Gorman grad assigned to naval hospital deployed to Kuwait

Dick Benoit

Thursday, March 27, 2003 | 9:21 a.m.

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Patrick Ginn, Bishop Gorman High School class of 1985, recently deployed with about 300 medical staff to Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In his regular duties, Ginn, the son of Candie and Pat Ginn of Las Vegas, serves as a family practitioner on the staff of Naval Hospital in Pensacola, Fla.

The Ginns owned and operated Pat's Chinese restaurant in Las Vegas for 38 years.

Lt. Cmdr. Ginn and his colleagues at Pensacola were recently honored when the facility was selected by the Picker Institute as the No. 1 hospital in the country among all military and civilian hospitals as rated by its patients on patient-centered care.

The Picker Institute is a national not-for-profit entity dedicated solely to developing a patient-centered research approach to performance measurement. The Institute was founded by Harvey and Jean Picker, whose family refined and marketed early and subsequent X-ray machines.

Hold off on the mail

To bolster force protection, the general public is urged not to send unsolicited mail, care packages or donations to forward-deployed service members unless they are a family member, loved one or personal friend, Defense Department officials said.

On Oct. 30 the Defense Department suspended the "Operation Dear Abby" and "Any Service member" mail programs because of force protection concerns. Although these programs provide support to friends and loved ones stationed overseas, they also provide an avenue to introduce hazardous substances or materials into the mail system from unknown sources.

Unsolicited mail, packages and donations from organizations and individuals also compete for limited airlift space used to transport supplies, warfighting material and mail from family and loved ones.

Recently, Defense Department officials became aware of organizations and individuals continuing to support some form of the "Any Servicemember" program by using the names and addresses of individual servicemembers and unit addresses.

These programs are usually supported by well-intentioned, thoughtful and patriotic groups that are unaware of the new risks facing deployed military forces, officials said. Some individuals and groups publicize the names and addresses of servicemembers, ships or units on websites. The result is a potential danger to the troops they wish to support.

Defense Department officials cannot support creative and well-intentioned efforts that defeat force protection measures and recommend alternatives to mail and donation programs. Recommended interactive websites designed to show support to troops overseas include:

http://www.defendamerica.mil/support]troops.html

http://www.usocares.org/home.htm

http://www.army.mil/operations/iraq/faq.html=20

Mail from family members and loved ones has always been encouraged and the military mail system will continue to work hard to get that mail to service members overseas, said officials.

In brief