Military

NAVHOSP Bremerton Staff Depart for Kuwait

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS050907-16
Release Date: 9/7/2005 9:38:00 PM

By Journalist 2nd Class Fletcher Gibson, Naval Hospital Bremerton Public Affairs

BREMERTON, Wash. (NNS) -- Nearly 40 staff members from Naval Hospital Bremerton left here Sept. 4 bound for the U.S. Military Hospital in Kuwait, where they will serve for approximately six months in direct support of combat operations in Iraq.

A second group of about 35 will join this group of hospital corpsmen, dental technicians, physicians, nurses, dental officers and support staff when they deploy in late October, said Capt. Mark Boman, executive officer here.

The team assembled before dawn at the hospital, where friends and family members gave last-minute well wishes and final goodbyes before the 4 o’clock departure.

Capt. Bill Roberts, Naval Hospital Bremerton commanding officer, greeted and spoke with each departing Sailor individually. To the assembled group, he gave one piece of parting advice.

“Take care of your patients, take care of each other, and we’ll have you back here in a few months.”

The bus took the deploying officers and Sailors to SeaTac International Airport near Seattle, where they were scheduled to fly to Camp Pendleton, Calif., near San Diego. There they will receive several days of additional training before making the trip to Kuwait.

“These 72 people are ready to go,” Boman said. “They’re trained, they’re motivated, and there is no doubt in my mind they’ll do a great job.”

The deployed Bremerton personnel will treat injured Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines from the Iraqi area of operations. They will also screen and treat service members assigned and traveling to and from Iraq via Kuwait.

Boman said the deploying personnel will be near enough to the war to help the combatants yet far enough away to avoid combat hostilities in Iraq.

Naval Hospital Bremerton and its clinics at Naval Base Kitsap Bangor, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Naval Station Everett continue to keep 10-15 hospital corpsmen and nurses deployed to Iraq at any given time. However, the deployment to Kuwait is the largest since Fleet Hospital Bremerton deployed more than 300 people to Rota, Spain, in 2003.

The service members deploying to U.S. Military Hospital Kuwait will relieve the 300-plus Naval Reservists from Fleet Hospital Dallas who have staffed the hospital and its nine clinics throughout Kuwait for the past year.