News From USJFCOM: Command team provides communication support for humanitarian mission


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Command team provides communication support for humanitarian mission

A team from one of U.S. Joint Forces Command’s joint enabling capabilities provided communications support for medical personnel on an aid mission across the Caribbean and Latin America.

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By MC2 (AW) Nikki Carter
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. - Aug. 11, 2009) – Seven service members from U.S. Joint Forces Command recently returned from a four-month humanitarian and civic assistance mission aboard the hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility.

The team from Joint Communications Support Element (JCSE), one of seven joint enabling capabilities from USJFCOM's Joint Enabling Capabilities Command, provided the Comfort’s medical teams with internal communications and ship-to-shore communications during each port visit.

When deployed, the JCSE, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., provides tactical communications packages tailored to the specific needs of full joint task force headquarters’ and to joint special operations task forces.

Army 1st Lt. Micaela Encarnacion, JCSE officer-in-charge for Continuing Promise 2009 (CP09), ensured all three teams provided immediate communications support to medical teams as they arrived at locations throughout the Caribbean and Latin America.

The JCSC team traveled throughout Antigua and Barbuda, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Panama and supported the mission by setting up high-speed telecommunication capabilities for CP09 personnel, serving as interpreters between the medical teams and the local population, and assisting in the distribution of ointments and other aid items.

Encarnacion explained how this deployment varied from the more conventional ones.

“You actually interact with not only the locals, but with another branch of service and a lot of doctors and nurses. Working side by side with the Navy is different than any branch I have ever worked with,” Encarnacion said. “I couldn’t imagine living on a ship for more than four months. It’s amazing how the Navy does this all over the world, I absolutely have respect in what they do. It’s one of those things that if you haven’t lived it you wouldn’t understand.”

Republic of Panama native, Army Staff Sgt. William Smith, the JCSE non-commissioned officer-in-charge for CP09, added that since the teams were not in a hostile environment, “it was nice to enjoy meeting so many of the people of the different countries we traveled to and being able to learn a little about their cultures and customs. It was also different in that there was a large volunteer civilian presence on board.”

Smith said being bilingual and growing up in the Canal Zone of Panama proved to be helpful to him while on the humanitarian mission.

“It was a very easy for me to adjust to the different areas we were in and it was almost like going home. It was interesting to see that certain customs and foods were very similar to what I experienced growing up,” Smith said.

Encarnacion said while deployed she also got to double as an interpreter for the medical teams, but her most rewarding experience was seeing how the mission changed the lives of thousands of people.

“From a complex surgery to a pair of eye glasses, it didn’t matter. Every person was grateful to get to see a doctor,” Encarnacion said. “Some have never seen a doctor in their life.”

She said the mission taught her to appreciate what she has. She said you go to these countries and see how hard the locals work for a “couple of cents a day and barely making it.”

“As simple as Tylenol is something we can buy anywhere for a couple of dollars, but in some of these countries we went to it was a big deal,” Encarnacion said. “It makes you reevaluate yourself and wonder if you ever had a basis to be upset with anything.”

Smith said seeing first-hand at what these missions mean to the people and communities made him appreciate what he may have taken for granted before.

“Actually meeting and talking to those people has put a name and a face to that every day struggle and it’s no longer some anonymous person that’s struggling to make a living with very little.”

Smith said in most Latin American countries it seems natives are less tolerant of someone who looks differently, for example, a child with a cleft palate.

“The most rewarding thing I saw was the results of some of the cosmetic surgeries on the children that the doctors on board the ship performed,” Smith said. “Seeing the work the surgeons did on some kids might not seem like much to some, but to those kids and their parents it was no doubt a life changing event.”