m going to disagree here with the majority of the board. The vast majority of the patients seen are kids, and the goodwill generated from the presence of the ship is seriously cheap PR that is incredibly badly needed down south. The US is doing what their own governments refuse to do: care for their kids beyond simple palliative medicine.
That’s the kind of stuff we used to do all over the world, all the time.
For the naysayers, I’ll say this, too. When the COMFORT enters a port-of-call, it blackens the eye of every public figure in the area who couldn’t provide any help to their own people.