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Guardsmen return after month in Asia

Seven Clearwater Coast Guard members delivered supplies and assistance to tsunami devastated areas.

By JON WILSON
Published February 6, 2005

CLEARWATER - Scott Murphy was on duty New Year's Eve afternoon when the call came. The message: Saddle up for tsunami disaster relief.

Twelve hours later, Murphy, a C-130 Hercules pilot, was headed for Asia with six other Coast Guardsmen from the Clearwater Air Station.

To start the trip, they flew commercial to Hawaii, picked up a Hercules and hopped to the Marshall Islands, Guam and Okinawa.

The monthlong journey took the crew to far-flung landing strips in Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, to name a few. The crew returned last week.

During 31 sorties, its members delivered hundreds of thousands of pounds of food and supplies. Sometimes they ferried disaster assessment teams.

Stress levels peaked. Air traffic ballooned. Planes stacked up at strips waiting to land. Crowded conditions made tight taxiing the rule - usually carried out in the dark.

Murphy said he often flew the Hercules at maximum power to make scheduled landing slots on time.

Night flights were frequent. Civil war in Sri Lanka kept nerves on edge, even though a cease-fire supposedly was in effect.

During one mission into Bandeh Aceh, Indonesia, it took 12 minutes to land, unload and take off again.

Always, time was short. Crews often offloaded by heaving pallets of supplies out the plane's rear.

A 30,000-pound shipment might include bags of rice, frozen chicken and other food items.

"I saw more eggplant than I ever need to," Murphy said.

Five C-130s work out of the Clearwater station. They are the workhorse trucks of the air, about 100 feet long, 133 feet wide, with four turboprop engines. Murphy, 33, is a career Coast Guardsman in his 13th year. Usually he flies search and rescue missions, narcotics or illegal immigrant interdiction or fisheries patrol.

The relief mission was especially rewarding, he said.

"Us landing in Jaffna was the first time these people had seen Americans, not to mention the United States Coast Guard. That was pretty cool."

Tsunami damage was apparent, even though the Clearwater crew didn't see a lot of it because of night flights.

Recovery conditions often left much to be desired.

"I got a report that the only medical facility in Jaffna had windows but no glass or screens and dogs sleeping under beds," Murphy said.

Beneath the surface lurked the possibility of anti-American violence, even though American crews were bringing aid.

At some spots, "there were no smiles," Murphy said. "There were people who thought we were trying to take over their country."

[Last modified February 6, 2005, 00:21:17]