Zane the Humanitarian

Zane sent these pictures recently. The USS Peleliu did some humanitarian work in East Timor, a small island in southeast Asia and Zane got to be a part of the mission. This is what he wrote regarding his experience:

"I flew all day yesterday and then stayed overnight on the island. Then flew more today. It was the best flying I've ever had."

 "I flew up into the mountains and landed by this stream. Saw some crocodiles and tons of water buffalo."

The coolest thing we did is called MedCap, short for Medical Capability. Basically, we take some of the doctors and corpsman up to the villages that don't even have road access and they stay there for a few hours giving tylenol and tums and candy and stuff, no real medical treatment. I think they give kids shots and stuff like that too.These sites that we go to are so remote up in the mountains. I see all these villages with nothing more than a single file trail going up thousands of feet for miles to get to them. When we land there, big crowds of people just appear to go see us. I can't figure out what the hell they're doing up there?!


 I was the section lead so I got to make all the decisions, so naturally, we kicked ass and had a awesome time doing it. The place we went to yesterday was incredible flying and then we woke up this morning, saw that we were tasked with doing it again to a different place and it was even better. Way up in the clouds and mountains, not even enough room for 2 helos to land. So I had my dash 2 hold in the air while I went in first, found a tiny place and set down. Then Kevin Rector came in a had to main mount landing to unload his people because he couldn't find anyplace to set down. Best flying I've ever had."