A mission of compassion

  • Published
  • By 2nd. Lt. Ben Sakrisson
  • U.S. Forces Japan Public Affairs
KORAT, Thailand (AFPN) --  The large bus weaved through the twisting roads of the countryside here, eventually, finding the end of the pavement and dashing off onto a small dirt road leading to a countryside grade school. In front of the school, hundreds of people gathered, many taking advantage of free haircuts being given on the lawn.

Inside of the classrooms, clinics staffed by a multinational team of doctors were hard at work providing free medical care to local citizens. A 22-person team of eye doctors, dentists and their assistants from the Air Force and Navy joined with teams from Thailand and Singapore to ease the suffering.

The unique humanitarian mission is part of exercise Cope Tiger 2005 involving militaries of the United States, Thailand and Singapore.

“I cannot think of another circumstance where people can be seen by Navy eye doctors, Air Force dentists and Singaporean flight surgeons -- all in the same day,” said Lt. Cmdr. Cyrus Rad, the optometry department head from the U.S. Naval hospital at Okinawa, Japan.

A school here is the initial site for the mission, and, after two days, the mission will move to another local school. About 250 patients signed up on the first day, Jan. 28, and more than 1,000 are anticipated over the course of the event, Commander Rad said.

“Last year, the mission included medical, dental and eye teams, and two-thirds of those patients were seen by the eye specialists,” he said.

After assessing the need, this year the mission was changed to include only eye and dental specialists to best address the requirements.

The mission is the culmination of months of planning involving coordination with local officials and community leaders.

“We want to reach as many people as possible,” said Maj. (Dr.) Javier Abreu, a general dentist from Kadena Air Base, Japan. “Each time we come, we go to different locations.”

The goal is to develop good relationships with local people and make a lasting improvement on their standard of living, he said.

The reaction from the servicemembers involved in the mission is overwhelmingly positive, officials said.

“This is awesome; this is something that I could do every year, if not several times a year,” said Maj. (Dr.) John Kersey, a comprehensive dentist from the 18th Dental Squadron at Kadena Air Base, Japan. “You can’t put a price tag on this -- this keeps me in.”

“It is the highlight of our year on a personal, professional and, I think, spiritual level,” Commander Rad said. “I think we can all agree that we have never worked with a group of more warm, friendly and grateful patients in our lives.”