USNS Mercy arrives in Darwin for Pacific Partnership
Navy NewsStand
Story Number: NNS080728-01
Release Date: 7/28/2008 4:23:00 AM
By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (AW) Greg Mitchell
DARWIN, Australia (NNS) -- Hospital ship USNS Mercy (T-AH 19) arrived in Darwin, Australia, July 27, at the mid-point of Pacific Partnership 2008 and right after a 13-day humanitarian civic assistance in Dili, Timor-Leste.
The San Diego-based ship supports a variety of medical, dental, veterinarian, educational and preventive medicine services. A team of naval engineers from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 and Amphibious Construction Battalion 1 is embarked on the ship and go ashore to perform repair and construction projects. Some of these construction projects will improve medical and sanitary conditions.
"The Pacific Partnership team is a unique team formed from organizations with very different skills and capabilities but unified in purpose to conduct a very important mission," said Adm. Robert Willard, commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet. "They carry with them a spirit of caring, commitment and compassion on this deployment for our Pacific neighbors."
Pacific Partnership 2008 is being carried out in conjunction with non-governmental organizations such as University of California at San Diego Pre-Dental, Project Hope, Operation Smile and relief teams, all of which operate while in close coordination and partnership with local medical care professionals at each visited country. To date, USNS Mercy has made stops in the cities of Cotabato and Samar in the Republic of the Philippines; Nha Trang, Vietnam; and Dili, Timor-Leste.
The deployment is expected to last approximately four months.
For more news from Pacific Partnership 2008, visit www.navy.mil/local/PP08/.
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