"We Can Impact and Change the Health of a Small Country for Years, with a Three-Week Stay.”

The Resonance Test 13: Captain Lanny Boswell

It’s not every day that a 1,000-bed floating naval hospital parks across the street from your studio. (From our studio, anyway.) And it’s definitely not every day that said ship’s Commanding Officer invites you aboard for a tour—and then sits down to record a podcast. But all of this recently happened to us, and the result is a superb new episode of The Resonance Test, featuring the USNS Comfort’s Commanding Officer Captain Lanny Boswell in conversation with Continuum’s Mike Dunkley. Some highlights from Boswell:

• “In some of these countries where healthcare is few and far between, when we move in, we can impact and change the health of a small country for years, with a three-week stay.”

• “We are in what we call Ready Five status. We have to be prepared from when we’re given a go signal, to be able to throw the lines within five days. That’s our requirement. And we usually do it in three days.”

• The Comfort’s unilateral design creates a “leapfrogging of communication” which is “not done by going up two or three flights of stairs or into another level or into another building. They’re literally down the hall.”

• “The challenges are so intense and so immense, it really is the belief in the mission to begin with that carries the day.”

• “We represent the best of who we are, as a nation, and our alliances. The multiple countries we take on board. We represent the benevolence of a great thought—that we’re all in this together.”

Host: Pete Chapin
Editor: Kyp Pilalas
Producer: Ken Gordon