The Japan earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster:
I went to Japan after the earthquake and tsunami to help the people of Japan. I packed my gear, steadied my feet and bought a plane ticket and simply went to Tokyo in an attempt to help. The 747 wide body flight to Tokyo was virtually empty and there was lots of time to think and rest before the mission would become a gritty reality.
On March 11, 2011, the northeast coast of Japan was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the strongest quake in Japan on record. The quake was followed by a record tsunami which devastated the northern coast of Japan and destroyed several nuclear reactors. Loss of life was estimated to be over 20,000.
I had spend the previous January in Haiti after the massive quake as a volunteer in charge of the security of 120 doctors, nurses and translators. That devastation was remarkable and my role was one of protector instead of rescuer. The death toll there was over 300,000 but the damage was about 20%. Japan would be in most areas up north total devastation. The small towns along the coast completely disappeared.
When I first heard of this new disaster it was unbelievable to me that there was another epic event like Haiti in such a short period of time. It was also another disaster unprecedented in recorded history. Complicating the disaster were five nuclear stations combined in one area called Fukushima. These reactors began to melt down and spew out radiation the likes of which are still not completely known or acknowledged.
After the world news and reporting of this enormous event I had a dream. As I slept in my warm and comfortable bed in my very safe community my eyes were opened and I saw the disaster in vivid detail. I could see the carnage and the bodies being swept in and out with the tide. I could hear and see so clearly the women of Japan and their lamentation. I saw them weep with their hands over their faces covering their mouths and cry deeply but with a dignity reserved only for Japanese women. Witnessing this dream filled reality broke my heart and as I awoke to the reality of my personal comfort and peace I knew I needed to get my gear and go. I would do what ever I could for as long as I could to ease the suffering of these people. The trip would be extensive and difficult. I would be alone and not have the benefit of language skills or resources to assist me in my efforts. I would be required to in a foreign land where everyone was running away, forge a path into Tokyo and then beyond. I would need to get passed police and military restrictions and locked down areas because of looting. I would need to cross the broken rail lines and forge through the hot radiation zone of Fukushima in order to get up north to the tsunami stricken areas and attempt to make a difference.
Some are quick to label a person or actions heroic and in many way distain the very implication of that word as it relates to me. I think the reason I react so strongly to this tag is that it implies super human strength or deeds. It implies the changing of a single event where life hangs in the balance in a miraculous way. It signifies that normal people cannot do extremely challenging things without expecting an extraordinary outcome or a medal. It to me sensationalizes the reality of life, rescue, recovery and most military operations. I am an ordinary man with a diverse background. I am willing to act perhaps where others only think. I am willing to reach out in every way I know to make a difference. This is not the mark of a hero, but it is the mark of a man who has been given much and is in his own feeble way trying to give back. I have for most of my life been trying to lift others where they lay, trying to make a difference for good. This is not complex or dynamic. It is the easiest thing in the world and the metric wherein joy and true happiness exists. It is the mark of my Los Angeles Police Veteran Father and Nearly 30 year Police officer brother. It is a child of adversity clinging to the things that may make a small or large difference to those in need.
I served on Search and Rescue Team (Mount Rushmore Area) in the 90’s and had extensive experience in Search and Rescue. Furthermore I was a Dive Rescue International Instructor which gave me strong comfort levels in water recovery environments. I have over a decade of honorable Military service with much of it being unconventional. I am a successful Business owner and operate a Tactical Gear company with a specialized training component for urban fighting. Combine this with being certified as a body guard for high risk areas, and I am a well rounded self contained asset to a disaster zone.
After landing in Tokyo and getting my 200 pounds of gear off the plane I made my way to a hotel and began the process of finding a way up North. Politically the Japanese government was not allowing anyone to help in recovery work. During the first week the recovery teams from England, Australia and the United States had been asked to leave after a few short days of very hard recovery work. Now the Japanese Army was going to handle the task on its own. I arrived as these recovery teams were on their way out of the country. This information did not bode well for my hopes to assist in bringing family members home to loved ones and to stem the flow of tears by the women of Japan.
I did not connect directly with Japanese emergency management channels as I normally would because I believed that a one man rescue team was not that appealing to Japanese Government. Also they as stated were sending the other recovery teams home and I wanted a mission. I figured I would be unconventional and get up north and then embed myself into some existing services. In my early focus to establish assets in country I came across a non profit organization (NGO) doing relief work in country. Through a series of phone calls and an iPhone translation tool I was finally booked in a car going up north to the largest disaster zone and the end point for the tsunami. My backup plan was a ticket on a bus that only went and returned once a week and did not get me to the main disaster area. After many days in pulling every thread of potential I ended up in a very small car with lots of gear heading past Fukushima and the radiation. During my time in Japan in a single week we experienced over 100 earthquakes and had various tsunami alerts. The radiation was of serious concern to all in Tokyo and the U.S. Embassy was asking all U.S. personnel to leaven Japan. I was on my way up north right through the middle of the five reactors melting down. As we travelled we monitored the radiation levels on a hand held meter. The meter we had maxed out at about 50 kilometers from Fukushima and stayed that way for several hours and another 50 kilometers north of the melt down zone. While we traversed Fukushima I felt like I was literally in a microwave oven. I could feel the “baking” and was prayerful that my good heart would prevent any long lasting effects of the radiation bath I was taking.
When I arrived in Sendai we staged for a day and then started our journey north. The Mexico recovery team called “Los Topos” was coming up from a short rest in Tokyo and as the last team in Japan outside of the Japanese army were highly valued and still getting missions. Why they were allowed to stay in Japan when others were leaving is unknown to me, but the NGO they were with had some Hefty clout and spoke the language. When the Mexico team meet me they immediately adopted and titled me “Grande Totte” as a member of their team. They were intrigued by my story of coming alone and bartering my way up to the end point of the tsunami. The leader of this group was a grey haired and kind eyed man named Chico. He had done recovery work with his team all over the world to include New York after 9/11, Indonesia and every other hot spot on the globe over the past ten years. In a word they were really good at finding and recovering bodies. They accepted my like one of their own and we sent the better part of a week together performing the most distasteful of duties in a completely devastated part of the country. These good people had nothing but small backpacks and the cloths on their backs. They however were well equipped with faith and purpose. They were politically savvy with the Japanese and did well in inserting themselves on missions.
When they arrived in Sendai they came in a small white van with people and gear filling the interior of the car. There were two of them on the top of all the gear laying prone just so they could fit. I liked them from that moment on because I knew they were unconventional and willing to do hard things in order to make a difference. They scrounged what they needed and were giving and kind to each other and most of all to me. They would literally save me from a structural collapse that crushed my chest over the coming days.
We drew a mission at the end point of the Tsunami in a little town called Onagawa. I cannot tell you what the official death toll was in this little town that sits at the mouth of two points on the ocean, but I know this first hand having been there. The first day of recovery operations there we were told that four thousand people were still missing from the area. We were also told specifically that most were children and older people.
It is at this point in the story that things get hard to articulate, especially in writing. With the absence of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell it is merely impossible for me to give you any sense of the environment and scope of the tragedy. Next to an atomic bomb which kills everything, the tsunami divides families, some live while others die. All ran for safety but many are unable to get away in time and complete and total destruction is the resulting aftermath of these horrific events.
During the recovery operations I performed with Los Topos we found parts and pieces of people, toys, photos, lives and everything you can and cannot imagine in deep thick fish compressed mud and debris. It was as if I was able to look into the mingled and mangled lives of a people I never met who lived in the most beautiful little enclave of the world until the 3/11 disaster. From Nintendo parts to dead animals, tea sets to little buddha statues. Dolls and more photos day after day we looked and searched for remains and souls. This grinding work lasted from sun up to sunset. At the end of the day we were rewarded with a small rice ball with a little fish sauce and fish meat inside. I ate it and was thankful for it.
We stayed in the gymnasium at the tope of a mountain that was untouched by the wave and the quake. This mountain housed another nuclear plant in Onagawa that was leaking radiation from the quake also. We lived next to this and slept gratefully on the wood floor of the gym in our sleeping bags. On the way up north there was lots of snow and that translated into cold and wet mud on the coast for the week doing recovery work.
One of the most bitter sweet visions of the place were the few children mostly orphans who lived at the gym also. They would come over to me while I rested and look at me like I was from another planet. They did this most likely because of my 6 foot 3 inch frame and American Flag on my recovery vest. I got them to laugh allot in the evenings and enjoyed their beautiful faces completely. Then the next morning off to the recovery area under the direction of the Japanese Army continue to search and recover.
Bodies were still being recovered from the mountains and the area. The white casualty tents at the adjacent high school stadium were full of documented and undocumented bodies. The casualty lists were posted on the wall of the stadium and people would flock whenever an update was posted. Many would openly weep and others would stare into the distance hoping for some news, any news. One morning we were rallied on the top of a road that took us on foot to the sea level recovery area. We were ready to go down to ground zero when a 7.2 earthquake struck. the locals ran into doorways and stood. Any dignity perceived previously was gone as these people who had suffered so much ran in fear of a repeat and more death. The earthquake lasted way to long and to make matters worse a tsunami alert was issues moments later. Chico considered the alert and decided we would descend to our area of operations with a plan to run to high ground should the tsunami strike. I was not in favor of this plan but said nothing. I was not about to leave my new found friends and if you worried about every alert you would never get anything done. Bottom line is that this was dangerous all of the time no matter what you were doing. The alert turned out to be uneventful but the quakes continued throughout my stay in Japan.
On the second day we drew a specific mission involving a father. We searched the area for many hours and cleared the entire home which had been uprooted and moved hundreds of yards up into a canyon. I was the first one in the sub section of the house and began to clear the lower portions for bodies and debris. The method is simple but effective. You displace the debris with your body like a gofer displaced dirt as he digs. They people behind you take the debris all the way out and you end up with a tunnel. It was here that I got a face and lung full of freon from a refrigerator as I moved it out of the way to search. My goggles had been pulled down to my neck during the tunneling, but I managed to close my eyes in time to avoid being blinded by the freon gas. I did however need to be evacuated from the confined space to get my breathing back. A little oxygen and I was back in looking for the good folks that were missing. During my time under the house there would be the occasional aftershock. We did our best to shore up things as we moved from one end to the other but it is not a perfect science and the environment by its very nature is primitive. At one point I managed to find a back pack in the clutter and had it brought out for identification. It was after this that the wife and mother lost it completely. They cried as I had seen in my dream with their hands over their faces and covering their mouths. This time instead of waking up in a comfortable bed in a safe place in America, I walked over to the mother and wrapped my long arms around her and said nothing. I just held her while she wept. The back pack was the one the grandfather was wearing when they left him because he refused to run. He said he would be fine and refused to leave his home and stayed in the basement. We never found the man, but two months after I left he was found one mile away from the area we were searching. The water had stripped him naked but he was in one piece. Closure had come to one family after an extensive and exhaustive search.
Another body was found by our team on day three about 20 yards from where we had been working for two days. This man was wedged between two homes smashed together. Protocol for this kind of recovery is that the Japanese Army comes in to exhume the body and do the investigation. This was a small relief to me as I had already filled my quota of body bags in my lifetime.
There are countless other moments that were written to my soul during this week up north, but let me offer just a few more. First of all the scale of the destruction is again impossible to comprehend without seeing it first hand. I saw raw phone video the day before I went to Onagawa from Sendai and it did not have the impact driving and walking through the rubble did. Towns completely disappeared and all that remained were large piles of timber, mud and things. Cars were on five story buildings and the buildings were left in skeletal form and in some cases missing. Trains were moved up into the mountains and standing on end. I heard story after story from the survivors and tragedy after tragedy related to people being washed away in front of their loved ones. At some point you have to switch off in order to cope with the scale and be functional.
One evening after a long day of recovery work I sat in the entry way to the gym and must have looked the sight. I was alone because I don’t speak much spanish and very little Japanese. I was starring at the white tents holding the bodies when a young preppy ten came up to me and offered me his rice treat. I had noticed him looking at me for some time, but I could tell he was skittish about making contact. I finally smiled at him and within a few minutes he came over to share his little meal with me. I thanked him profusely but refused tapping my tummy and telling him I was full. He was willing to give this stranger his food because he knew I was there to help. I wondered what his story was.
On another occasion while I was up in Sendai waiting for the team to join me and go to Onagawa I was out in front of the apartment building sitting on my gear watching helicopters go overhead by the dozens. A little Japanese woman walked by and saw me with all my gear and recognized my purpose. She walked up to me bowing again and again with her white fishing hat on and a white sanitary mask over her face saying arigato “Thank You” “Thank You” over and over and over again. She cried and bowed and repeated the process draining tears. I gave her a big hug and said “your welcome”.
During my pre Onagawa trip I ran across two American boys who were in the early twenties and looking for answers to life. They were curious about me and my mission. They were friends but approached my individually while I sat on some stairs outside trying to get a signal on my phone. After talking with each of them I realized that they were both searching for self and thought running to a disaster would help them in their quest to become. I was perceptive to their thoughts and listened carefully. When they were finished speaking I offered some simple and pure council to each of them individually. I simply told them individually that they needed to go home and reconcile their lives first. I told them that after they found that peace their ability to help others would be increased a hundred fold. They asked me if I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I said yes. They too were members of this same church. They were here for different reasons but both were seeking answers in Japan. During our conversations it became clear they did not want to be there and they were concerned about the mission, health and other realistic concerns. Their main mission was to council the living and help restore some hope to the needy. This is a tall order when you are empty inside and lacking clarity. After we talked with a calm spirit around us I expressed my love for them and their desires to help. I told them to resolve to make right what ever was wrong. To move forward in life and become a beacon of light so others would be attracted to them. I pleasantly found out after my journey up North that they both returned to the States with dignity and purpose. One of them wrote me and is enlisting in the United States Air Force to become a Pararescueman. They other went to reconcile with family.
Sometimes we may be on a mission for the living and not the dead. Sometimes we may be risking life and limb and the noble act is performed in the quiet scene off camera and out of the view of the casual observer on a set of stairs. More than not this has been my experience in doing this kind of work. Rarely is there music and fanfare. Rarely are there acknowledgments and medals that celebrate valiant deeds. Most of the time and appropriately so it is in the quiet of the night or the privacy of a gentle conversation that yields great things. Great deeds are done through love and by honest hearts and all times and in all places.
My adventure in Japan was not about recovering the dead of Onagawa as expected. Even though I was there did that mission it was not about that task. My trip to Japan was about the living! It was about the women needing comfort and the children needing to laugh. It was about the hug to a grateful stranger and the embrace of confidence and hope to young men of the same faith. It was about inspiring noble hearts to focus and about returning with honor.
Out of the many missions and lessons learned from Haiti to Japan and beyond is this simple truth: You do not need to go to Haiti or Japan to make a difference. Often times the people with the greatest needs are those within our personal reach. It is a spouse, brother or sister. It may be an aging relative that needs a visit or the elderly or infirmed struggling to get their mail and needing a simple hand. We only need the eyes to see the need, the heart that is willing to help, and the courage to act immediately and without pause. Simple and realtime needs are all around us, but most of the time they are within our circle of influence where we stand.
During my mission in Japan complete strangers wrote me and said they were praying for my well being. People of faith and hope from many backgrounds sent strength and prayer. During my mission in Japan I traveled thousands of miles alone, saw the dead, lifted the living and returned without a single scratch.
May each of us this day and this year resolve to to good in every corner and in every possible way. May we each lift, love, listen, learn and laugh as we experience the majesty of life.
