From the NY Daily News:
Seventeen U.S. Navy crew members have been contaminated with low-levels of radiation during disaster relief missions in Japan, military officials said Monday.
The radioactivity was detected when the service members returned to the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan aboard three helicopters. They were treated with soap and water and their clothes were discarded.
“No further contamination was detected,” the military said…
The good news is that the contamination was slight; the bad news is that it could have been much, much worse. The aircraft carriers of the United States Navy are the most valuable military asset of the United States. While they are made to be put in harms way, they should only be placed in that position for reasons of vital national security. To have them loitering around an area where nuclear meltdown is possible and, additionally, there is a very real risk of of yet another massive quake and subsequent tsunami is not worth the risk. Even the temporary disabling of an American carrier battle group is a high risk, while the loss of such would be devastating.
This is not to say that the United States should not provide aid – it is our moral duty to help where we can. But we can, perhaps, recondition retired aircraft carriers to serve as floating hospital/rescue platforms. In mothballs, right at the moment, are the carriers John F. Kennedy, Forrestal, Ranger, Independence, Kitty Hawk and Constellation. All of these ships, relatively modern, can probably be made usable with a minimal expenditure of resources and can be crewed by retired or reserve naval personnel. These should be the ships – never to be hazarded in battle and, indeed, kept almost completely disarmed – which should step in when a platform is needed for rescue work. Probably be more effective, anyways – rather than storing large amounts of weapons and fixed-wing aircraft, such re-conditioned ships could have large hospitals and carry many more of the helicopters more usable in rescue work.
The United States armed forces are designed to break things and kill people – their job is war and any time spent away from war training is that much less readiness for war. And less readiness means more risk of war, as well as losses in war. It is time for the military to be made just that – and humanitarian actions taken over by organizations specifically trained for the task.
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