November 2023 — MHCE Newsletter
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22 | <strong>MHCE</strong> - News www.mhce.us NOVEMBER <strong>2023</strong> EDITION<br />
Navy officer overseeing this year’s<br />
program. “We’re also with this mission<br />
able to go out and help them with some<br />
assessments of bridges along the way.<br />
So helping them address their own<br />
critical infrastructure needs.”<br />
When fully staffed, the 70,000-ton<br />
Mercy is a 1,000-bed hospital. While it<br />
was built to support wartime operations,<br />
taking in wounded and casualties from<br />
combat, the last time it did so was during<br />
Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91.<br />
Navy Hospital Ship Stops on Oahu<br />
Ahead of Pacific Mission<br />
The Navy hospital ship USNS Mercy is<br />
in Hawaii this week as it prepares for a<br />
deployment to several Oceania islands<br />
as part of the Navy’s Pacific Partnership<br />
program.<br />
Mercy arrived in Pearl Harbor on<br />
Wednesday morning after a voyage<br />
from San Diego and is expected to make<br />
stops in the Republic of the Marshall<br />
Islands, Solomon Islands, Palau and the<br />
Federated States of Micronesia.<br />
the region for aid programs as well as<br />
disaster preparedness initiatives.<br />
“Host nations invite us to participate,<br />
and we help them address critical<br />
infrastructure, most notably with<br />
schools and hospitals, community<br />
centers,“ said Capt. Brian Quin, the<br />
Capt. Jeff Feinberg, a Navy medical<br />
officer who has been in charge on Mercy<br />
since July 2021, said that while combat<br />
support is the ship’s primary function,<br />
humanitarian missions are far more<br />
often what it does and are something he<br />
said “we’re more excited about.”<br />
Feinberg participated in last year’s<br />
Pacific Partnership that traveled to<br />
the Solomon Islands, the Philippines,<br />
Vietnam and Palau.<br />
This is the 19th iteration of Pacific<br />
Partnership and about 800 service<br />
members are participating. The annual<br />
mission comes as the U.S. and China<br />
compete for influence with Pacific<br />
island nations.<br />
The program sprang out of the U.S.<br />
response to the aftermath of the<br />
deadly December 2004 tsunami that<br />
devastated parts of South and Southeast<br />
Asia during which the U.S. mobilized<br />
military assets and personnel to support<br />
the relief effort. Since 2006 the Navy<br />
has deployed medical personnel,<br />
engineers and other specialists around
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