CDT Andrew Holben, University of Kentucky ROTC

6 August 2011

On the morning of 6 August I was working on board the USNS Comfort as a translator in the CASREC, which is basically the waiting room for patients who were going to receive surgery. My duties that day were supposed to include maintaining accountability of the two Costa Rican medical students that were assigned to me that day, and to answer questions that mostly consisted of where the bathroom was located.

Around 1030 I was approached by a Sergeant from the linguist department of the ship. He told me that a translator was needed on the flight deck, but no other details than that. I thought that a patient was coming in by helicopter and that I was needed to translate for said patient. So, I followed the Sergeant up to the flight deck where I was greeted by a Navy helicopter pilot. This peaked my interest because I had previously thought that the pilot would be flying a patient on the boat instead of waiting for me on the flight deck.

After the sergeant introduced me as the translator for the mission I was quickly whisked away below the decks in order to receive the Operations Order for the mission. As I sat there absorbing the Operations Order I soon realized what kind of a mission that I was going to translate for. I was going to translate for a rescue mission of a missing hiker on the Poas Volcano. He had been missing for three days and was said to be wearing a black shirt and camouflaged pants, needless to say this guy was going to be hard to find.

After the Operations Order was concluded the pilots had one of their crew chiefs take me to his berthing quarters in order to grab civilians clothes just in case our crew had to spend the night in San Jose because of bad weather that was said to heading towards the volcano. We then went back to the flight deck in order for me to be fitted with naval survival gear and a flight helmet, and soon after that we were up in the air headed toward the San Jose airport to meet our partners from the Costa Rican Police Forces.

The flight lasted around thirty minutes before we landed at the airport. I was the first one out of the helicopter, and thus they thought that I was the commander from the Navy. It is traditional for the Costa Rican commander to wear a different uniform than his or her cohorts, and that is the main reason that I was told later as to why they believed me to be the commander of the mission at first. We were then brought into the control room for the mission and told to wait for El Coronel (the Colonel) to brief us. This man happened to be the chief of the Costa Rican Police Force, which basically meant that he controlled all of Costa Rica’s forces because they do not have a military there. Unfortunately for me, he spoke perfect English and thus I was not needed to translate for that particular part of the mission except when the Navy pilots would ask me what he was telling his police forces in Spanish.

After the briefing we were given a Costa Rican police pilot to ride along in our helicopter and to guide us along the volcano as we flew overhead. I was told that I was needed to translate for him because his English was very weak.  Shortly after that we were in the air again on the way to the volcano to start our mission, which would include flying over the volcano for four hour shifts in search of the missing hiker. Basically, I was receiving a free flyover of one of the most beautiful volcanoes in the world on a clear and beautiful day.

As we flew over the volcano I translated between the Navy pilot and the Costa Rican pilot. I had to translate such things as the navy pilot’s grid coordinates from English to Spanish, telling the Navy pilot where to fly as told by the Costa Rican pilot, and jokes that the Navy pilot wanted to tell his Costa Rican counterpart. Needless to say, the flight lasted all four hours, but it only felt like a few minutes because I was working almost the entire time. Unfortunately, we did not find the hiker that day but I later heard that they found him alive three days later. When we arrived back at the police headquarters at the Costa Rican airport we had to fuel up and time for me to go to the restroom and grab more water. In the ten minutes that I was gone we received orders to head back to the ship because a storm was approaching the Volcano and it would then be too dangerous for us to continue the mission.

So, the pilot told El Coronel that we had to leave right then but we would try to be back in the morning. He then thanked us for our help and we were on our way within fifteen minutes after that. The flight back was pretty hairy because we had to power up above the storm at an altitude of 10,000 feet. But we made it there with no problems and I was back on the ship in time for dinner. I thanked the Navy helicopter crew for allowing me to be on such a great mission, and then I walked below deck to meet my OIC.

This experience has given me confidence in not only my Spanish skills, but it has also given me a greater respect for our military as a whole. Working in conjunction with Navy pilots and Costa Rican police I now know that joint operations are not only achievable, but they are also usually quite successful. It all comes down the human element, that contact between people that wins hearts and minds. I know for a fact that the Costa Ricans that we worked with that day have a lasting respect for the American military, and that we respect them likewise. In the end, I would like to thank everyone involved with CULP for not only giving me this opportunity but also on behalf of the many other cadets that have enjoyed this wonderful experience. I hope that it expands because this experience will help all future officers that go through it to become adaptable leaders who can win hearts and minds through contact with the local population that builds relationships, just as our CULP trip did with us and the Costa Rican civilian population.