Fleece’s Faves – “Mercy” edition

 

Mercy leaving San Diego Bay

Something the US Military does not often get enough credit for is the numerous humanitarian efforts we participate in, and most often lead, around the world.  One such vessel that allows us to provide help to people on this Earth is my Fave this week, the USNS Mercy.

 

The Mercy is a hospital ship, the largest in the world.  Compared to other ships in the US naval inventory, she is the third largest, bested only by the two “super-carrier” class of ships Enterprise and Nimitz.  The Mercy’s overall length is 894 feet, and her beam (that is width) is 105 feet, giving her a displacement of a whopping 69,000 tons.

The Mercy’s size is not what makes this ship so impressive, it is her capabilities that truly do so.  Of note, she carries no weapons at all, and to fire on this ship is considered an act of war.  The Mercy is not a war-fighting ship, she is designed to support our troops during amphibious landings.  When not in combat, she is frequently deployed to “natural disaster” zones to provide much-needed hospital facilities – often she is the only hospital operational in a disaster area, due to loss of power and or other problems with land-based facilities.

The Mercy sports 1000 hospital beds, making her the 28th largest hospital in the United States, larger than hospitals such as Johns Hopkins, Cedar-Sinai and Bellevue.  Her on-board facilities include: four X-rays, one CT scan unit, a dental suite, an optometry and lens laboratory, a physical therapy center, a pharmacy, an angiography suite and two oxygen-producing plants. Mercy is capable of maintaining up to 5,000 units of blood. (from the USNS Mercy factsheet)  When deployed, the Mercy houses over 1200 hospital and support personnel to man all these functions.  It is easy to see, she truly is a floating full service hospital.

 

Mercy being refueled

Her functions are secondary to her results, which are staggering.  In her most recent deployment dubbed Pacific Partnership 2010, the Mercy:

 

…served as one of the platforms for a humanitarian and civic assistance mission to Southeast Asia. During the Mercy portion of the mission, more than 100,000 people were treated in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and Timor-Leste. The ship’s personnel distributed more than 58,000 pairs of eyeglasses and sunglasses, and provided dental care for more than 12,000 patients. In addition, the Mercy team conducted more than 24,000 hours of information exchanges in the four countries visited. The team also participated in 62 community service projects ashore, the majority at schools and orphanages.

58,000 pairs of glasses?!?  That is incredible considering the mission was only 6 months.

Much love goes out to the doctors and corpsmen (that’s a silent “p'” Mr. President”) who serve on this vessel; your actions and service show to the world what America is truly about, honor, compassion, and like your ship’s most apropos name, Mercy.

On to the Links

Always on Watch – interesting video asking which begs the question, Is it time to impeach the President?

American and Proud – great and very funny NewsBusted video here

 

The rainbow is rather fitting

 

 

America’s Watchtower – on the Obama doctrine

Be Sure You’re Right, then Go Ahead – good post about the new focus The Donald is bringing to Obama’s lack of transparency regarding his birth

Blog de KingShamus – best Earth Hour sign off…EVAH!

Bread Upon the Waters – The Lord’s my Shepherd – GuitarBoy

Bunkerville – checkout how former Gitmo detainees are leading the Libyan rebellion

Capitol Commentary – Harrison calls for a study on Liberals

Citizen Warrior – Some things you probably didn’t know about Islam

Conservative Hideout – Useful idiot of the month winner

Conservatives on Fire – has some good news about Radical Islam, it is not a threat to the world, whew!

Disrupt the Narrative – excellent Bill Whittle video about Michael Moore and his mathematical skills, or lack thereof

 

Surgeons aboard the Mercy performing a cleft-lip operation

 

 

Mind-Numbed Robot – has a great list of bloggers on the radio

motorcitytimes – really cool video commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Highway Safety Board – hint, it shows cars wrecking =)

NoOneofAnyImport – gives us a great account of her husband and the Big E’s goings on of late

Planet Moron – find out what is threatening the global Consensus, it might be you!

Political Realities – Obama’s 2 year pay freeze that isn’t

Questioning With Boldness – political cartoons of the week, a ton of em

Republican Redefined – talks about Meghan McCain’s worries about HBO making republicans look bad, funny she doesn’t worry about her making republicans look bad?

rjjdq’s America – Senate holds Islamic lovefest

Spellchek – great analysis on the March jobs report

The Swash – another excellent Milton Friedman video

Thatmrgguy’s Blog – you might be a domestic terrorist if…

The Daley Gator – great Allen West vid here

New to Fleece’s Faves

sitting on the edge of the sandbox, biting my tongue – in spite of the uber-long name that is a pain in the butt to type (no wonder NoOneofAnyImport likes her) she is an excellent writer with an excellent view of the world, her latest post is about Motherhood and how many women in this age dither on the subject