Iwo Jima (LHD 7) - Naval Cruise Book

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Hotel IWO JIMA Saturday, 10 September- Our attempt to get into some kind of battle rhythm hasn ' t been working out very well with the demand of events. Today was an extremely busy day with a berth shift, flight operations, logistics runs, a working lunch with the Parish presidents and the new Principle Federal Officer, VADM Allen, plus a CJTF Katrina meeting with all the subordinate commands, and the visit by CNO Admiral Mullen. We set the special sea and anchor detail this morning to get underway... but only to move approximately 600 feet to free up space astern of us for the arrival of a cruise liner. We elected not to sound the ship ' s whistle as is required by the International Rules of the Road to indicate that the ship was underway making way because we did not want to give any hint that IWO JIMA was leaving. Instead and with the help of 3 tugs, we sailed ever so slowly down the river a couple hundred feet to our new berth almost as though our movement was imperceptible to a landward observer. Nonetheless, it felt good to get undenway even tor such a short time. As we did with our old berth, several dozen Sailors set to work cleaning off the pier and surrounding areas. It was nasty work. There was garbage rotting in the sun for several days piled up under the Terminal. We even set up fire hoses to blast weeks of filth to clean off the pier. Rudy Guiliani changed the spirit of New York City by attacking the simple problems like broken windows, trash, etc. It helped restore civic pride. We are following the Mayor ' s example. We figure we ' d start with the pier and Riverwalk Terminal and continue to expand out each day, cleanng out trash and garbage, cleaning up streets, and sweeping up parks and public areas. A new addition to the growing list of ship capabilities is the Dental Doc. As the only dentist for a crew of 1 ,200 Sailors, he has a full time job already - the LHDs traditionally have the highest doctor to patient ratio out in the fleet - but now his workload has doubled. With the exception of the dentists on our sister ships TORTUGA and SHREVEPORT the Dental Doc is the only deal in town. He is amazed at the number of guardsmen with bad teeth, or so he says. We suspect that he is working on a tooth necklace and is using this opportunity to increase its length. He claims that if you sit in his chair, he is going to pull something. Despite his reputation, he has not had a shortage of off-ship customers.

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Simple Acts Friday, 9 September- Meal hours on IWO JIMA is an extraordinary thing, I wall ed through the mess decks several times today to watch this intricate and impressive operation. On the average the Chow Boss and his team of Culinary Specialists and Food Service Attendants (FSAs) are serving up between 6,000 and 7,000 meals a day, over twice the ship ' s normal capacity. This is extraordinary in that, unlike our ARC deployments where the 1,200 embarked Marines provide an equal number of cooks and FSAs to augment the galley Supply Department and the ship are taking it all out of hide. We have over a thousand Army and National Guard personnel off the concrete slabs and on soft(er) Navy racks. Relief is on the way from both PHIBGRU 2 and SECGNDFLT to help us out, thankfully Yet despite the strain, the Food Service Team is inspired to the ta sk, I watched a group of FSAs furiously working the scullery, cleaning thousands of dishes in rapid fashion amid the heat and steam to get them back on the mess line to meet the growing demand. The other extraordinary thing about meals on IWO JIMA ! the sea of uniforms. It is the epitome of Jointness; Army, Navy Marine Corps, Air Force, National Guard, and Coast Guard, tus FEMA and dozens of local and federal personnel. There are 35 to 40 distinct and different Army and National Guard units lone, IWO JIMAs Sailors are learning a considerable amount about what the Army Air Force, Marine Corps (well, this is the mphibious Navy and of course we all know about our fellow Marines), National Guard, and Coast Guard do, One team one ght is a truism on the mess decks just as it is out in the field. The interaction has sparked extraordinary cooperation. On the beach, the ship does not want for any support: ground transportation, boats, helos, etc. We are all in this together. The ship ' s engineers have been helping out the National Guard, They repaired the roller doors and restored the air conditioning plant in the large Riverwalk Terminal building adjacent to the ship which is used to house the Rhode Island National Guard, One Guardsmen stated that it was so cold she needed a jacket. They have also been heavily engaged in repairing the air conditioning system at the Convention Center where some 1 ,650 service men are billeted. Over the past few days, they have been pumping up several thousands of gallons of chill water (from the ship) to prime the system via a jury-rigged, hand-made pumping system, and will hopefully fire up the plant in the next day We discovered another unique capability of USS IWO JIMA today or I should say, our shipmates in the field did: the laundry. With the exception of our sister ships TORTUGA and SHREVEPORT IWO JIMA has the only operable laundry in all of New Orleans, Today, the Ship ' s Servicemen have washed about a ton of laundry from the troops in the field. But that is just a drop in the bucket. The S-3 Officer was approached today by an Army Captain noting that he had 24,000 soldiers and Guardsmen whose uniforms needed a good wash. This one is going to take some time. Another sorely missed service is the haircut. We set up a chair on the pier yesterday and have had no end to customers wanting a haircut, about 1 00 got their ears lowered in the last two days. A handful of IWO JIMA volunteers joined TORTUGA and the Coast Guard and National Guard in conducting combat rubber raiding craft (CRRC) patrols in flooded areas to evacuee people still there, TORTUGA was the first of the amphibious ships to arrive in New Orleans last Sunday and set to work immediately upon arrival using the CRRCs ( cricks ) for search and rescue. This has been a huge effort shouldered by our Sister ship. To date, our shipmates have cleared out the entire south side of the Mississippi south of Algiers, rescuing hundreds of people and transporting them to safe havens after a medical check-up and a hot meal on good ship TORTUGA. Our Sailors reported the grim conditions ut in the still flooded areas with contaminated water, refuse, and dead animals after today ' s patrol. Despite the disheartening residue left by receding waters, there are increasing signs that things are improving. I detected that there are more red letters illuminated n the Sheraton sign this evening. ..and more lights appear to be coming on along the river front, 37 pumping stations plus 17 portable pumping stations are now online, ontinuing to drain the flood waters, and more pumping stations are repaired and brought online each day. Roads are opening up. Sister ship TORTUGA received a truck )ad of MREs, the first ground-transported logistics, I think. More will follow. The Ship ' s Doctor visited the three main hospitals in the area. East Jefferson, West Jefferson, and )schner. All are up and operating, near fully staffed with state of the art equipment, and ready if not eager, for patients. It demonstrates a very positive trend by the federal and )cal authorities of getting the infrastructure in place ahead of demand vice the other way around. Our neighbors ) the Rl National Guard have been hard at work cleaning up in and around the Convention Center, clearing out le refuse and scrubbing walls and decks. Our first official act after we put over the brow last Monday was to clean le pier. It was covered with trash and refuse, and with our berth shift on Saturday morning, we ' ll send out another 00 person working party and clean another segment of the Riverwalk pier. Sometimes a simple act becomes ifectious and helps restore civic pride.

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I am seeing the strain on the crew of Hotel IWO JIMA, The demand of serving thousands of meals, washing tons of laundry, moving large numbers of people on and off the ship, and seeing that they get to where they need to go through the rat ' s maze that is the interior of the LHD is getting tough. There is a steady stream of new faces coming onboard each day seeking food, a shower, and a place to stay As the shore infrastructure improves - the air conditioning systems for the Rl National Guard and 82nd Airborne facilities are working fine as well as the system at the Convention Center - some of our tenants are gravitating back ashore, but they are replaced by new tenants every day. We sent a delegation to the Parish Hall for Orleans Parish today to talk with officials and identify projects where we can help. Dunng a break in the discussions, the Ship ' s Chaplain engaged one of the workers in conversation. She asked him what service he was in and where he was from and he told her, IWO JIMA Oh, she replied, that ' s the place I can get a shower and hot food. The Supply Officer reported that the number of meals served was between 6,500 and 7,000, today and we are now up to 2.5 tons of laundry washed since we arrived. But, the Sailors are hungry for something much more than just the routine of the past few days. Symbols can be very important. Most everyone feels the arrival of IWO JIMA and her sister ships TORTUGA and SHREVEPORT was a symbol of hope for the City of New Orleans. But Sailors don ' t care about symbols and numbers and statistics. Sailors care about doing. They want to do more for this great undertaking than just wash dishes and chock and chain helicopters. However, given the enormous challenges facing every single relief agency, it is difficult, if not frustrating, at times to get specific tasking for relief projects, so the ships have to be proactive and just strike out where we think we can best provide help. SHREVEPORT and TORTUGA have already done just that and we are doing the same. The area around the Riverwalk Terminal is one of the most trashed sections so we will expand out our cleaning and cleanng efforts and go as far as we can. The Command Master Chief has the perfect project in mind and the crew is hungry for the mission. Our CIC gets hundreds of queries for information every day But one query from a higher headquarters (who shall remain nameless) asked us. What is your course and speed, and current position ' ? As if we are going anywhere? We still have an awful lot of work to do before this is over. ' Xjt ,. % 3 1 • ?