"Lincoln" Log

"Ed Stanton" is the pen name of a career U.S. Navy officer currently serving with the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group. Want to get close to the asymmetrical relief efforts mounted by the U.S. and the U.N. in the wake of the horrific South Asia tsunami? Here's one look at the crossing paths, when the muckety-mucks of the relief agencies ended up aboard the carrier doing the work:

As I went through the breakfast line, I overheard one of the U.N. strap-hangers, a longhaired guy with a beard, make a sarcastic comment to one of our food servers. He said something along the lines of “Nice china, really makes me feel special,” in reference to the fact that we were eating off of paper plates that day. It was all I could do to keep from jerking him off his feet and choking him, because I knew that the reason we were eating off paper plates was to save dishwashing water so that we would have more water to send ashore and save lives. That plus the fact that he had no business being there in the first place.

Read the whole thing. Professionally gruff, dignified but not prettified.