Air Force continues aid in Sri Lanka

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Orville F. Desjarlais Jr.
  • Air Force Print News
COLUMBO, Sri Lanka --  Three weeks after the most devastating tsunamis on record slammed into this island south of India and killed an estimated 38,000 people, Airmen continue to help people here.

More than a million were left homeless. Children without parents, or grandparents. Parents without children. In some cases, a family’s entire generation was lost. Of those dead, local officials estimate 40 percent were children and 30 percent elderly.

Of the 12 countries swamped by the tsunamis, Sri Lanka took the brunt of the killer waves, some reportedly 20- to 30-feet high.

Besides cargo planes filled with relief supplies, Joint Task Force 536, based at Utapao, Thailand, includes Airmen deployed from around the world, like Master Sgt. John Boyd, from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

As the sole point of contact for newly-arrived Airmen, Sergeant Boyd had little time to rest during the initial stages of the operation. During the early-morning hours of Jan. 15, the day he and his contracted bus driver picked up a team from Hawaii, he had one hour of sleep in 24 hours.

“They just keep coming in,” he said through half-shut eyes. Still now, local people pack the airport. Some arrive, others go. For weeks, Sergeant Boyde weaved his way through the masses at the airport, looking for Airmen still weary from travel. It was the bleary-eyed leading the bleary-eyed. He then placed them in different hotels scattered throughout this capital city. With the flood of relief workers here, it is still a challenge to find a room.

Since the Dec. 26 disaster, the local government has built camps with temporary shelters along the east side of this island; however, washed out roads and bridges have hampered the delivery of food and supplies to the displaced people who need them most.

To the rescue came a helicopter unit from Kadena Air Base, Japan. Airmen of the 33rd Rescue Squadron arrived with six HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters during the first week in January.

Rescue squadron pilots are used to plucking downed aircrew members from an ocean in pitch-black darkness during a storm. Pilots say it takes a steady hand, nerves of steel and lots of practice.

This mission is different.

Flying from here, they pick up relief supplies from one site and ferry them to another, where Sri Lankan military and civilian relief workers unload the goods and take them to the camps.

The stripped-down helicopters, sans machine guns and other equipment, have more room to shuttle medical supplies, fruit, vegetables, doctors and relief workers. One day, they even hauled mattresses.

“Instead of a rescue mission, it’s more like a cargo transport mission,” said Maj. Doug Hiestand, the squadron’s assistant operations officer. “I feel good about what we’re doing, but I wish we could do more.”

The relief effort is slowly evolving into a recovery operation. Once the government here repairs roads and bridges, squadron officials will decide if their services are still needed. Until that time, they will continue to help the Sri Lankans devastated by the tsunamis.