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Southern Partnership Station, HSV Swift Complete Mission

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS090426-04
Release Date: 4/26/2009 12:28:00 PM

By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Daniel Ball, Southern Partnership Station Public Affairs

MAYPORT, Fla. (NNS) -- High speed vessel Swift (HSV 2) arrived to Mayport, Fla., April 26 to officially mark the completion of the Southern Partnership Station (SPS) 2008-2009 mission.

Training teams from Navy Expeditionary Training Command, Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Marine Corps Training and Advisory Group trained over 1,400 students from 13 countries during 12 port visits over five months. The courses provided instruction in a variety of fields such as port security, physical security, boarding officer, small boat operations, small boat repair, urban raid tactics, armed sentry, search and rescue planning, leadership, martial arts, and combat lifesaver.

Officers from El Salvador, Jamaica, Barbados, Nicaragua, Colombia and the Dominican Republic embarked Swift and participated in extra training during port visits to other countries, effectively becoming part of the crew.

"As the mission continued, I formed good friendships throughout the ship," said Jamaica Defense Force Coast Guard Sublieutenant Anneka Thompson. "Now it's like a family."

SPS left Morgan City, La., in late November and paid its first visit to El Salvador. The mission continued to Panama, Jamaica, Barbados and Colombia before returning to Panama. Afterwards Swift sailed to Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, and then returned to Barbados, Colombia, Nicaragua and Jamaica.

For many of the team members it was the first time visiting the region.

"My first deployment of the Navy was really interesting," said Master-at-Arms Seaman James Watts from Branchland, West Virginia. "Being from a small town in West Virginia, I got to see more in five months than most people see their entire lives. Visiting these different countries made me a little nervous but at the end of the day everyone was very friendly, more than willing to communicate and share their cultures. I had a good time on this mission, I worked hard but used the time I had off to learn new things and explore new places. I'm leaving here with a lot of sea stories to share with my friends and family."

The friendliness and willingness to learn was a two-way street during the entire mission, with SPS members and partner nation hosts benefiting from each other.

"The mission was extremely successful," said Cmdr. Chris Barnes, SPS mission commander. "The partnership engagements we experienced in all of the countries we visited were all positive, whether it was constructing or delivering Project Handclasp items or partnering in community relations projects. The training was very beneficial to the U.S. and the countries we were teaching. Not only were we able to improve on their skill levels, but we also found out that many of their sailors and marines are already highly skilled. This bodes well for future operations with these countries."

Beyond the hundreds of hours spent instructing partner nation students, over 140 SPS members made time to participate in nine community relation projects. Sailors and Marines worked side by side with embassy personnel and partner nation hosts to rebuild and repaint buildings, haul heavy building materials to a remote Habitat for Humanity site, clean and refurbish recreational facilities and hand out toys to orphans and hospitalized children during the holidays. SPS also took advantage of the cruise to distribute 27,262 pounds of Project Handclasp donations such as textbooks and medical supplies to partner nation hospitals and schools.

The highly conceptual vision of military teams and civilian mariners rotating on and off Swift to accomplish a singular mission proved to be achievable.

"All of the various Sailors and Marines integrating into the crew with the common goal of mission success, without the opportunity to integrate before the deployment began, showed their desire and adaptability, no matter the circumstances," said Barnes. "This is a never before done concept where we combined a civilian component with a military component for a mission that enabled the military component to focus solely on partnership-building while the civilians focused on the ship's operations. The experiences that I had on this deployment and the privilege I had working with both military and civilian mariners will be some of the most cherished moments of my career."

SPS is an annual deployment of various specialty platforms to the U.S. Southern Command area of focus in the Caribbean and Latin America. The mission goal is primarily information sharing with navies, coast guards, and civilian services throughout the region. SPS is comprised of Navy training and support teams, Marine Corps training teams, foreign naval officers and civilian contract mariners on a Military Sealift Command platform.

SPS is coordinated through U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet (NAVSO/ 4th Fleet) with partner nations to meet their specific training requests. As the naval component command of SOUTHCOM, NAVSO's mission is to direct U.S. naval forces operating in the Caribbean, Central and South American regions and interact with partner nation navies within the maritime environment. Various operations include counter-illicit trafficking, theater security cooperation, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, military-to-military interaction and bilateral and multinational training.

Fourth Fleet is the numbered fleet assigned to NAVSO, exercising operational control of assigned forces in the SOUTHCOM area of focus.