Navy rescues young girl at sea

BaggedLancer · December 2007

Just finished reading this, pretty nice story with a happy ending. Talk about a nice Christmas present from the U.S. Navy.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20071219/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_surgery_at_sea

Jstas · December 2007

As surprising and unusual as that seems, that is not out of the ordinary for the U.S. Navy. The Navy responds to more distress calls worldwide in a year than the Coast Guard does for U.S. waters yearly. It by no means lessens the tasks that were undertaken nor does it take away anything from those men and women that worked to save that girl in any way. It doesn't detract from the efforts of the Coast Guard in any way either. It just shows that the Navy is fully staffed with people willing to do such thing as take a 900 million dollar aircraft carrier and steam towards a cruise ship in distress at $2.5mil a day in operations costs just to get a little girl the help she needs. That's awesome!

I was on a cruiser for a test event. The ship I was on was taken out of active duty for the duration of about 6 months of testing. While we were testing, a distress call came out from a merchant marine tugboat based out of Brazil on their way out of Thailand. Halfway across, they had a crew member take a fall and if he didn't get medical attention, he'd at the minimum be paralyzed but would likely die. We were the only ship in the area and the Navy shutdown a 400 million dollar test event and sent a 450 million dollar cruiser full of sailors and civilians to the rescue. We steamed all night and part of the day to reach these guys, air lifted the guy on to the cruiser and turned around a hauled **** back to Kauai and got him airlifted off to a Navy hospital. Last I heard he made a full recovery.

Where I work, we build systems that have the intent of ending lives in self defense. Heady stuff when you think about it. But it is in defense of this great nation of ours that such powerful systems are put to bare. When I hear such stories that these weapons and ships are put to the use of rescuing people in need, it is honestly a proud moment that knowing my work makes those systems possible and it is a testament to our government and armed forces that we can see the value in preserving human life at any cost and we put something designed to take human life to the task of preserving it. It's not the tool that is evil but rather the operator of that tool. I hear about how evil the U.S. is and how we are overly aggressive in military and world affairs but I see stories like this and I know, without a doubt, that no matter how bad a perception there might be against us, our armed forces are full of people who are decidedly not evil. I also know that there is at least one more mom out there that doesn't see a staff of soldiers on the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan but a host of angels sent by God to save her baby girl and that right there is what heroes are made of.

I tip my hat and raise my glass as I have done many times before to the Navy and all the armed forces and all those who put themselves on the line everyday for such actions of total compassion and dedication even in the face of adversity. You are all my heroes and I am proud to have known so many of you and even prouder to know that there is no end to the stream of fine men and women that will come after you to fill your shoes when you retire your post and preserve life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all men and women. Good show boys! Keep up the excellent work!

shadowofnight · December 2007

Read that before coming on here....fighting for us common folk is what they do best...that was a fight and they kicked **** as usual. Killer story...:)