Jonathan Bader knew he’d find new experiences and see some far corners of the world when he signed up for the Navy right after graduating from Cedar Park Christian School in Bothell in 2007. He just never imagined he’d see what he saw in Japan following the devastating events that occurred at about 2:50 p.m. on Friday, March 11.
Bader is a petty officer 3rd class and an aviation warfare specialist — a search and rescue swimmer — for a helicopter squadron attached to the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, currently deployed off the coast of Atsugi, Japan.
"When we aren’t on the ship we’re stationed at the Naval air facility Atsugi nearby," he wrote in an email. "Normally our mission is to be standing by while the carrier launches and recovers her jet aircraft just in case one crashes or a pilot ejects, we’ll be right there to pull him out of the water or whatever."
Other missions, he said, include personnel and cargo transport, anti-submarine warfare, medical evacuation (med-evac), combat and non-combat search and rescue — and whatever else the fleet requires
Requirements surely changed after the 9.0 quake whose epicenter was just off the coast of Sendai, a harbor city approximately 230 miles north of where Bader is stationed.
"I was at our hangar bay doing routine inspections on our search and rescue swimmer gear when the initial quake hit," he said. "It started out small and then got big. All the rafters and hanging lights started to rock and the aircraft in the hangar were shaking and rocking around so we all evacuated and stood outside and waited for it to finish."
He said there was little damage at the airfield but later the squadron learned about the tsunami. While he spent the next 48 hours loading helicopters with boxes of rice, water and blankets to deliver to evacuee zones, he did not personally see any damage except for what was shown on the local television news.
"Then the third day I got sent out on a mission to survey the destruction zone for any survivors or people in need and that’s when it really hit home for me," he said. "Seeing it on the news was way different from actually getting a personal eyeful of it. Never seen anything like it ... Up until now the guys and I complain about never doing anything real but train and how nothing is ever going to happen where we’re actually needed to do our jobs as rescue crewmen ... Now I know what they mean by ‘We train hard to do our mission but we hope we never have to.’"
Latest reports cite a death toll reaching 10,000, with thousands still missing.
"So many people gone," Bader wrote. "That kind of destruction is going to literally take forever to recover from."
From above, Bader saw entire houses submerged and washed out to sea, and huge ships upside down on land in the middle of cities.
"It looked as if someone built a Lego city and then crushed it with a truck. The first day I went up we flew an 8-hour mission and worked a 20-hour day and came right back to do it again"
On the second day we came across a large building just outside of the tsunami path where people who had their homes washed away had written SOS in big chalk letters so we circled overhead and when they came out and started waving we landed to investigate. Turns out there were about 300 people in this evacuated school building with no food, water, in need of blankets and medicine. Small children and babies with no formula ... We weren’t properly equipped to help them so we gave them blankets, a pallet of water and whatever food we had in our personal packs and radio’d their position to the nearby Japanese rescue agency so they could find them and offer further help."
Bader said he was profoundly touched by their reaction.
"It was crazy because even though we had so little to give them they were so grateful. It was genuine happiness in their eyes. They didn’t know any English at all so we communicated the best we could and they shook our hands and gave us hugs before we departed. It was a long and tiring mission but definitely worth it to give some people a little hope and encouragement if nothing else. And to let them know that there are people there to help."
Bader said radiation levels in his immediate area have not spiked significantly, but closer to the damaged nuclear reactors, a 50-mile no- fly zone remains imposed. He said his squadron was preparing to move north above the disaster and radiation zone to an area close enough to continue humanitarian aid and disaster relief missions, though that decision had not been finalized and plans seemed to change every few hours, because of changing factors like the arrival of snow and freezing weather.
In the meantime, Bader admitted a little homesickness.
"I was planning on taking some leave this April and coming home to see my family, my girl, take some time off and recharge. I haven’t been back to the states for a while but my leave got cancelled so we can stay here and continue to help out. I’m glad to help and my problems are nothing compared to those of the Japanese people suffering but at the same time ... it sucks for everyone involved in this thing."
He said the rescue and relief effort was grueling work, a fly-from-the-seat-of-your-pants experience that no one could possibly train for, but was not without its rewards. "It’s just people helping people because it’s the right thing to do, and that feels good."
Bader is a petty officer 3rd class and an aviation warfare specialist — a search and rescue swimmer — for a helicopter squadron attached to the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, currently deployed off the coast of Atsugi, Japan.
"When we aren’t on the ship we’re stationed at the Naval air facility Atsugi nearby," he wrote in an email. "Normally our mission is to be standing by while the carrier launches and recovers her jet aircraft just in case one crashes or a pilot ejects, we’ll be right there to pull him out of the water or whatever."
Other missions, he said, include personnel and cargo transport, anti-submarine warfare, medical evacuation (med-evac), combat and non-combat search and rescue — and whatever else the fleet requires
Requirements surely changed after the 9.0 quake whose epicenter was just off the coast of Sendai, a harbor city approximately 230 miles north of where Bader is stationed.
"I was at our hangar bay doing routine inspections on our search and rescue swimmer gear when the initial quake hit," he said. "It started out small and then got big. All the rafters and hanging lights started to rock and the aircraft in the hangar were shaking and rocking around so we all evacuated and stood outside and waited for it to finish."
He said there was little damage at the airfield but later the squadron learned about the tsunami. While he spent the next 48 hours loading helicopters with boxes of rice, water and blankets to deliver to evacuee zones, he did not personally see any damage except for what was shown on the local television news.
"Then the third day I got sent out on a mission to survey the destruction zone for any survivors or people in need and that’s when it really hit home for me," he said. "Seeing it on the news was way different from actually getting a personal eyeful of it. Never seen anything like it ... Up until now the guys and I complain about never doing anything real but train and how nothing is ever going to happen where we’re actually needed to do our jobs as rescue crewmen ... Now I know what they mean by ‘We train hard to do our mission but we hope we never have to.’"
Latest reports cite a death toll reaching 10,000, with thousands still missing.
"So many people gone," Bader wrote. "That kind of destruction is going to literally take forever to recover from."
From above, Bader saw entire houses submerged and washed out to sea, and huge ships upside down on land in the middle of cities.
"It looked as if someone built a Lego city and then crushed it with a truck. The first day I went up we flew an 8-hour mission and worked a 20-hour day and came right back to do it again"
On the second day we came across a large building just outside of the tsunami path where people who had their homes washed away had written SOS in big chalk letters so we circled overhead and when they came out and started waving we landed to investigate. Turns out there were about 300 people in this evacuated school building with no food, water, in need of blankets and medicine. Small children and babies with no formula ... We weren’t properly equipped to help them so we gave them blankets, a pallet of water and whatever food we had in our personal packs and radio’d their position to the nearby Japanese rescue agency so they could find them and offer further help."
Bader said he was profoundly touched by their reaction.
"It was crazy because even though we had so little to give them they were so grateful. It was genuine happiness in their eyes. They didn’t know any English at all so we communicated the best we could and they shook our hands and gave us hugs before we departed. It was a long and tiring mission but definitely worth it to give some people a little hope and encouragement if nothing else. And to let them know that there are people there to help."
Bader said radiation levels in his immediate area have not spiked significantly, but closer to the damaged nuclear reactors, a 50-mile no- fly zone remains imposed. He said his squadron was preparing to move north above the disaster and radiation zone to an area close enough to continue humanitarian aid and disaster relief missions, though that decision had not been finalized and plans seemed to change every few hours, because of changing factors like the arrival of snow and freezing weather.
In the meantime, Bader admitted a little homesickness.
"I was planning on taking some leave this April and coming home to see my family, my girl, take some time off and recharge. I haven’t been back to the states for a while but my leave got cancelled so we can stay here and continue to help out. I’m glad to help and my problems are nothing compared to those of the Japanese people suffering but at the same time ... it sucks for everyone involved in this thing."
He said the rescue and relief effort was grueling work, a fly-from-the-seat-of-your-pants experience that no one could possibly train for, but was not without its rewards. "It’s just people helping people because it’s the right thing to do, and that feels good."
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