Comfort (T AH 20) - Naval Cruise Book

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CADRE CREW The Cadre Crew of the USNS COMFORT includes personnel assigned to the ship as a PCS duty station. The crew ' s mission is to maintain the ship in a state of readiness and to be able to deploy within 5 days notice. The crew consists of 40 personnel - six being officers and 34 being enlisted. The Officer in Charge is a Commander. The other officer cadre personnel are two Nurse Corps Officers, (one as the ship ' s N.C. Officer and one as the ship ' s O.R. Nurse), one Supply Corps Officer and two Medical Service Corps Officers. The enlisted personnel give ship ' s tours, maintain cleanliness of the vessel, and maintain inventory of equipment as well as maintaining the equipment. Many of the crew members live in Annapolis in base housing as well as the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area. The Cadre Crew performed their mission of operational readiness in an outstanding manner having gotten ready to deploy from Baltimore in August 1990 within five days. COMFORT FACTS About as long as 3 football fields Its structure is equal to a 10 story building Galley can feed up to 2,500 people in 2 hours, 3 times per day Mess deck seats 500 people at once Helo deck can accommodate largest helicopter the military uses Each arm of the 7 red crosses on the ship is 27 feet across Distilling plants turn 300,000 gallons of sea H2O into fresh HjO per day Laundry facility can clean 56 tons of laundry per week Ship carries 10 lifeboats (2 can evacuate 105 people, 8-112 people) Eighty-four liferafts can evacuate 25 people each VITAL STATISTICS OVERALL LENGTH - 894 feet BEAM - 105 feet, 9 inches DRAFT, FULL LOAD - 32 feet, 9 inches FULL LOAD DISPLACEMENT - 69,360 long tons ENDURANCE - 13,420 nautical miles CRUISING SPEED - 17.5 knots MAIN PROPULSION TYPE - single screw, geared steam turbine CREW SIZE -62 FULL MEDICAL MILITARY DETACHMENT - 1,162 Converted by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, San Diego, CA 1987 Ship Sponsor - Mrs. William Narva Naming Ceremony 15 August 1987 17

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LT THOMAS E. WEBB CHAPLAIN, U.S. NAVY LT Webb served as a Naval reservist from 1984-1988. After ap- plying for a call to active duty in 1989, he came to National Naval Medical Center Bethesda for his Hrst duty station. Chaplain Webb ' s duties at Bethesda included pastoral patient care and worship ser- vices. His main focal areas were oncology, TRISARD, and psychia- try, as well as offering general patient and staff support. Upon reporting to Bethesda, Chaplain Webb was assigned to USNS COMFORT and was thereafter deployed in August 1990 with the first wave of MTF staff. His duties on COMFORT include pasto- ral care in the Burn ICU, PACU, psychiatric ward and combat stress center and also functioning as a Chaplain member of the casualty receiving team. In addition, he performs worship services; bible study classes; choir practices; coordination of Red Cross messages and assists in individual counseling. He relates that his first feelings about his deployment left him with a sense of a call to duty. 16

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« - ; Leavetaking of Baltimore by USNS COMFORT (T-AH 20) after a high speed 5 days of supplying the ship and bringing her to full operating status was accom- plished with pride along with the poi- gnant tears and gestures of love between crew members and their families. Ever present was the knowledge of a future homecoming with the same sense of pride and an overwhelming feeling of joy. . '