Airmen from the U.S. Air Force after landing at Roberts International Airport outside the Liberian capital of Monrovia on Sept. 18. (Reuters)
On Sept. 16, nearly six months into the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, President Obama formally announced that the U.S. military would lead the fight against the virus in West Africa.
"The reality is, this epidemic is going to get worse before it gets better," Obama said at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, 177 days after the World Health Organization first declared the outbreak. "But right now the world still has an opportunity to save countless lives."
The administration may spend up to $1 billion fighting Ebola, White House officials said. At the heart of the plan: The U.S. military is sending as many as 3,000 service members to West Africa -- including medical personnel, engineers, administrators and transportation personnel.
Among the first to arrive: U.S. Africa Command's Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Williams, who was already in Liberia on the day Obama spoke at the CDC. He will lead what the Department of Defense has dubbed Operation United Assistance.
On Monday, in Liberia's capital city of Monrovia, Williams told reportersthat the U.S. operation "is about urgency and speed," Reuters reported. "I have 175 soldiers and I have another 30 that are in other countries that are beginning to set up the logistics hub to fly forces in here," Williams said.
Among the first orders of business for U.S. troops in Liberia: building a 25-bed hospital for infected health workers. From the Wall Street Journal:
On Saturday, a handful of troops from the Navy's 133rd Mobile Construction Battalion led a bulldozer through thigh-high grass outside Liberia's main airport, bottles of hand sanitizer dangling from their belt loops.
They had been digging a parking lot in the East African nation of Djibouti this month when they received a call to build the first of a dozen or more tent hospitals the U.S intends to construct in this region. The soldiers started by giving the land a downward slope for water runoff — "to keep out any unwanted reptiles," said Petty Officer Second Class Justin Holsinger.
U.S. Navy engineers survey the hospital site in Monrovia, Liberia, on Sept. 27. (Jerome Delay/Associated Press)
U.S. Air Force personnel load boxes of tents onto a truck at the airport in Monrovia, Liberia, on Sept. 27. (Jerome Delay/Associated Press)
Maj. Gen. Williams said Monday that the U.S. military is planning to build and supply 17 treatment units across the Ebola-ravaged country, according to Reuters. But, he added, the war on Ebola will be led by Liberia.
"The (Armed Forces of Liberia) has a great capability," Williams said. "They are already out there ... and helping us, because they have this knowledge of the local area. So we are not doing anything by ourselves."
Local workers look on as a team of U.S. Navy engineers prepares the ground for the medical facility they are building next to the airport in Monrovia, Liberia, on Sept. 27. (Jerome Delay/Associated Press)
But according to Voice of America, "local residents had mixed feelings about the military involvement as the first uniformed soldiers arrived here at the end of September."
A man in Liberia reads a newspaper, whose front-page headline on Sept. 17 was about the U.S. deployment. (Abbas Dulleh/Associated Press)
A Liberian child sells oranges as journalists gather at the site where U.S. Navy engineers are building a 25-bed medical facility on Sept. 27, 2014. (Associated Press/Jerome Delay)
"Well, seeing them is like sometimes happiness, sometimes not. I don’t know," Acostel Tmba, a local resident, told Voice of America. "I don’t know their real mission here.
"I overheard that they’re here for them to fight the Ebola virus in this nation. So seeing them, sometime we’re pleased for us to see the U.S. Army in this country for them to help to fight the Ebola virus."
