Usns Comfort

The Baltimore-based hospital ship USNS Comfort will not be sailing for Somalia and Operation Restore Hope in the foreseeable future, the Pentagon said yesterday.The decision provoked mixed reaction among medical personnel the Bethesda naval medical center who have been scurrying to update their records and get immunizations against tropical diseases."It was still go" at a 7 a.m. staff meeting yesterday, said Cmdr. George L. Marsh of Poolesville, who would have been assistant director of nursing services aboard the Comfort.

Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski on Wednesday likened the loss of the USNS Comfort to the departure of the Baltimore Colts - and asked Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to reconsider. The U.S. Fleet Forces Command announced last month that it was moving the white-hulled hospital ship, a fixture of the Baltimore waterfront for a quarter century, to Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia. “We love the Comfort,” Mikulski, chairing a subcommittee hearing Wednesday morning on the Navy's 2013 budget request, told Mabus.

Alan R. Reid, a U.S. Navy marine engineer whose work included outfitting the hospital ship USNS Comfort, died yesterday of a brain tumor in Stella Maris Hospice in Cockeysville. He was 43.Mr. Reid, a Columbia resident for 21 years, worked 22 years as a civilian marine engineer, most of that time for the Military Sealift Command directing construction and re-fitting of military support ships. Since 1983, he had been director of the Ship Introduction Division at the command's headquarters at the Washington Navy Yard.

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ABOARD THE USNS COMFORT -- On the way home to Baltimore, after eight months away in the Persian Gulf war, the USNS Comfort was anchored off Annapolis this morning, the Bay Bridge barely visible through the fog.A crewman's family rocked in a little cabin cruiser off to starboard in the hope of giving him an early welcome home. Congressmen and military brass were boarding helicopters to fly in for a welcoming ceremony. The ship was full of anticipation of its homecoming to Dundalk this afternoon.

Justyn Exman's impatience was turning quickly to anxiety. "Daddy!" the 5-year-old yelled. "Where are you?" Justyn, his mom and his 9-year-old sister, along with about 60 other people, were waiting - and waiting - yesterday morning while the mammoth hospital ship USNS Comfort, having just spent four months on a humanitarian mission to Latin America and the Caribbean, cruised into its home port in Baltimore and docked. It was a lengthy, laborious process. It was not until 9:45 a.m., after some had been standing on the pier for almost two hours, that crew members and medical staff began disembarking.

ABOARD THE USNS COMFORT - When the grenade ripped through his armored vehicle, and shrapnel burned into his right leg, Marine Cpl. Michael John Meade thought first of a promise he made to himself before leaving for the war: If he ever lost a limb, he would find a way not to come home. Returning in such shape would be too humiliating; but yesterday, the red-headed 20-year-old from Michigan's Upper Peninsula was sitting comfortably in a wheelchair on this floating hospital ship, his intact leg wrapped in clean white gauze.

Five months after it left Baltimore harbor in a snowstorm, the USNS Comfort and its crew reappeared through a summery haze yesterday and pulled into a home berth packed with hundreds of cheering friends and family members. The crowd at Pier 11 in Canton spotted the red cross emblazoned on the Navy hospital ship's hull about 1:30 p.m., and finally let out whoops and hollers when the Comfort came into full view, with a line of white-clad sailors waving and straining against the railing. When it docked moments later, the crew marched off the ship that had served a unique role in the Iraq war, treating 630 sick and wounded Americans and Iraqis from the Persian Gulf.

Lobbyists poured a quarter million on Casper Taylor's gubernatorial fire in the fervent desire to retain his gratitude as he remains speaker of the House.The USNS Comfort will sale for the Caribbean, which is cold comfort if you don't want to intervene in Haiti.Fox TV went after the alphabet networks' affiliates like so many chickens in an ill-defended coop.

Hundreds of Navy personnel have disembarked from the hospital ship USNS Comfort in Norfolk, Va., as it returns from a seven-week mission treating earthquake victims in Haiti. The hospital ship arrived at Naval Station Norfolk on Saturday. It's scheduled to leave Thursday and arrive at its home port in Baltimore on Friday. Navy officials say 500 of the ship's 700 personnel disembarked over the weekend. - Associated Press

Thank you for your great reporting to help keep the citizens of Maryland aware of the plan to move the USNS Comfort to Norfolk, Va. ("Navy moving comfort to Va. " Feb. 15). This almost does not make sense given the advantage of keeping the hospital ship in Baltimore and the $40 million it will cost the state in lost economic activity. Sadly, this is just another failure of many in the Maryland General Assembly and our congressional delegation to understand root causes and nip a potential loss in the bud several years ago. If one kept a score sheet of Maryland's private sector jobs and business losses and those that did not select Maryland to set up business over the past decade, the job losses would outnumber the gains.

Gov. Martin O'Malley says Maryland will have a tough time persuading the Navy to keep the USNS Comfort docked in Baltimore, but he expects forthcoming commerce to bolster the waterfront's vibrancy. O'Malley said Wednesday he will work with the state's congressional delegation, specifically Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, to try to keep the hospital ship here. But the reality, he said, is the Navy can save about $2 million a year by keeping the humanitarian vessel and floating emergency hospital at a military pier in Norfolk, Va. "The hard economics of the matter is that the ship was docked at a private berth and paying $2 million when they could pay nothing by going to available naval facilities in Norfolk, and so it's a tough economic argument to make," the two-term Democratic governor said.

It was Happy Hour at the Poncabird Pub on Wednesday, and the South Baltimore tavern was as busy and bustling as usual, but as late-afternoon sunlight streaked through a side window, the expressions it caught on the faces at one table were decidedly grim. "This [stinks]," said Dane Sobus, a regular customer who has spent many evenings drinking with crew members and workers from the USNS Comfort, the hospital ship the Navy announced this week will be moving to Norfolk, Va., after a quarter-century in the port of Baltimore.

There was a rare instance of sweet harmony this week in the normally bitter realm of Maryland politics. The possibility that the Navy might move the USNS Comfort's home port from Baltimore to Norfolk, Va., in 2013 brought Republicans and Democrats together. From both sides of the aisle came the call to keep the 1,000-bed hospital ship berthed in Canton. Helen Delich Bentley, who as a Republican member of Congress was instrumental in bring the ship to Baltimore in 1988, this week was working with Democratic Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski and Congressman C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger to block the move.

The Navy is considering moving the hospital ship USNS Comfort from its home in the port of Baltimore to Norfolk, Va., when its current berthing agreement expires in 2013, officials said Tuesday. Maryland's representatives in Washington are trying to block such a move. Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski is seeking federal funding to study the impact that moving the ship would have on its wartime and humanitarian missions. Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger introduced legislation Tuesday that would require the Navy to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before making a decision.

The family members arrived with signs and flags and messages of thanks to hand out on the pier. A local businessman showed up with 120 dozen doughnuts; a school in Park Heights brought every one of its students to stand and cheer. And when crew members of the USNS Comfort finally walked through the gates at Canton Pier on Friday, hoisting the belongings they'd taken during a seven-week tour providing emergency medical care in Haiti, the kids screamed and pressed certificates of thanks into their hands.

No Maryland military units have been alerted for service i Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, according to spokesman for local units and the Pentagon.Col. Howard Freedlander, Maryland National Guard spokesman, said units are updating contingency plans as a matter of prudent planning, just in case. He said the Air National Guard last week completed its tour of duty flying relief supplies from Mombasa, Kenya, to airstrips in Somalia and is not scheduled to return to Africa.Spokesmen at Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground said none of their units have been put on alert for possible Somalia duty.

An article in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported the patient capacity of the hospital USNS Comfort, which is being deployed to the Caribbean in June. The ship has 1,000 beds.The Sun regrets the error.The Baltimore-based hospital ship USNS Comfort will be sent to the Caribbean early next month for possible use as a processing center for fleeing Haitian boat people, the Military Sealift Command (MSC) said yesterday.The Comfort -- last activated for military duty during the Persian Gulf war -- is undergoing routine maintenance at Newport News, Va., and "will report to the U.S. Atlantic Command for duty in the Caribbean in early June," according to the MSC, a civilian agency which operates the 250-bed hospital ship.

Hundreds of Navy personnel have disembarked from the hospital ship USNS Comfort in Norfolk, Va., as it returns from a seven-week mission treating earthquake victims in Haiti. The hospital ship arrived at Naval Station Norfolk on Saturday. It's scheduled to leave Thursday and arrive at its home port in Baltimore on Friday. Navy officials say 500 of the ship's 700 personnel disembarked over the weekend. - Associated Press

PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI - -Helicopters shuttle people and supplies on and off the USNS Comfort from sunrise to sunset, but the flight preparing to leave at 9 a.m. Monday was clearly different. There was no line of Haitian patients waiting near the flight deck, clutching bags of medical supplies and an extra meal for the trip home. No crew members strapping on their earphones and helmets. And along a wall, looking quiet and serious like everyone else, was the conspicuous presence of Cmdr.