Common sense would dictate that the United States of America - a super power - could sort out the logistical nightmare in Haiti with ease.  After all, we did put men on the moon.  The provision of the basic needs:  feeding, clothing, and housing, should be at the spearhead of our efforts to stabilize this torn nation and thereby is the right course to take.  Helping to heal those suffering, pitiful souls is the noblest course this nation could take in this calamity.  But common sense seldom prevails in the chaos following a disaster.

The area surrounding Port au Prince gives mute testimony to the folly of exploitative capitalism with disregard for the environmental consequences of violating Nature's physical laws.  The city bakes under tropical sun on the slopes of a barren, desertified bowl of surrounding mountains at the edge of the overheated Gulf of Gonave. 

A cursory examination of this area using the God-like views and capabilities of Google Earth reveals brown, ochre and gray hillsides, largely stripped bare of vegetation.  A populace desperate for food and fuel has stripped the land of virtually anything consumable or combustible.  Little vegetation was spared the ax or machete, or power saw.

In the absence of the protective canopy of a tropical rain forest that formerly existed, the soil absorbs the full shock of tropical torrential rains.  The soils have long dissolved into muddy slurries that rush down steep slopes during tropical deluges.  Over centuries, these soils have filled the basin that forms much of the waterfront at Port au Prince.  The bedrock is so deep that few buildings along the waterfront have foundations built upon rock.  An absence of building codes and lack of urban planning restricitons have allowed shoddy and dangerous building practices to proliferate.  Concrete buildings are predominate but reinforcement of that concrete with steel rebar is the exception, not the rule. 

BAM.  An earthquake shook Iran 26 December 2003.  Mud brick miltistorey building collapsed into rubble piles 10 to 15 feet high.  Dust returned to dust.  In Bam, Iran there were relatively few survivors to treat.  Corazon a Corazon had a five person team who witnessed the aftermath of the earthquake.  There was nothing we could do.  Everyone was dead and there was little to do for the town except clean it up.

Haiti is a very different case.  We witness the multitudes of survivors and their pain, sorrow and despair nightly on all the news channels and are saddened.  Our (US) military planes ferry in supplies, medicines, food and water - all items desperately needed and sadly virtually unavailable except in the areas surrounding the international airport at Port au Prince.  Helicopters ferry food from the food and supply depots at the airports, but helicopters carry relativelly small loads compared to ships and therein lies the answer to distribution.  Of course, we promoted this over a week ago, but clearly, lacking any political clout, our observations have not been noted or taken seriously by any of the agencies involved in the relief effort.

Toussaint Louverture International Airport should serve as the conduit for personnel, medicine, essential supplies, and evacuation of the injured and the orphans.  Food and distribution should proceed from the sea.  In 2004, Corazon a Corazon moved a landing craft from Honduras to Haiti to assist after Hurricane Jeanne visited Haiti in September of 2004.  Five Corazon volunteers made the trip to Haiti and can attest to the difficulty of working through the bureaucratic maze is maddening and seemingly designed to frustrate the efforts of any honest or altruistic foreign do-gooders. 

The physical operation of landing craft in the Bay of Gonave is relatively easy.  The waters of the bay are practically like a tranquil mill pond compared to the treacherous waters, reefs and shoals lalong the Moskito Coast of Honduras.

One container ship could leave Jacksonville, Florida, or New Orleans and deliver and carry more food, formula and medications than all the cargo planes have delivered to Port au Prince to date.  The port facility is indeed damaged, but a ship can anchor or moor outside the port and use their cranes to drop containers into the forward cargo spaces of military landing craft.  LCM-8s are cost effective, easy to operate, and defensible.  Further, they are available by the dozens tied up in Little Creek, Virginia.

In 1999, I was charged with theft of two US warships - actually landing craft from the Jungle Training School at Fort Sherman, Panama.  In April, I had sailed the two "ships" north to Honduras to begin carrying food and relief supplies for the World Food Program, among other agencies and other relief organizations.  It took a while but the volunteers of Corazon a Corazon  learned to operate a coastal freight service, to work with international agencies, and transition our personnel from gringos, or American volunteers, to Moskito Indians, bay islanders, and ladino Hondurans.  Further, we had the great satisfaction of serving the desperately poor with regular and timely relief shipments.

Corazon a Corazon can pass the litmus test for performing yeoman's work in a crisis.  We would love to serve in Haiti and we plan to use our American volunteers, Honduran crews and a captain who we have trained and who accompanied us to Haiti - Captain Suamy Joel Turcios.  We have over 10 years of experience as an organization and over 60 years experience combined among our crew bound for Haiti.  It is our pleasure, duty, and honor to offer our knowledge and experience to assist in this crisis at this time.  We hope, we pray, and we beg for the loan of three LCM-8s from the military inventory at Little Creek, Virginia.  Please contact anyone you like.  Ask for them to give us the chance to continue to do what we do best: to serve the needs of desperate people in the aftermath of disaster. 

I hope our state department can see the wisdom of a year long transfer of these vessels to our group.

We will be leaving Honduras for Haiti with our crew and hope the United Nations will see the logic of using a crew that is familiar with third world conditions because they live in such conditions.

Further, unlike the other contractors who will be delivering food, we will affirm that our costs for delivery will be far less per ton delivered than the helicopters, truck convoys, and cargo planes are currently costing.  But, again, logic or common sense seldom prevails in the chaos, and profiteering following disastrous calamities.

Servir es Vivir

Steven Foster, MD, Captain, Corazon a Corazon