The U.S. Military Sealift Command on July 18 issued the following news release concerning civil service mariners aboard the USNS Grasp, a salvage and recovery ship crewed by members of the SIU Government Services Division. USNS Grasp crew improves school building for
deaf, blind in Antigua
Civil service mariners from Military Sealift Command rescue and salvage ship USNS Grasp completed three days and more than 445 man-hours of improvement projects at the Antigua School for the Deaf and T.N. Kirnon School for the Blind Unit in Antigua yesterday.
Grasp arrived in Antigua July 4 as part of a four-month international outreach mission to the Caribbean. While the ship’s embarked team of 15 Navy divers conducted tailored training and security operations with military divers from Antigua, Dominica and St. Lucia, Grasp’s civil service mariners sought out an opportunity to do a goodwill project ashore.
“We were looking for a way to help out, and when we went to visit this school we really wanted to do something nice for the children,” said Sean P. Tortora, Grasp’s chief mate. “This project really needed to be done.”
The 60-year-old, 3,400 square foot school is attended by 18 deaf and three blind children.
Over the course of July 15-17, all 29 of Grasp’s civil service mariners and the four sailors of the ship’s military detachment spent time, most of it volunteered, working at the school. Three of the embarked Navy divers also participated.
Grasp’s crew pressure washed the building’s exterior, painted all interior and exterior walls – a surface area of more than 11,000 square feet, removed 21 55-gallon lawn bags of trash and landscaped the school’s courtyard.
“This project is important to me because I am happy when I see my students happy, and they appreciate these things,” said Natasha Frances, one of the school’s teachers.
“I would like to say thank you to the captain and crew members of USNS Grasp,” said another teacher at the school. “I believe they could have done other things like swimming or deep sea diving, but they came here.”
Grasp’s crew of 29 civil service mariners operate and navigate the ship, while about a dozen specially-trained rescue and salvage divers from the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command’s Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Two, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group Two and Underwater Construction Team One are aboard to conduct diving operations. Grasp also has a permanent detachment of four sailors who operate the communications suite.
Grasp’s current deployment, called Navy Diver–Global Fleet Station 2008, is directed by the U.S. Southern Command and is designed to enhance maritime security in the region.
Grasp is one of Military Sealift Command’s four 255-foot salvage and recovery ships that are able to deploy rapidly to recover objects from the sea, tow stranded vessels and provide firefighting assistance.
Military Sealift Command operates approximately 110 non-combatant, civilian-crewed ships that replenish U.S. Navy ships, chart ocean bottoms, conduct undersea surveillance, strategically preposition combat cargo at sea around the world and move military equipment and supplies used by deployed U.S. forces.
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