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Pacific Fleet commander to visit San Diego

SAN DIEGO — During a short visit here next week, the Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. Gary Roughead, will hand out several military awards aboard the hospital ship Mercy, which deployed to Southeast Asia on a 5½ month medical relief and humanitarian mission, Navy officials said.

Several senior leaders who led last year’s relief efforts will receive the awards from Roughead during a ceremony Feb. 1 aboard Mercy, which is homeported in San Diego at the 32nd Street naval station.

Roughead, who recently visited Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore, also will announce plans for a similar mission to that region, called Pacific Partnership.

“This mission will provide follow-up medical care and civic support to neighbors in the Pacific Rim and Indian Ocean basin regions following two years of similar efforts headed up” by the Mercy missions, officials said in an announcement.

Mercy, one of the Navy’s two hospital ships, first deployed to Southeast Asia in January 2005, days after a massive earthquake and tsunami in December 2004 devastated Indonesia and other countries in the region. Last year, medical crews and sailors aboard Mercy spent 72 days doing humanitarian aid and civic assistance work in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia and East Timor. They took care of more than 60,000 patients, performed more than 1,000 surgeries and trained more than 6,000 people, according to the Navy.

This year’s Pacific Partnership is expected to involve the deployment of the San Diego-based amphibious assault ship Peleliu, a flattop ship that includes a large medical department.