I actually caught my breath. It was the most striking ship I've ever seen. First off, it's just massive in size. Second, it's so white. Just gleaming in the Hawaii sun. When I saw the red crosses, it really did make the ship seem . . . friendly. There was something just utterly beautiful about it. I was captivated.
The ship is the USNS Mercy. It's a hospital ship. This is from Wikipedia:
The third USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) is the lead ship of her class of hospital ships in the United States Navy. She was named for the virtue of compassion. In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, USNS Mercy and her crew do not carry any ordnance. Firing on the Mercy is considered a war crime.
Mercy was built as an oil tanker, SS Worth, by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, San Diego, California, in 1976. Starting in July 1984, she was renamed and converted to a hospital ship by the same company. Launched on 20 July 1985, USNS Mercy was commissioned on 8 November 1986. She has a raised forecastle, a transom stem, a bulbous bow, an extended deckhouse with a forward bridge, and a helicopter-landing deck with a flight control facility. The Mercy class hospital ships are the second largest ships in the U.S. Navy Fleet by length, second only to the nuclear powered Nimitz Class Supercarriers.
Her primary mission is to provide rapid, flexible, and mobile acute medical and surgical services to support Marine Corps Air/Ground Task Forces deployed ashore, Army and Air Force units deployed ashore, and naval amphibious task forces and battle forces afloat. Secondarily, she provides mobile surgical hospital service for use by appropriate US Government agencies in disaster or humanitarian relief or limited humanitarian care incident to these missions or peacetime military operations.
The Mercy has helped both sailors and civilians. She was there to assist with the tsunami back in 2005. She was out doing humanitarian work this summer. She left her home in San Diego in April for "Pacific Partnership 2008", a 4-month humanitarian and civic deployment in Southeast Asia. A number of other countries and a few non-governmental organizations are participating in the mission too. The Mercy was one of the Navy ships that was poised and ready to assist the people of Myanmar/Burma when they got hit by that massive cyclone, but their government refused to let outside countries help. Right now the Mercy is on her way home to San Diego. It is pulling into Pearl Harbor as her last stop before bringing her people home, 900 officers and sailors, in addition to 300 US health and construction experts.
When you drive through Pearl Harbor and see the other, usual, gray ships, you can almost feel their aggression. They are designed to inflict harm on others. Whether to attack or defend, their purpose is to cause fear, destruction and death. That's why the Mercy caught me so off guard - it really felt like it was there as a beacon of something good, something peaceful, something merciful, out there on the water. Maybe I'm drinking the Kool-Aid this morning, but I feel good about this ship being in our fleet and out there helping people. All sorts of people.
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