“This was a completely different kind of life than what we are used to in the Army,” said Spc. Nathan Boehringer, who worked in the emergency room onboard Comfort. “I got to work with people from all over the world. It was great. I loved being a part of this mission and doing good.”
CP09 is a four-month humanitarian and civic assistance mission to Latin America and the Caribbean region. The first stop was Haiti where medical treated nearly 7,000 people, filled more than 11,000 prescriptions and performed 161 surgeries onboard ship.
Comfort’s crew consists of more than 850 personnel at any one time, consisting of all branches of the U.S. military and interagency personnel, non-governmental organizations, civil service mariners, academia, and partner nations.
Of those, a large portion are part-time volunteers from various military and non-governmental sources who rotate in and out for varying time frames. For example, the Army reservists who just left were replaced by 20 more from the same unit. The new group of soldiers will remain onboard until May 14 and take over the same duties as the previous team. They will perform their duties in the Dominican Republic, then travel on to Antigua and Barbuda.
“It was a lot of fun being on the Comfort helping so many people and working with the Navy, Air Force, Canadian forces and other non-governmental organizations,” said Spc. Randi Durham, who worked in the operating room onboard Comfort. “This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for us in the Army. We don’t get to do this kind of thing and I’m glad we had a chance to be a part of it.”
This is the ship I will have the privledge to travel on for the next three weeks. The article comes from the website usns comfort and describes what my mission is about.I get on at point 4 on monday and travel to point 5 and so on until my time is up. I am so excited to do this once in a life time experience. I prey that god has prepared me and given me the max skills, and that I am able to give better than "my best". I also prey that my family is blessed with good times and happiness in my absence. Jay definatly knows how to keep their minds off the fact that mom is gone, with all the fun he musters up.
I cant wait to get home and post my story and pictures of the opertunities god puts before me. Tune in after the tenth to see what i got to see and experience.Thank you god!
