Officer aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln describes difficulties with ship's humanitarian mission in Sumatra.
Ed Offley, editor of the DefenseWatch magazine at SFTT.org, where the piece cited above was originally published, wrote to tell us:I am writing to confirm the authenticity of the Ed Stanton column on the behavior of relief aid workers aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Following an email from a mutual friend about comments the officer had made earlier on the situation on Jan. 17, I contacted him and requested that he write a Guest Column for our online magazine. To safeguard him from retaliation I suggested he use a pen name (which we permit in such cases) and assigned him the pseudonym, Ed Stanton (Edwin Stanton was President Lincoln's secretary of war). Since posting the column, we have received over 2,200 email letters ranging from sailors aboard the Lincoln to residents of the United States, Ireland, UK and Australia. The vast majority expressed strong support for the carrier and its crew despite the idiocies described by Mr. Stanton.Defensewatch has since published an editorial by another USS Abraham Lincoln officer who disclaims the opinions expressed in the pseudonymous 'Ed Stanton' article.
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