Talk:USNS Comfort (T-AH-20)

Location
This ship is in Boston,MA (as of March 5,2007)in the Boston Drydocks.

Humanitarian Mission
As it happens, the USNS Comfort is presently on a mission in the southern hemisphere... Quite the operation.

From the website:

"On March 5, President Bush announced the deployment of USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) to U.S. Southern Command’s area of focus during a speech in Washington, D.C. (see speech transcript).  He said the embarked medical crew and volunteers from United States non-governmental organizations such as Project Hope and Operation Smile, will treat 85,000 patients and perform 1,500 surgeries as the ship makes port calls in Belize, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago."

I'd edit the article myself, but I lack skill using wiki markup and don't really have time to learn... Sorry. Perhaps somebody will see this note and have at it. --201.238.189.11 15:22, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Medical Staff
mention needs to be made of where her medical staff come from. i.e. where their permanent duty stations are.i know a lot of them are at nnmc bethesda, but i don't know the whole story.Toyokuni3 (talk) 21:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC) The Cadre (permanently assigned) personnel are few and far between. Back when I was on the ship for Sea Signal, most personnel were temporarily assigned from Naval Hospitals all along the eastern seaboard. I was out of Cherry Point.

Unit awards and personal awards
These two awards must be separated as per Navy Regulations- the USNS Comfort only has been given one unit award in its history despite personal awards earned by its crew. These awards cannot be displayed in combination as it is not correct, for this page is about the USNS Comfort as a unit. Monsieurdl   mon talk-mon contribs 23:22, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * After some research, I have determined that it is acceptable to include the service awards in with the NUC, so I reverted my own edit. [[User:Monsieurdl| '''Monsieurdl'''  ]] mon talk-mon contribs 18:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Not Sure About "Helicopter Evolutions"
"Other notable benchmarks include: more than 2,100 safe helicopter evolutions." Should it be "evacuations?" Or is this a naval term? 24.21.10.30 (talk) 19:37, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * "Evolutions" is correct, and is a military term. I was on this ship during her 2009 deployment, and we were not evacuating anyone.  However, we were transporting people and supplies to shore and back.  Using the helicopters was necessary because a lot of these countries did not have docks that were deep enough to accommadate the ship, and we had to be anchored off-shore.  Just taking-off and landing from a rocking ship is quite a feat. 96.26.70.9 (talk) 15:54, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Armament
The USNS Comfort is not unarmed.

Per the Geneva Convention, a hospital ship can not carry OFFENSIVE weapons or be used for offensive purposes. It possesses the right to defend itself against attacks.

As this photo shows, the USNS Comfort in fact does carry defensive armament. Note the pair of .50 caliber machineguns manned by sailors at the bow:

http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/images/comfort_arrives.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.180.83 (talk) 04:11, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Official US Navy photos showing mounted weapons:

http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/photos/110426-N-NY820-035.jpg

Note the M2HB .50 caliber machineguns mounted above the yellow steps on either side of the bow.

Another view, with an M2HB silhouetted against the sky:

http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/photos/110413-N-EP471-130.jpg

And silhouetted against the ships structure:

http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/photos/110511-F-NJ219-131.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.180.83 (talk) 06:04, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Hurricane Maria / Puerto Rico (2017)
in September of 2017, the ship set sail for Puerto Rico to bring assistance to the island after Hurricane Maria had hit it some days earlier. - But not entered because current news reports are contradictory and confusing (e.g., saying it has set sail for PR but will not deploy for a week or so; others saying it is still in port). Kdammers (talk) 07:26, 27 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Apparently underway now: http://www.whas11.com/news/nation-now/floating-hospital-uss-comfort-among-ships-heading-to-puerto-rico/478958055

Maria
The text on hurricane Maria is out of date. It is worded in the future tense. Did the planned actions take place?Kdammers (talk) 04:17, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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Construction and Conversion
It's cited in this section that the Comfort changed ports in March 2013, moving from Baltimore to Norfolk. This was because the Military Sealift Command (MSC) moved HQ from the Washington Navy Yard to Norfolk. The Ingenpedia entry for MSC states that it moved HQ in 2015, but I recall, working at the Navy Yard at the time, that HQ moved some years earlier (2007 or 2008) & that the Comfort followed later. BubbleDine (talk) 01:19, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

comfort has left new york
this line "Since March 30, 2020, Comfort has been stationed in New York City to help combat the city's coronavirus pandemic by treating non-coronavirus patients." needs to be updated — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2606:A000:6500:9500:951D:BFA2:DBDE:4911 (talk) 23:55, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Be bold, you don't need to confirm with us if you want to change something. If you think that what you change is correct and will help the article then go for it. IN:BOLD NamelessLameless (talk) 16:36, 30 October 2020 (UTC)