Episode 26 - Monday, 14 January 2019. The Haiti Earthquake and American Generosity

Remembering the Earthquake in Haiti, and how American generosity is helping Hondurans improve their lives - and hopefully stay put rather than join a caravan.

 

All that coming up today on the Hot Zone.  

 

Thanks for being with us.  One of the things I love about my job as a war correspondent is getting to be a witness to history.  But sometimes the events that shape history are so terrible that they are hard to even watch, much less put into words.  Seven years ago today I was steaming across the Caribbean on a US Navy ship, embedded with a Marine Expeditionary Unit that was rushing toward the island nation of Haiti to bring desperately needed supplies after the massive 7.0 earthquake which struck that country on Jan. 12, 2010.  300,000 people died and another 2.3 million lost their homes.  The water and power infrastructure, which was bad before the quake, was totally destroyed.  In some parts of Port-au-Prince and nearby Leogane, more than ninety percent of the buildings collapsed, and thousands were still alive, trapped in the rubble.  

 

I was returning from a trip to Malta when I found out about the quake, and never even went home. I hopped a flight to Jacksonville, florida and boarded the USS Bataan, which left that evening on the two-day run to Hispaniola.

 

[Aboard the USS Bataan enroute to Haiti 2:30]

 

The two weeks I spent in Haiti after the earthquake were some of the most horrific days of my life.  I've been around lots of death and destruction, but the Haiti quake was on a whole different level.  Most of the violence I see people subjected to is in the context of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and there it's mostly military aged males who decided to fight for whatever reason.  So seeing people hurt or killed in that context, your mind can kind of justify it, even though it's still terrible.  But in Haiti the violence was so meaningless and random - and the scale of it was just mind-boggling.  Thousands of bodies just piled up down the middle of the street because there was nowhere else to put them.  Women, little babies, old people - it was truly apocalyptic.  I don't know how else to describe it.

 

After I returned from Haiti was one of the only times in my career as a war correspondent that I have suffered from post-traumatic stress.  I went to talk to a friend - a Christian counselor about it, and he explained that it was the normal reaction to such shock, and that one way to recover was to tell the story to as many people as would listen.

 

And he was right.  So this week in honor of those poor people who had their lives taken so suddenly on January 12th, 2012, I'm going to dedicate a few minutes every day this week on the podcast to tell their stories, and to try and describe to you the absolute heroism displayed by Americans who gave of themselves to help the people of Haiti survive those first terrible weeks.  

 

One of the things that makes the United States such a great country is that we are the most generous people on the planet.  That's visible not only in the individuals who make up America, but in the way we put our military to use.  It's been said that the American flag never flew over any country but in blessing.  We don't fight for colonial conquest.  We fight to make the world better, because making the world better makes it safer, which makes us safer.

 

Well one way America protects it's national interests is by strengthening our ties with other countries.  Here's an example from Honduras just a few months ago:

 

[USNS COMFORT IN HONDURAS] -5 min

 

Making life a little more bearable for poor people in Honduras will ultimately save America money, as fewer hondurans decide to make the dangerous trek to the United States.  

 

As I report on wars and disasters around the globe, I often come across the USNS Comfort or the USNS Mercy.  The Comfort was there in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, and it spent seven weeks there, performing over 800 surgeries on injured Haitians.  The ship I was on, the Bataan, also treated hundreds more.  The men and women who serve aboard US hospital ships are ambassadors, not just for America, but for the idea behind America.  That foundational principle that all men are made in the image of our Creator, and so are deserving of dignity and respect.  That's why our culture is founded on the principle of the Golden Rule - do unto others as you'd have them do unto you.  Believe it or not, there aren't a lot of countries that operate that way.   

 

But we operate that way, and it's what make America great.  That's one of the reasons I started this podcast - to give you a chance to be an ambassador for those principles - to love people who need it the most no matter how far they are from you.  Joining me in helping those less fortunate truly does make the world a better place.  

 

You can be a part of this by going to patreon.com/hotzone and subscribing to support this podcast.  You can even become a virtual foster parent.  Check that out - it's a really cool way to spread some love.

 

So thanks for listening.  I hope you have a great week.  I'm Chuck Holton and I'll see you right back here tomorrow on the Hot Zone.

 

End Notes:  

 

https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=51807