Thread: USS Essex : Bound for Burma

A slow boat to Myanmar - nearly
vivek prakash

I was at the airport shooting pictures to illustrate a Singapore Airlines story when the office rang to say there was an opportunity, if we could move quickly enough, to embed with the U.S. Naval relief operation heading to cyclone hit Myanmar.



Early the next morning I was aboard a U.S. Navy supply ship heading up the Malacca Strait. There were 8 journalists on board - writers, a BBC tv reporter and cameramen, and 3 photographers. It was a 2 day trip up to the USS Essex, and with little else to do on board, I photographed the crew preparing supplies which would be transferred when we arrived. With only experience of ferries to go on I’d feared getting horribly seasick - but was holding up okay, and excited about what we’d find when we got to the Navy ships.

snip

reuters.com

vivek prakash has a blog with reuters , more pic's and full ( long ) article here : http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2008/...arly/?rpc=401&&

Interesting article about US military aid into Myanmar:

*snip*

When Cyclone Nargis tore across Myanmar on May 2, the Marines were preparing for the start of the annual Cobra Gold in Thailand.

But it didn’t take the unit’s 240 Okinawa-based Marines — most of whom have returned — long to switch gears from a combat-training posture to relief mode, working around the clock to provide pallets of supplies for the support effort, dubbed "Operation Caring Response."

On May 12, after delays caused by the reluctance of the Myanmar government to accept international assistance, a U.S. Air Force C-130 loaded with relief supplies was allowed to land in Rangoon. It was the first of 200 relief flights delivering more than 3.3 million pounds of much-needed supplies that the U.S. military would send into the country to assist international organizations providing relief.

Marines reflect on Myanmar relief effort | Stars and Stripes

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Two hundred flights is nothing to sneeze at.

Wonder why the mainstream media never reported it?

Nice to see a truly uncynical and nice article about armed forces - especially US forces who are always associated with Iraq.

^ agree 100%

Now the hard part begins !

Had to chuckle about this quote from the article

"There are still some Marines down there, making sure all the equipment gets on the ship and comes back," said Capt. James Warner,

Far more common than most people would imagine.

Just isn't seen as newsworthy.