Arctic Sappers Deploy
to Pacific Island
By First Lieutenant Nicole L. Thompson
A
platoon of 22 Soldiers from the 6th Engineer Battalion deployed on 28 October 2012 from Joint Base
.Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, to the island of Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia to renovate a hospital there. After more than 10 years of combat, humanitarian deployments such as this have been rare, but are
considered extremely benefcial for the United States and
A Soldier installs new cove base in a hospital offce.
36 Engineer
the host nation. While short-term exercises such as Balikatan and Cobra Gold are valuable, long-term projects like
the 6-month hospital renovation help Soldiers improve their
leadership and military occupational skills, while crosstraining with their peers and building a solid foundation
with host nation citizens.
Soldiers from eight military occupational specialties—
including carpenters, electricians, plumbers,
a heavy equipment operator, and a physician's
assistant—comprised the platoon. Experience levels
varied from beginners to veterans with more than
10 years of practical work in construction. Augmenting the platoon were 30 host nation workers whose
construction experience also varied widely. Working
side by side with local workers benefted the project
and the Soldiers by doubling the platoon's effciency,
fostering an environment for cultural exchange,
and enabling the formulation of a partnership to be
formed between the two countries.
The Pohnpei State Hospital was constructed in
the 1970s by a Korean construction frm and had
seen little maintenance, mostly due to the lack
of funds. For years, the hospital had been in dire
need of renovations. The 92,000-square-foot facility
provides services for more than 30,000 citizens on
Pohnpei and is the only public hospital on the island.
May–August 2013