By Dona Fair
USNS COMFORT, Colon, Panama – When most people leave their ship at this port city on the tiny ismuth that separates the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, they are normally met by a local greeter, scenic tours and a cold tropical drink. For the daughter of a Pflugerville man, the scene awaiting her was much more tragic.
Navy Reserve Petty Officer 3rd Class Kristen M. Sanders, daughter of Marshall Sanders III, of Pflugerville, was one of more than 900 service members and other medical experts who daily met crowds of literally thousands of locals awaiting medical care during a four-month humanitarian and civic assistance mission at ports of call throughout Latin America and the Caribbean called “Continuing Promise 2009.”
Sanders is a patient administration specialist aboard the Military Sealift Command hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, where she is not only helping assist those in dire need, but also receiving valuable training from those experiences.
Continuing Promise 2009 is a partnership with Latin America and Caribbean nations who share a common interest in making the Americas stable and secure. Through professional and military exchanges and exercises, stability, peace, and prosperity are preserved.
During the past couple of months, Sanders and her fellow shipmates have been bringing smiles to thousands of grateful local nationals throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, by putting in long hours and lots of hard work in the extreme heat, humidity, and rain.
“I am a patient tracker, working with medical operations in the administration department,” said Sanders, who is a hospital corpsman. “My job includes going out to the sites and initiating patient contact by directing the patients to the appropriate service. My department is also responsible for entering data about every patient into a database that is ultimately reported to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. Although numbers are not the focus of this mission, we keep accountability so that we are sure to have enough supplies, providers, etc., at each location.”
The men and women assigned to the Comfort are providing medical and dental care both on board and on shore. They are also providing engineering assistance at various sites in the host nations by doing everything from repairing school playgrounds, to renovating medical clinics. Locally, they are trekking through the jungle on foot to help a native Panamanian tribe build a dam to allow them to gather clean drinking water. Veterinarians and preventive medicine physicians are providing “roving” services around the countries, ensuring that the needs of the animal population are not forgotten.
Although Sanders’ job is to help others, she is in turn receiving valuable training and/or great experiences from participating on this mission. “Being a part of this mission has allowed me to see things that I thought I would only read about in textbooks,” said Sanders, who graduated in 2005 from Taylor High School, and is currently attending Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical University. “This mission has given me insight into the power of human compassion, a smile, and outstretched 
hand, in spite of language barriers. It has made me grateful for all of my educational opportunities. The mission is exactly what being a corpsman is all about! I have also picked up a ton of Spanish.”
Amongst the backdrop of picture perfect tropical paradises that the average tourist sees in the various countries that the ship visited, Sanders and the crew encountered a totally different type of scenery. They saw scores of people living in a type of poverty not seen even in the worst areas of the United States. Indoor plumbing and electricity were luxuries. In Panama, thatched huts were the standard for the Embera Tribe, one of seven
native tribes of Panama.
“I boarded the ship as we were leaving the Dominican Republic, and the one thing that has stayed on my mind is a nine-year old boy named Aieden that we treated on our last day in Antigua. He had cerebral palsy and his mother had to carry him everywhere they went,” said Sanders, who has been in the military for three years.
“I have never seen that kind of poverty. But after we treated him, and gave him a wheelchair, I have never seen that much joy on one person’s face. I think about him every day—it makes 
me teary-eyed.”
As Sanders and the others journey on to Columbia, Nicaragua, and El Salvador before the end of this year’s mission, they will continue to bring “comfort” to those in need.
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