Captain Pepper and the humanitarian efforts of the USNS Mercy

During her time in Southeast Asia people literally walked for days to see United States Navy Captain Patricia Pepper. Lucky for the legs  of those who attended Wednesday’s Veterans Day dinner, the Captain was kind enough to come to them.
Legion Commander Jim Finnes introduced Captain Peterson as the keynote speaker to over 160 veterans, friends and family during the dinner held last week in the upstairs of the Granite Falls Legion.
Finnes spoke of a long history with the Hazel Run native, and in his matter of fact manner recalled his first meeting with Captain during a 4-H event, when Pepper had still been just a girl and the daughter of Phillip and Lorraine Vold. The Legion Commander did not go into detail, but with prideful acknowledgement noted how far the Captain had come since her days of rearing sheep, her graduation from Clarkfield High School in 1982 and even her graduation from Medical School at the University of Duluth a few years after that... Yes, you’d be referring to her as Dr. Pepper if were not for the overriding title of Captain.

USNS Mercy
With the aid of slides, Capt. Pepper informed the audience of a May through September 2006 humanitarian effort in which U.S. military and medical crew island-hopped to third world countries in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia and East Timor while aboard what can only be described as a floating hospital.
Named for the virtue of compassion, the USNS Mercy is the third largest ship in U.S. Navy and the leader of its class of hospital ships. At nearly 70,000 tons, and an 894 foot stone’s throw from bow to stern, the converted oil tanker is able to provide for: close to 1,500 military staff and crew, 12 fully equipped operating rooms, a 1,000-bed hospital facility, digital radiological services, a medical laboratory, a pharmacy, an optometry lab, a CAT-scan and two oxygen producing plants.
“Almost everything you could ask for in a hospital,” said Pepper.

Waving the flag
While the primary mission of the Mercy is to support military personnel during conflicts; secondarily, the ship provides mobile surgical hospital service for in disaster or humanitarian relief and like situations.
The Captain said that the five month mission of which she was apart, held a twofold purpose. While providing medical care was the ostensible motive, she noted that the crew was also present to ‘wave the flag,’ and promote positive public relations in a region of particular significance because of its vast  Muslim affiliation.
According to a Congressional Research Service report, since 2001, the U.S. has been “concerned” with radical Islamic groups within Southeast Asia known to have ties with the Al Qaeda network. The U.S. presence under benevolent terms has the obvious potential of dissuading individuals from joining with extremist.
“I think the humanitarian things we do are extremely important to fight the enemy in this day and age,” said Pepper.

Bad health, goodwill
The staff of the Mercy must have created a sizable degree of goodwill. In the Indonesian island of Naes alone, Captain Pepper said that U.S. medical personnel treated some 1,500 individuals a day for 10 days. 
Naes was the only Christian area that the ship attended to, and Pepper said that with few resources and virtually no economy, “It was the place I thought we should have stayed our entire time.”
Yet, in listening to her presentation, she could have justifiably said the same for all the regions, which shared many characteristics.
The Captain said that for most of the individuals it was their first time seeing either an American or a doctor. Immersed in impoverished environment due largely to a lack of resources or income distribution, diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria were rampant and people suffered from terrible but easily curable afflictions such as goiters.
Standing in front of a slide in which a woman was pictured with a football sized goiter attached to her face and neck, Pepper said that the growth was due to a deficiency of iodine in the diet. Included in abundance in our table salt, the inhabitants of the coastline have a rich source of iodine in their shell fish, but generally sell these fish in order to raise what money they can. In Minnesota terms, individuals are forced eat the carp and sell the walleye, and to a much greater detriment.
Other health complications arise from societal practices. Prostitution is common and accepted with youth as young as 12 and 13, while polygamy is a common and accepted practice in Islam. As a result, an enormous amount of inbreeding, and its associated genetic defects, occur as familial relations are unclear.

Plenty of pride
The Captain commented that the medical staff addressed the health issues that they could. She said, doctors undertook minor surgeries, such as the removal of goiters, but spent the majority of their efforts performing immunizations and instructing individuals on sanitary practices.
A little surprised that none of her patients had issue with her being a woman, Pepper noted that another attribute of Islam is that women “have zero place in society.”
“I’m so lucky to be a woman in America to be able to say a man is my equal and not my master,” she said.
It was a humbling experience to view the affects of such poverty and widespread religious practice that considers women secondary citizens. The recognition reinforced Pepper’s admiration for her own country, and served to remind those  listening to the presentation of the blessings American freedoms have provided and of the humanitarian inclinations that have made America loved.
While such reminders would justify one’s to pride for the  country on any day, it was particularly so on Veterans Day.