CAMP ZAMA, Japan — For nearly three months, the USS Peleliu has sailed to nations throughout Southeast Asia and Oceania providing much-needed medical and humanitarian assistance as part of Pacific Partnership 2007.

During a stop in Singapore on July 31, the ship added Army Master Sgt. Patricia Ryland-Fisher to its roster of multinational medical, construction and other support personnel.

Ryland-Fisher, the noncommissioned officer in charge of U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine Pacific (CHPPM-PAC) based out of Camp Zama, spent seven days aboard the San Diego-based Peleliu before arriving in Papua New Guinea. She and other members of the Pacific Partnership spent 10 days there providing humanitarian support to residents of Madang province.

“I was overwhelmed by the need there,” she said.

One of her main duties was to work with the Papua New Guinea Defense Force to conduct site assessments for future projects.

Examining the occupational health, industrial hygiene, field sanitation and pest management conditions in hospitals, airports and other locations will help in the planning of future projects for the Department of Defense’s Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System, or GEIS, Ryland-Fisher said.

GEIS is designed to research, monitor and respond to infectious diseases that affect U.S. military personnel and their families or that have an impact on national security.

Ryland-Fisher also worked with military veterinarians from Guam who trained local medical staff on how to test for and identify the carriers of avian flu.

Traveling to camps housing residents displaced by the 2004 eruption of the Manam volcano, she helped test patients for malaria, while the doctors provided medical care to camp residents.

However, the most rewarding part of the mission, said Ryland-Fisher, was the visits to a local elementary school where she got to meet local schoolchildren and conduct a class on animal care and animal diseases.

“It was an awesome, amazing experience,” said Ryland-Fisher. “Not only did I get to experience Navy life for a week, I learned about a whole new culture.”

She added that CHPPM-PAC hopes to return to Papua New Guinea to conduct further GEIS and humanitarian assistance projects.

Ryland-Fisher, asked whether she would like to return to the island nation herself, replied “absolutely.”

“These are the friendliest, nicest, most giving people in the world,” she said. “You will never meet anyone like them.”

After departing from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on June 1, the San Diego-based USS Peleliu is nearing final leg of its four-month deployment in support of Pacific Partnership 2007.

The multinational goodwill mission, which brought together personnel from different military services, partner nations and nongovernment organizations, has brought medical care to thousands of patients in the Philippines, Vietnam and Papua New Guinea with prospective stops planned in the Solomon Islands and Marshall Islands before the mission ends in early September.

“The people we are helping now will remember us for the rest of their lives. I am very blessed to come along on this mission and help those in need,” said Diana Hardin, a volunteer with international health charity Project Hope, in an Aug. 10 U.S. Pacific Fleet press release.

In addition to providing medical care and training, members of the mission have helped build and repair hospitals, clinics, playgrounds and wells and performed other construction projects.

“The multi-nation and service support during Pacific Partnership shows our dedication to work together as one team and to help those in need around the world,” said Capt. Ed Rhoades, Peleliu’s commanding officer, in another Pacific Fleet press release earlier this month.

According to the mission’s Web site, many nations and NGOs have contributed to Pacific Partnership, including Project Hope, the Aloha Medical Mission of Hawaii and the University of California-San Diego Pre-Dental Society, along with support from Australia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.

For more information about Pacific Partnership 2007, visit www.cpf.navy.mil/news_images/Peleliu/index.html.