Just last week, after 30 days on the island of Ovalau, the U-S marine corps finally bid the old capital good bye.
U-S military personnel have been working on the island, helping to rebuild classroom blocks at St John’s Cawaci College.
St John’s Cawaci endured its fair share of battering when Tropical Cyclone Winston hit the country six months ago.
However, the U-S marine corps not only came to their aid helping rebuild a block of classrooms and a sick bay BUT also building capacity for our RFMF engineers.
“The United States is privileged to be able to partner with St Johns on this post Cyclone Winston recovery. It was a collaboration between the US Marime Corps and navy – and the personnel of the Fiji Militry Forces to improve and strengthen our ability to respond in the field to engineering requirements,” said Douglas Sonnek the Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy – Fiji.
The U-S Marines looked at an opportunity to work with the RFMF.
“We looked around the Pacific for a place where our soldiers and sailors and our marines could work with the Republic of Fiji Military Forces to accomplish a goal in the community that needed assistance and the requirements on the ground matched that very well with the intentions to build capacity,” Sonnek said.
Meanwhile, Fiji is not the only country in the Pacific that stands to benefit from such collaborations.
“The US government is looking for opportunities and has underway a number of other exercises where we will partner with school districts to try and repair facilities. But this is the one – the Operation Koa Moana will assist.”
A 60 member personnel of the US Marines Corps helped rebuild a block of damaged classrooms and build a new sick bay.
“This has been an amazing experience, the locals are – both the children and adults across the island have been so welcoming and so warm and we can’t even begin to express how grateful we are for the warm welcome that they have been giving us. It seems everytime we turn around they wanted to provide dinner or have a nice little meal for us and we are so thankful for that. It couldn’t have been a greater welcome,” said Major Petersen of US Marines.
The St John Cawaci project provided a platform for the US Marines to work with and train RFMF personnel.