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Peleliu Pacific Partnership Mission of 2007 |
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Submitted by CAPT David Rutstein, Director, Office of Force Readiness and Deployment,
Office of the Surgeon General
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The multi-purpose amphibious ship, USS Peleliu (LHA 5), departed San Diego
on 23 May 2007, kicking off the humanitarian mission Peleliu Pacific Partnership
(3P). The 3-month mission of the USS Peleliu is intended to provide humanitarian
assistance and public health infrastructure building in communities near where the
ship docks. Throughout the 3P mission, the USS Peleliu will serve as an
enabling platform through which military, officers of the Commissioned Corps of
the U.S. Public Health Service (Corps), and personnel from non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) can coordinate and carry out humanitarian efforts.
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Though a ‘grey-hull’ ship designed for war fighting, on the 3P mission the ship
supports a variety of medical, dental, veterinarian, educational, and preventive
medicine services as well as a team of sailors from the naval construction force
(Seabees) to perform repair and construction projects ashore, with the goal of directly
improving medical and sanitary situations. Because the ship is designed to facilitate
the transfer of personnel ashore (via boats and helicopters), the USS Peleliu
is an extraordinarily effective ship for performing humanitarian assistance and
public health infrastructure building missions. Visiting areas based on host-nation
agreements, the embarked personnel are engaging in medical, public health, and engineering
projects in five Pacific Rim and Pacific island countries, strengthening the goodwill
forged between the host nation partners, American uniformed personnel, and NGOs
during previous assistance missions, such as the 2004/2005 tsunami, earthquake relief
efforts, and the USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) deployment in 2006.
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| At the request of the Acting Surgeon General, the Assistant Secretary for Health
approved the activation of the Corps to take part in this mission with three sequential
teams of up to five Corps officers each remaining with the USS Peleliu
for approximately 1 month. In addition, he approved a single Corps Officer in Charge
(OIC) who remains associated with the USS Peleliu for the duration of the
3-month mission. The Corps officers are working with the U.S. Navy personnel as
well as with Project Hope (a non-profit organization working to make health care
available around the globe with an emphasis on children’s health), volunteers from
the Aloha Medical Mission of Hawaii, the University of California at San Diego Pre-Dental
Society, and a contingent of medical specialists from the Canadian, South Korean,
Malaysian, and Japanese militaries.
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The USS Peleliu Commissioned Officer Team 1 consists of one physician,
two engineers, and one pharmacist. The team leader is CAPT Kathleen Downs, USPHS,
(the pharmacist on the team) who has considerable international experience working
for the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Corps officers on Team 1
come from the Office of the Secretary, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
and the Environmental Protection Agency. Subsequent teams of Corps officers will
be added to the mission in Vietnam and Papua New Guinea, and will consist of officers
from other Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Operating Divisions/Staff
Divisions as well as non-HHS organizations to which Corps officers are detailed.
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The USS Peleliu’s first foreign port on the 3P mission was Manila, Philippines,
in mid-June. Subsequent visits include the Bicol region of the Philippines as well
as sites in Mindanao, Philippines; Da Nang, Vietnam; Singapore; Madang, Papua New
Guinea; Gizo, Solomon Islands; and Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands, before
arriving into Honolulu, Hawaii, in mid September.
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