Our blog took a hiatus over the summer, but we're back to catch you all up with 2 new posts. This first one will summarize James' deployment, and the 2nd will get you caught up on Shell & the kids' summer.
Before I get to the pics, let me explain the purpose/background of this deployment.
I was deployed for 14 weeks on a mission called Pacific Partnership 2009, or PP09. Basically it's a multi-national humanitarian mission to the equatorial and south pacific consisting of medical, engineering, and community relations. I was of course part of the med team which provided very basic dental, eye, and medical care, and the engineers basically did extreme makeover island edition projects like renovate schools, build bridges etc, while the 3rd segment did various community relations projects etc. The purpose of the PP missions is several fold. First off, it's a humanitarian mission to help those in need and give the US some good PR in the region and strengthen our relationships with the other nations we partnered with. The majority of the effort was US Navy, but we were joined by Austraila, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Korea, France, & New Zealand. Another purpose is disaster relief training. When the tsunami hit SE Asia in '04, the US Navy went in but found that coordinating disaster relief was tougher than it seemed and it didn't go so well, so they wanted to start annual missions to practice and serve local populations at the same time and thus PP was born. Obviously PP09 is the 4th such mission. Like I said, in all it was a 14 week mission, including alot of at sea time and basically 2 week stops at 5 different islands plus a short stop at a 6th island for R&R. Our 5 mission stops in order were Samoa, Tonga, Solomon Is, Kirabati, and Marshall Is. Enough background, let's get to the pics: REMEMBER YOU CAN DOUBLE CLICK ON ANY PIC TO ENLARGE.
June 17, departure day. I boarded the ship that would take us thru the whole mission, the Richard Byrd here in Guam and my fam watched from the dock pictured behind me as we set sail out to sea.
We basically had double the normal crew on our ship, so they packed us in tight. Here is a pic of my stateroom, meant for 1 but housing 2 of us. I can't complain though, submariners are packed in alot tighter than this.
You can see no land in sight in this pic. That's how it was for the first 13 days for me at sea heading to Samoa. Here you can see another ship pulled up along side us and a helo is taking supplies from 1 ship to the other, called a vert-rep. Pretty impressive to watch. They boats don't stop, they actually tie to each other while cruising at about 10 knots.
It was great to work with people from all over the world. Pictured next to me on the left are 2 Japanese docs, followed by US Army vet team, and the 2 on the right are from New Zealand and Canada. Not pictured but included in the mission were: Chilean and Singanpore docs, a South Korean Dermatologist, and many others.
Leaving our ship each morning to go to shore. Our ship was too big (d/t the coral) to get close to shore, so would usually sit about 2 miles out, so we'd take these small speedboats to shore each morning and back to the ship at night.
Sometimes to get from the small boat back onto the Byrd we'd have to use this Jacob's ladder. It was easy if the water was calm, but when the waves were high you'd have to time your "jump" A couple people had some close calls but overall not too bad.
One of our corspsman demonstrating the process.
SAMOA
Out of the 6 islands, Samoa was probably the most beautiful. Our first clinic was accross the island from the dock so we had very long but very scenic drives to start the trip.
More Samoa
Our 1st clinic site, Lalo-Manu. We hadn't put up or Optometry sign yet but we were just left of Pharm.
The crowds start to form, waiting to be seen. Everyone was pretty much always busy, throughout the mission there were always far more people wanting to be seen than we could handle, but no doubt Dental and Opto were in highest demand.
At the conclusion of this clinic, the staff thanked us by performing a song and dance and giving us all Lava Lava skirts. Hey, i'm secure in my masculinity....but don't dwell on the pic all right, we got more to see.
The Byrd carried 2 helos, french made PUMAs, which took me to many a mission site. They were operated by pilots and mechanics from Blackwater, pictured here.
Definately want to enlarge this pic. This is a small island off Samoa called Apolima. It's an old volcano, you can still notice the crater shape, and they settled a small village there by the mouth of the crater there. About 10 of us flew by Helo in for a one day remote clinic. Me, 1 dentist, a few docs, and support staff. I got to do alot of these remote missions cause there were only 2 of us eye docs on the mission.
Apolima village
They threw a big feast for us. This was a common occurance on the mission. Despite their humble circumstances, these people insisted on nothing short of a grand feast to welcome us. I didn't know what half of it was, but most of it tasted good and we all lived!
The entire eye team for PP09. On the left is Jackie Anderson, Optometrist out of Hawaii, and right, our sole Opto tech Niel Calpo also out of Guam. Normally these PP missions have an eye team of about 5 docs and 5 techs, with a total med staff of over 150. D/t some last minute mission problems which I won't go in to, we were severly reduced in our manning down to a total med team of 50 and of course our eye team of 3. At first the higher ups didn't think it'd work and the whole thing almost got cancelled. But we pulled it off. Final stats: Total med pt's seen: >22,000. Total Opto pt's seen: >6,000.
On my last day in Samoa I was able to see the Temple. Turns out the only way it worked is our mission driver, pictured here, happened to be LDS. (The odds weren't too bad seeing as about 1/4 the pop of Samoa and actually Tonga too are LDS). Anyway i'm glad it worked out. You'll also notice John isn't exactly small. Let's just say i'm glad these islanders are friendly!
TONGA
For island #2, Tonga, we were glad to have the Australians help. They provided personell as well as 3 of these small ships pictured called LCH's. They helped carry cargo/supplies back and forth from shore to the Byrd (also in the pic way in the distance). We actually stayed on these one nite when the weather was too bad to get back to the Byrd.
Most islands were 2 weeks total, and in those 2 weeks we'd work at about 3 diff clinic sites of about 4 days each. But here in Tonga this was our clinic site the entire time. It was actually pretty nice cause we were only yards from the beach and had a cool breeze almost the entire 2 weeks which was HUGE because the heat was the biggest enemy on this mission. I think I sweat more in these 3 months than my previous 33 years.
Kid with corneal/lens damage and obviously really bad vision in his left eye d/t trauma, usually from playing with a sharp stick or rocks. Tragically, this was all too common. I soon realized why when I observed these kids at play. Say what you will about American kids and always being on the XBOX/TV/COMPUTER. It may be lazy, but it's also safe! All these island kids who don't have toys, electronics, they (esp the boys) usually resort to chasing each other with sticks and there you have it.
I also saw several albinos on this mission. These twin girls were really cute, but tragically the albinism can also affect vision as well as your skin and this was the case here. These girls could basically read the big E at the top of the chart.
I had to laugh seeing these boys playing with hermit crabs. They'd set them down and try to get them to fight each other. I could totally see Jordan and his friends doing the same thing.
Most places threw farewell/thank you parties for us. The Tongan's are great people and this was one of my favourite places.
Lobster is plentiful in the Tongan waters, so it's cheap and abundant here. This farewell feast consisted of all the Lobster you could eat. Yeah, basically heaven on earth it was.
Near the end of the mission I was able to SCUBA in tonga, and saw great sea life, including one of those plentiful Lobsters! Yeah i'm thinkin they're a little more appetizing well cooked and drowned in butter, but that's just me.
NEW CALEDONIA
We took a break in the middle of the mission to stop at a French owned island called New Caledonia for 4 days of R&R. I've never been to Europe, but it seemed like a cool mixure of Europe and the tropics. Man was it $$$ though. Probably better places to vacation I would say.
Like I said the island is French owned, so the French military has a presence here. I just had to snap this pic of one of their sailors so you could see a French Navy uniform. Need I say more..........
I was able to dive here in New Caledonia as well. It was amazing.
Pictured are a ray and a turtle, but I also saw sea snakes and several sharks, and the coral variety is way different from Guam so well worth it.
There were at least 20 turtles here, and they weren't afraid of divers so we were able to get pretty close.
SOLOMON ISLANDS
Setting up the first clinic site
Some of the locals
Endless crowds. This line is just those waiting for Opto. Dental and Med lines are in far background. It sort of became a psychological game. If we stayed in our clinic room, and saw as many as we could until closing time, it was mentally alot easier than walking out and seeing this. With self selection, I guess we could take comfort in the fact that those who really needed to be seen were willing to get up early enough to be near the front of the line, which often meant them showing up before 5 am.
On a day off I did a cultural tour. These villagers reenact the traditions of their ancestors. These were the warriors who rushed out to "confront" us visitors to their village.
One of the highlights of the Solomon Is for me was getting to retrace my Grandpa's journey here 66 years ago. He too was in the Navy, but his experience was of course alot more dangerous as he landed on the Solomon islands during WWII as an engineer (called a Seabee). This is the WWII memorial in Guadacanal, one of the major strategic sites of the war.
This is a guy named John Innis leading us on a WWII battlefield tour. This guy knew his stuff, taking us step by step thru some of the major battles of the war. Here we are at the site of a battle called Bloody Ridge. Pretty powerful experience to think what our grandparents generation had to do for our freedom.
KIRABATI
Kirabait, like the Marshall islands, is not a real land mass like most islands like Hawaii or Guam, but actually something called a coral atoll. Basically it's the rim of an ocean floor ancient volcano that just broke the surface in which coral grew on it. So these island are basically just a coral surfaced volcano rim. They can be miles long but often not much more than the width of a football field. The picture above is typical of almost all of Kirabati. Because it's just coral, there's few natural resorces. The people can't exactly plant crops, they get their water from the rain, and have almost all food shipped in, and there aren't really land fills for the trash or outhouses. These people aren't bothered by litter like we are, so the island sadly is just full of litter and the beaches are their toilets! This sounds harsh, but we were glad to be done with our 2 weeks in Kirabati. The whole place just stinks. The people were very nice though like the other islands and i'm glad we were able to serve them.
D/t short life expectancy and Utah like reproduction practices, about 60% of the population of this and all the islands we visited are under 15.
All of us docs certainly saw pathology we'd never seen before out here. This little girl has a soft tissue mass growing on top of and sort of out of her intact left eye! We did not have surgery capabilities on this mission but in her case surgery may only be of cosmetic benefit.
Another, more remote clinic site we set up for 2 days.
We got used to working in less than pristine clinical conditions. Here dental sets up clinic on the porch of an old village building.
Kirabati also had some WWII history. This was a Japanese HQ post in Tarawa that as you can see got taken care of by the American invasion. The Japanese were really good at hiding out in caves during American invasions and we learned the hard way that they weren't always eliminated when we thought an area was clear. We suffered great casualties when the Japanese would hide in caves and bunkers like this, then come out after dark and attack. The solution: we began just filling any caves we found with gas fumes and then throw a grenade in. American casualties dropped after the change in strategy.
As mentioned earlier, Kirabati wasn't the cleanest place. Well some places were. I had many co-workers on the mission come up to me and say: "well David, the only clean places on this island are your Mormon churches". We also drove by a very large and well kept Moroni High school campus. A great blessing to the local members.
MARSHALL ISLANDS
Walking to our first clinic site of the Marshall Is, Ebeye. Ebeye is a small island only .3 sq mi, yet has over 16,000 people, giving it the second highest population density in the world next to calcutta, India. Like many other places we visited, people and especially kids everywhere.
Our second clinic site. Like many others, it was hot and old with no running water or electricity, but by this time in the mission it was just another day at "the office".
Many of these places were so hot that the sweat would just pour down your face. Some guys preferred to combat this with some headbands. I guess the heat and the headband caused a few of the guys to get a little crazy.
Opto clinic space. There were no tables left but adaption was the name of the game.
Ariel view of the Marshall islands as we rode a Helo out to our final 2 sites.
If you enlarge this pic, On the closest island you can see some buildings in the center. This was a small village we saw in one of the final days on the mission.
One kid likes us being there, one doesn't.
Kids wait in another small island village outside our makeshift Dental/Opto clinic on the last day of the mission.
We were happy campers here. We were getting back on the Huey to go get ready to go back on the Byrd to sail home!
I emailed Shell from the boat to tell her when we'd be pulling in to the harbor so they ran to the beach and took this pic. I could see their photo flashes from the deck of the boat, and if you enlarge the pic we were standing right behind the 2nd orange life boat. We were so stinkin excited knowing we were minutes away from being together again after 14 weeks.
The moment we'd been waiting for. Emma had to be first.
Emma wouldn't let go, but Mommy needed a turn!
The staff from Naval Hospital Guam came to the dock as well. There were 3 of us from Guam returning. Myself, Calpo (pictured earlier), and a dental tech named Herndon. Alot of friends showed up too. It was an awesome day.
Finally, back home with the family! The sign Shell had made says it all!
Jordan & his friends prepare for night spear fishing.....more on that later in the post, but first:
We're still not even close to exploring all the island, so we recently checked out this beach on the north tip of the island called Ritidian with our friends the Summers.
Guam may have warm water, but the coral shelfs mean no waves, or at least only rare, small ones. But there were this day and Emma bravely leads her friends to face the fierce wave action
Jordan: 5th grader, basketball junkie, and recently....Baywatch Jr lifeguard!!
Jordan and Emma hangin out w/ the Summers kids.
Andie soakin up the sun.
Recently we took the boy and cub scouts ocean kayaking. Jordan & Dad gear up.
More kayaking
We wrapped things up with a race. Jordan ready to take off.
Not exaclty a race for the speed junkie, but a good workout!
Jordan & his friend David hold an eel his Dad speared. Bro Acfalle is on the right. He grew up doing this and is amazing at it. He caught the vast majority of the fish.
Jordan hold his very first spear-caught fish. Dad found the fish with the underwater flashlight (it's pitch black out there about 500 yards out to sea), while Jordan dove underwater with a sling style spear and got him about 6 feet down. He was so pumped.
The whole gang. It was basically a father & sons branch activity. Needless to say we at well that night.
Guam is known for it's large Rats. The kids were going nuts, so excited to discover and chase it...unlike our lazy cats. Twinkie (pictured here) and his Sis Daisy took a more....casual approach.
Better balance out the rat reputation with something positive, so Guam is also known for it's rainbows. We almost see these daily. Here is one in our housing unit as Shell was testing out her camera.
Finally, Andie & Emma sometimes struggle with the concept "go to bed". One night Mom & Dad heard them playing when they were supposed to be sleeping and caught them doing this, which apparently is "playing possum". I guess possums don't need as much sleep! 
