Today’s Bloggers’ Round Table gave us the opportunity to interview Adm. Joseph Kernan, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command Commander, U.S. 4th Fleet.

The Fourth Fleet was originally created during World War II and assigned mission in the South Atlantic. It was disestablished in 1950. In April 2008 it was reactivated and assigned duties in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Caribbean Sea, to include all of Latin America.

Fourth Fleet has no ships. Adm. Kernan is a Navy SEAL. It has responsibilities in two different oceans. This makes for a curious start.

The reality is that Fourth Fleet has as one of its primary tasks the CNO’s direction to build partnerships with friendly nations. To that end, it ran Operation Continuing Promise ’08 this year where both USS Boxer and USS Kearsarge deployed on humanitarian missions in Latin America. Kearsarge came from the Atlantic Fleet and Boxer from the Pacific Fleet and were under Fourth’s control for their missions.

In addition, Fourth Fleet will serve as a training partner for the militaries in the region. Operation Southern Partnership Station will be held in the summer of 2009. It will involve the USS Oak Hill, United States Marines as well as Marines from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Peru and Uruguay. Some of our partner Marines will embark at Mayport, Florida while others will join during the op. Some of the partner nations will also join the command element on board.

Planning at Fourth Fleet includes possible mass migration activities, such as if there were to be another Mariel boat lift. The Fleet is also involved in supporting anti-drug activities and anti-terrorism activities.

Missions such as Continuing Promise are planned to continue indefinitely. The goal is to institutional the Navy’s presence in the region. A recent conference held by the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington with a number of NGO’s involved changing their perceptions of the Navy’s humanitarian assistance role and informing them of the Navy’s capacity to provide a wide variety of support to their work.

Kernan told us that one of the biggest lessons from Continuing Promise for him was the importance of joint / interagency cooperation. This cooperation was vital in the successes achieved during Continuing Promise ’08. He stated that NGO’s are now lining up for inclusion in future Navy humanitarian missions.

One of the most innovative changes to come out of Continuing Promise ’08, according to Adm. Kernan, was a cybermedicine program with a group of doctors in El Salvador. They now have the ability to realtime their surgery to Mayport and obtain advice and consultations with doctors in the United States during their treatment of their patients.

MABARUMA, Guyana (Nov. 13, 2008) Project HOPE nurse practitioner Rachel Phillips, embarked aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), listens to a patient during a medical examination at the Mabaruma medical site during the humanitarian and civic assistance mission Continuing Promise 2008. Kearsarge is the primary platform supporting the Caribbean Phase of Continuing Promise, an equal partnership mission between the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Brazil, Nicaragua, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana.(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Petty Officer 3rd Class Maddelin Angebrand/Released)

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago (Oct. 30, 2008) 1st Lt. Lindsey Maddox, embarked aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), reads to children from the All in One Child Development Center, a local daycare where engineers embarked aboard Kearsarge are making renovations supporting Continuing Promise (CP) 2008. Kearsarge is the primary platform for the Caribbean phase of the humanitarian/civic assistance mission CP 08, an equal-partnership mission involving the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Brazil, Nicaragua, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Gina Wollman/Released)

BELMONT,Trinidad and Tobago (Nov. 3, 2008) Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Andrew Bryson, assigned to the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD 3), teaches Sister Helena of the Carmelite Sister Convent how to use the Internet. Kearsarge is the primary platform for the Caribbean phase of the humanitarian assistance mission Continuing Promise 2008. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Apprentice Joshua Adam Nuzzo

“being involved in this kind of thing and doing this kind of work is what they joined the Navy for”

Boxer is home in San Diego, after successful stops in three Latin American nations. Operation Continuing Promise ’08 was designed to provide medical assistance and education to people in Guatemala, El Salvador and Peru. A contingent of SeaBees were aboard tasked to engage in repair and reconstruction activities at various sites in the host countries. And a load of materials donated by Project Handclasp, books and other supplies, was along to be distributed where needed.

A Bloggers’ Roundtable on June 26 with Navy Capt. Peter Dallman, commander of Amphibious Squadron 5, filled in more of the details. The transcript is here [PDF file].

This was a two month mission, shorter than many that Boxer undertakes. She was staffed with an air detatchment – helicopters, several landing craft, the Naval Construction unit also called SeaBees [ about 60 ], a group [ about 21 ] from the NGO Project Hope, a rotating set of uniformed personnel [ about 15 ]of the US Public Health Service as well as additional military personnel [ about 90 ]. The added military included medical staff, a Marine beach party for landing support and volunteers from several branches of the military.

Materials were bought with some Title 10 funds. About half was purchased in the States with the remainder being bought in the host countries.

The Seabees worked on 8 schools, a church and also two culverts. In the buildings, the work included plumbing, electrical repairs and renovations and some roof repair and replacement.

On the medical side, Captain Dallman reported:

We had 127 total surgeries onboard Boxer, 14,000 total dental procedures, 66 repairs to biomedical equipment in the various clinics and hospitals that we worked at. A lot of this is done by corpsmen that don’t have any parts, no kit, no tool bag, no anything. So I was amazed that they could repair that many.

We saw just under 4,000 optometry patients. We distributed about 3,500 glasses to those patients.

We dispensed nearly 40,000 medications.

We had a veterinarian team, and they saw just under 2,900 animals total. A lot of that was vaccinations and de-worming.

And primary care saw just over 14,000 patients.

So total patients for the 28 mission days was just over 24,000 patients seen. And that results — if you add in the classes, 123 classes, and 18,000 total students for those classes, then that’s a total of 65,000 encounters during the 28 mission days.

Kearsarge will be doing the same sort of mission later in the summer, on the Atlantic side of the continent. Both Boxer and Kearsarge are uniquely qualified to do these types of missions. They can support air operations, landing craft operations and they can carry a significant number of personnel beyond their own crews. They also have a great deal of space to conduct medical procedures and for storage.

These missions are no longer an exception. USNS Mercy is currently in Vietnam having been engaged in an assistance mission in Southeast Asia. The Reagan carrier battle group is providing typhoon relief in the Philippines. The United States Navy with its capabilities and world-wide reach is able to conduct routine and emergency humanitarian assistance operations, saving lives and giving the people of diverse nations a positive view of the United States and its people.