Former Trumbull Woman Fights Piracy

By David Gurliacci

Sueann Schorr, a Darien mother of three originally from Trumbull, calls herself a "stay-at-home mom," but that's only when she's not in some far-off locale as a captain in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

Like, say, Seychelles, a 115-island country in the Indian Ocean, where Schorr just wound up a nine-day stint before catching a 20-hour flight back to the United States (she was due back about now).

What was she doing there? She was doing her part to battle piracy on the high seas. Not with a knife in her teeth, swinging from the yard arms onto an enemy ship, but in helping to administer a naval exercise, "Cutlass Express," involving those who do the modern equivalent.

The east coast of Africa near Somalia is where merchant marine Capt. Richard Phillips was kidnapped by Somali pirates, the source of the movie "Captain Phillips" in theaters now.

The exercise trained sailors from the navies of 13 countries in techniques useful in battling not only piracy but illegal trafficking in drugs, weapons and even people.

It's all part of an international exercise in which various skill sets are practiced and coordinated, such as visiting and boarding ships, search and seizure, medical response, radio communication and information sharing.

Schorr's role: As deputy executive director of the exercise, she kept participants informed of what the others were doing, partly by providing daily briefings from the exercise headquarters. She also provided weather reports for the four locations in which the exercise was taking place: Mombasa, Kenya; Djibouti, Djibouti; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Port Victoria, Seychelles.

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See also: "Himes Takes Applications for Service Academies Till Dec. 2"

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The role isn't an unfamiliar one for Schorr -- she'd done it in a previous exercise from a base in Dar es Salaam. She's also participated in a naval exercise in Odessa, Ukraine.

"For me it's a terrific exercise, and one thing that's eye-opening to me about the exercise is the personal relationships being formed here," she said. "There are so many people from other countries here who are meeting each other, getting to know each other and becoming friends."

That can be important in helping people in one nation's navy share information with counterparts in a different country, she said.

For instance, someone in the Tanzanian navy might pick up something suspicious about a ship passing nearby and then can pass that information on to someone they know in another country, she said. "It's making a tremendously vast area a little safer."

Schorr grew up in Trumbull and was active in Girl Scout Troop 47 there. She attended Tashua Elementary School and St. Theresa's in Trumbull, as well as Notre Dame High School in Fairfield.

She entered the University of Pennsylvania on an ROTC scholarship. After graduating in 1991, she served five years in the Navy. She's been in the reserves ever since.

When she's a stay-at-home mom, Schorr lives with her husband, Craig and three children, one in Darien High School and the other two at Hindley School.