Haiti

Amid all the horror and suffering that is Haiti at the moment, one thing remains constant: the US will be in the forefront of international humanitarian aid.  And the US military is the first of the "first responders," mainly because they CAN.  From AFA's Daily Report:

Airmen at Spearhead of Haiti Relief: Elements of the 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Fla., were scheduled to deploy Wednesday afternoon to the international airport at Port au Prince, Haiti, to provide air traffic control capability and support airfield operations there. They were part of the initial wave of US military assistance ordered by President Obama after a powerful earthquake struck the impoverished island nation on Tuesday. Additionally, two C-130 transports from the Puerto Rico Air National Guard were scheduled to bring in a team of 30 US military specialists to assess the situation there firsthand and coordinate the follow-on support with other US agencies and international organizations. Also on Wednesday, a Navy P-3 aircraft operating from El Salvador conducted aerial reconnaissance over the affected areas, and the USS Carl Vinson was steaming towards Haiti with additional ships under way. (SOUTHCOM release) (AFPS report by Donna Miles)

I won't be redundant by quoting from the above links, but there is a considerable amount of Good Things therein.  And the US military is the "first-est with the most-est" nearly every single time a disaster is visited upon humankind.  Which also brings to mind one of the VERY best pieces I've ever read on the subject, which was penned by Varifrank back in 2005.  Here's a short excerpt:

Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro collegues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:

" See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..."

After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud.

and then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.

I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose -

Now go read.