About the Author: Tom Weinz serves as the dedicated Foreign Service Officer for Pacific Partnership 2012.

Pacific Partnership 2012 (PP12), the seventh annual iteration of the humanitarian exercise begun by the U.S. Navy following the tragic 2004 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Banda Aceh on the Indonesian Island of Sumatra, ended officially when the USNS Mercy departed Sihanoukville, Cambodia on August 11.

The mission to Cambodia was a marvelous example of all of the external personnel on Mercy coordinating seamlessly with our U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh personnel to provide an impressively geographically diverse mission. There is an excellent piece by two PP12 female helicopter pilots, as well as a video clip summarizing efforts in Cambodia, on the PP12 blog site.

Because Sihanoukville… more »

About the Author: Tom Weinz serves as the dedicated Foreign Service Officer for Pacific Partnership 2012.

Pacific Partnership 2012 (PP12) has arrived in Cambodia, the final host nation for this year’s mission. American Charge d’affaires Jeff Daigle welcomed participants at the opening ceremony on July 29 in Sihanoukville and emphasized PP12’s contribution to overall USG efforts in the kingdom. Rear Admiral Russell Penniman and Vice Admiral Tea Vinh spoke for the U.S. Navy and Royal Cambodian Ministry of Defense respectively. Vice Admiral Vinh offered his country’s appreciation for both the initial Pacific Partnership visit to Sihanoukville in 2010 and the current mission.

Transportation logistics is the key challenge to the Cambodian effort, as PP12 will operate along two major corridors running between the port of Sihanoukville, Cambodia’s second city, and the capital of Phnom Penh about five hours to the northeast. PP12’s two SH-60 helicopters have been working steadily… more »

About the Author: Tom Weinz serves as the dedicated Foreign Service Officer for Pacific Partnership 2012.

Pacific Partnership 2012 (PP12)/USNS Mercy arrived in Vinh, Vietnam, on July 10. On that same day, Secretary Clinton arrived in Hanoi, just two hundred miles north of Vinh, to meet with Vietnamese leaders. During the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the return of the Fulbright Program to Vietnam, she commented that the 15,000 Vietnamese students currently studying in the United States benefit as much from the relationships and perspectives they acquire as the education and skills from their studies. Her remarks are equally applicable to Pacific Partnership; the relationships and interactions from this experience clearly affect everyone involved, from all nations.

The week of July 10 was an… more »

About the Author: Tom Weinz serves as the dedicated Foreign Service Officer for Pacific Partnership 2012.

Pacific Partnership 2012 (PP12)/USNS Mercy is currently anchored about 10 minutes off shore near the city of Calbayog, Samar Island, Republic of the Philippines. U.S. Ambassador Harry Thomas attended the opening ceremony on June 19, and noted in his speech that USNS Mercy first visited Calbayog on its maiden voyage 25 years ago. Pacific Partnership 2008 also stopped in Calbayog, so we are finding many old friends in the community. As always, the interaction with local communities and people is the highlight of the mission.

Pacific Partnership offers an experience of a lifetime, but the day-to-day work is hardly a pleasure cruise. To describe volunteer life, the U.S. Peace Corps often uses the phrase, “The toughest job you’ll ever love!” Many PP12 participants can relate to that motto. Living spaces are cramped, and include bunk beds and a sink, with…more »

About the Author: Tom Weinz serves as the dedicated Foreign Service Officer for Pacific Partnership 2012.

Pacific Partnership 2012, anchored near the North Sulawesi island of Talaud in Indonesia as I write this early on June 13, has suffered a minor setback but enjoyed great success. The sea rose up unexpectedly around two o’clock on the morning of June 12 while we were sleeping, and badly damaged the ramp and platform we use to access our small utility boats, which carry us to and from shore. Though we lost our primary means of getting off and on the USNS Mercy, all the months of contingency planning paid off, and every affected group on the ship responded brilliantly. Since this year’s schedule in Indonesia requires Mercy to move constantly from location to location, all of our medical and engineering teams were in their island locations when the waves struck. None of us, either shipboard personnel or the local people on shore, were able to meet and participate in ribbon… more »

About the Author: Tom Weinz serves as the dedicated Foreign Service Officer for Pacific Partnership 2012.

I awoke this morning, May 14, to the soft strains of the call to prayer emanating from the stately mosque near my hotel — an encouraging start to my first day back in Indonesia to prepare for the arrival of Pacific Partnership 2012 (PP12). Only two days ago I was on the deck of the incomparable hospital ship USNS Mercy sailing into Pearl Harbor. The scene at Pearl Harbor reminded me of movie versions depicting dockside activities prior to a voyage: there were mobile cranes everywhere, several eighteen-wheelers disgorging supplies, sailors, volunteers, and family members loaded down with duffels, suitcases, boxes, and crates to be tucked into the ship’s relatively confined berthing areas.

Pearl Harbor was the initial PP12 interim port; in addition to taking on supplies and personnel, commanding officers met with Pacific Fleet counterparts, held a briefing at…more »

About the Author: Tom Weinz served as the dedicated Foreign Service Liaison Officer for Pacific Partnership 2010 and Pacific Partnership 2011. He now serves as the dedicated Foreign Service Officer for Pacific Partnership 2012.

“Prepare in calm to respond in crisis.” This was the motto chosen by Pacific Partnership 2012 (PP12) Commodore Jim Morgan as 200 participants gathered in San Diego on January 30 and 31 for the Mid-Planning Conference (MPC) for PP12. All four host nations — Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Cambodia — sent high-level delegations, as did many of our partner nations, including Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, New Zealand, and Thailand.

Pacific Partnership, created in response to the terrible tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in 2004, will carry out its seventh annual mission from May to September of this year. The program was developed by the U.S. Navy, but has become a demonstrable example of the “whole of government” approach to American policy in the Pacific, including participation by the Department of State, USAID, NOAA, and… more »

About the Author: Tom Weinz is the dedicated Foreign Service Liaison Officer for Pacific Partnership 2011.

For the third year in a row I have celebrated Fourth of July as part of a Pacific Partnership mission, many hours before similar celebrations began in the United States. In fact, as I write this, the fireworks are probably just beginning over the Mall in Washington, D.C. 

Pacific Partnership 2011 (PP11) is in the city of Kolonia, in the state of Pohnpei, in the independent country of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). The Caroline Islands (originally named Islas de Carolina for King Charles II of Spain in the late 1600s) emerged from the battles of World War II as a United Nations Trust Territory, administered by the United States. Two separate island groups within the Carolines, Palau and the FSM, later declared independence, with the FSM signing a Compact of Free Association with the United States in 1986 (amended in 2003), which defines U.S.-FSM relations… more »

About the Author: Tom Weinz is the dedicated Foreign Service Liaison Officer for Pacific Partnership 2011.

While I love sharing my experiences on the Pacific Partnership with you, I want to you to hear other perspectives from the mission as well. As a result, I asked Lieutenant Commander Casey Mahon, U.S. Navy officer in charge of the Advance Echelon (ADVON) Team Bravo (for Vanuatu and Timor-Leste), to describe his role for the Pacific Partnership. He said:

“The Navy has taught me how to drive a ship, fix an engine and navigate through a harbor. But as I sat in a hot, crowded two-room medical clinic near Uato-lari in the remote Southeast corner of Timor-Leste I realized that one of the most important skills, patience, needs to be learned on the job in order to be fully appreciated. The District Administrator for Uato-lari, a hardened former fighter named Domingos, was trying to convince us to move our MEDCAP (MEDical Civic Assistance Project) from the chosen school next… more »

About the Author: Tom Weinz is the dedicated Foreign Service Liaison Officer for Pacific Partnership 2011.

On November 4, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her New Zealand counterpart, Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully, signed a brief agreement following meetings in Wellington, New Zealand. Known as the Wellington Declaration, the document calls for “…a new strategic partnership between the United States of America and New Zealand.” Disaster response management is singled out as a key joint initiative our two countries must address. This is a reaffirmation of the close historical ties between America and New Zealand, but it is singularly significant in providing focus and stressing cooperation in achieving our common goals in the South Pacific region.

New Zealand has participated in Pacific Partnership throughout its short history, usually… more »