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USNS Comfort Crew Comes Home

Navy NewStand

Story Number: NNS030430-08
Release Date: 4/30/2003 5:16:00 PM

By Ellen Maurer, NNMC Public Affairs

BETHESDA, Md. (NNS) -- More than 400 Sailors regularly assigned at the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC) in Bethesda, Md., returned home today, after serving aboard hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) in the Arabian Gulf.

They were the first of several hundred Sailors slated to fly back to the U.S. ahead of the ship. Comfort, which deployed from Baltimore Jan. 6, originally brought only a small crew of around 300 Sailors. Most of the ship's 1,214 crew flew over and met the ship in early March after it prepositioned in the Gulf region.

For those who deployed in March, the two-month mission was short by Navy standards. However, as many families said at today's emotional reunion, it wasn't the length of time but, rather, the separation.

For Hospital Corpsman Melanie Charboneau, who works in NNMC's Mother and Infant Care Center and is married to returning crew member, Hospital Corpsman Nathan Charboneau, the return couldn't have better timing. The couple is due to have their first child at the end of this month.

"I told my husband I wasn't going to get too excited until I actually saw him," says Charboneau. "But, I have to admit that I couldn't sleep last night. It was like Christmas when you're a little kid... I just kept rubbing me belly and telling our son that his daddy was going to be home soon."

During Comfort's deployment to the Gulf, the ship's crew cared for hundreds of patients and performed more than 500 surgeries, mostly treating combat related injuries, such as gunshot wounds, shrapnel wounds, burns and head injuries.