January 25, 2005
Received from Thomas Chadwick
Presbyterian Council for Chaplains and Military Personnel

U-TAPHO NAVAL AIR BASE, Thailand - Chaplain (Lt. Cmdr.) Michael Hogg is no stranger to Phuket, Thailand. The 17-year military veteran had visited the region in 1998 during a liberty port call after six months in the Middle East.

"Phuket was beautiful. We called it Fantasy Island," said Chaplain Hogg, a PC(USA) Navy chaplain who's a member of Los Ranchos Presbytery. "Thailand is known as the place of a thousand smiles, and for good reason. It's beautiful, with great people."

But on a flight into Phuket Jan. 9, Fantasy Island was nowhere to be found.

"The scene from my window on the C-12 was one of utter destruction. What I saw was the Holocaust and Noah's deluge all rolled into one: a tragedy of biblical proportions."

What Hogg saw was the result of the Dec. 26 tsunami that struck coastlines in the Indian Ocean, killing upwards of 160,000 people in several countries, including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India and Sri Lanka.

Hogg first became aware of the tsunami during Christmas leave in Okinawa with his family. As he watched the events develop on television, he knew there was a chance his unit would respond to the crisis.

"My wife said to me, 'I never want you to go on a deployment, but if ever there was a time for you to go, it's now,'" Hogg said.

Two weeks after the tsunami hit, Hogg was part of a team of chaplains heading to this Thai Navy Air Base that at one-time was a staging area for B-52 bombers during the Vietnam War. One day after arriving, he was headed to Phuket.

"We got on the ground and were driving to the body collection site, and on one side of the road, as we were driving north, to the left I could see palm trees and the ocean, but it looked almost as if something was missing from the landscape," described Hogg.

"There was nothing in between the ocean and the trees. Then I looked to my right and all I could see was wreckage; wreckage lying where the tsunami had deposited all the debris, about a kilometer in from the ocean. There were boats and trawlers up on a hill. The wave had basically picked everything up - boats, cars, buildings - and moved them around like they were tinker toys."

Arriving at Site One, a body collection point, Hogg and the other chaplains, Captain Bill Reed, III MEF and CSF 536 Chaplain began working with the hundreds of professionals and volunteers who were identifying bodies.

"This disaster is not just about the destruction of buildings and entire villages, it's the aftermath of the tsunami, matching faces with the places as recovery teams tried to identify bodies to help bring closure for some of the families," Hogg said.

Besides providing spiritual support to the workers in Phuket, Hogg also provided stress counseling. A certified counselor in Critical Incident Stress Management, the chaplain not only helped families who were effected by the tsunami, but also relief workers and volunteers who, at times, were simply overwhelmed by the operations.

"Let's face it, everyone has their own point when they need to relieve stress, and I can help them do that," he explained. "Under stress, people need a moment to reach back and reach out, a moment to let their emotions free. The workers, the families, the volunteers ... everyone here is under an extremely stressful situation. If I or one of the other chaplains helps can help provide them some comfort, that to me is a success."

On his first day in Phuket, 400 bodies were recovered. The day prior it was 800 bodies. Surrounded by this disaster, Hogg cannot remain unaffected by what he has seen.

"One day I saw the body of what looked like a 2 year-old boy. I have a son at home who is 22 months old. At that moment all I could think of was being a father, in a situation like this. It's something no one should experience."

But at the same time, Hogg is also experiencing something that he says "has renewed my faith in humanity."

"I'll never forget the thousands of people of all nations working together. People on vacation, who just pulled together and volunteered to help. I met a priest from New York, Father Few, who is old enough to be my father, but here he is, flying in from New York, sharing a room with literally 40 other people, sleeping on a floor, just to be here and volunteer his time to help humanity. He's not proselytizing his faith, he's practicing it.

"Then there was a father and son who were here on vacation," Hogg continued. "The father is a dentist, and he started taking x-rays and setting up dental records to help families identify the bodies. A young couple from San Francisco flew in to help. Just volunteers, here to help in any way they can.

"One time I turned to a Swede who was standing next to me and I said, "If we could bottle all of this effort, all of the spirit of the people from all these nations working together under difficult circumstances, and bring it to the UN, there would never be another war."

Presbyterian News Service