NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — The amphibious assault ship Iwo Jima returned here Monday to offload personnel and equipment used for relief efforts in Haiti after the hurricane.
The ship left its Mayport, Florida homeport and loaded up with supplies in Norfolk to help Haiti after Hurricane Matthew devastated a swath of that country had cut a path across parts of Haiti before heading on to the United States and up the East Coast.
Arriving off Haiti six days after Norfolk, the ship participated in the effort as part of Joint Task Force Matthew, lead by Rear Adm. Roy Kitchener, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 2. The JTF, which included units from all the military services, delivered over 600,000 pounds of supplies to over 100,000 citizens impacted by the storm.
What his sailors and Marines did, he said, was a playbook out of what expeditionary strike groups are supposed to do — and they got some some real world training in the process.
"For readiness, it's really good. — we took a group of disparate organizations, many different Navy and Marine Corps units, two ships at different phases in their work-up cycles and integrated them together to do this mission," Kitchener said. "It doesn't get any better than this — and it's a real mission."
Photo Credit: Daniel Woolfolk/Staff
Petty Officer 2nd Class (NAC) Jake Glende, a Naval Aircrewman from the Norfolk-based Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 28, said the devastation in Haiti, caused by Hurricane Matthew was like nothing he'd ever seen before. "It almost looked like a forest fire had gone through."
Photo Credit: Mark D. Faram/Staff
While in Haiti, he said, his team worked alongside Army aviation units and Air Force logistics teams to get the supplies into the field where it was needed.
One of the sailors involved with the relief was Petty Officer 2nd Class (NAC) Jake Glende of the Norfolk-based Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 28, who said the devastation was like nothing he'd ever seen.
"It almost looked like a forest fire had gone through there as the wind took nearly all the leaves off the trees," Glende said. "It was pretty rough, looking for a good place to land was hard. There was lots of stuff on the ground, so a lot of the LZs were compromised and had to be cleared."
The reward was the reaction of the people who showed their gratitude in smiles and hugs, making it tougher when their mission was ending, he said.
"As sad as it was for them, there was a lot of satisfaction in providing the help we did and in doing this, I remembered why I joined the Navy," he said. "It was good to be there and help out."
Mark D. Faram is a former reporter for Navy Times. He was a senior writer covering personnel, cultural and historical issues. A nine-year active duty Navy veteran, Faram served from 1978 to 1987 as a Navy Diver and photographer.
