Risk Acceptance for SysAdmin Ops
Navy helicopter on humanitarian mission takes fire:
The Navy has temporarily halted flights to and from the San Diego-based hospital ship Mercy after one of its helicopters took gunfire in the Philippines yesterday, Navy officials said.While I’d be surprised to see this specific incident turn into an issue, we should use it as an opportunity to address some longer term questions. SysAdmin missions are going to get shot at. We will encounter movements which view humanitarian aid as an unwelcome disruption and source of corrupting modernizing influences. We need to think about our ROE now, we need to develop the strategies and rule sets for these operations before the first major crisis. We need to think about how important we think these missions are, and how seriously we want to take them. Perhaps most importantly, we need to think about how much risk we are willing to assume. If we don’t, then we risk ending up with another Black Hawk Down.The Mercy has been anchored near the city of Cotabato as part of Pacific Partnership 2008, the first stop on the ship’s five-country, five-month mission in the Western Pacific Ocean.
Yesterday, an MH-60 Seahawk helicopter went to pick up 11 passengers about 50 miles inland, said Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Navy spokesman. When the helicopter returned to the ship, two bullet holes were found in the tail section.
