Pacific partnership 2007 launches aboard USS Peleliu

Pacific Partnership 2007 was launched early last month as USS Peleliu (LHA 5), departed Pearl Harbor for Southeast Asia and Oceania.

The four-month humanitarian mission will bring together host nation medical personnel, partner nation military medical personnel and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to provide medical, dental, construction and other humanitarian-assistance programs ashore and afloat in the Republic of the Philippines, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the Marshall Islands.

In a brief pierside ceremony prior to the ship's departure, U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Robert Willard praised all involved with the mission.

"The United States is a Pacific nation, and as such, we share many interests, values and beliefs with our Pacific neighbors. You are members of a unique team formed from organizations with very different skills and capabilities but unified in purpose to conduct a very important mission," Willard said.

"This is an exciting time for us. As we start writing the next chapter in U.S. history of conducting humanitarian operations, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, this great warship behind us, Peleliu, while built to maintain and operate across a full spectrum of warfare, has been outfitted and manned [TEXT INCOMPLETE IN ORIGINAL SOURCE]

COPYRIGHT 2007 U.S. Navy
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning