USS Cleveland Returns After Final Mission

UPDATE, 2 p.m.: Another take on the Cleveland's arrival, this one from the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

The USS Cleveland returned to San Diego Thursday morning after its final voyage before it is decommissioned, a five-month humanitarian mission to the South Pacific.

The Cleveland deployed March 21 as the command vessel for the “Pacific Partnership” project, in which visits were made to Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua-New Guinea, Timor-Leste and the Federated States of Micronesia.

The team included representatives from all the armed services, the State Department, partner nations and nongovernmental organizations, as well as medical, dental, veterinary and engineering experts.

Here's the mission by the Navy's numbers:

• The team saw nearly 39,000 patients.
• Members handed out more than 21,000 pairs of eyeglasses.
• More than 933 animals received treatment.

Navy Capt. Jesse A. Wilson Jr., the mission commander, said in Tonga the education minister spoke through tears as he thanked everyone for a new roof that U.S. Navy Seabees installed at a school decimated by a cyclone two years ago.

“Very few times do we get to see immediate gratification from the
people we were helping, and we had that in all of these countries,” Wilson said.

The U.S. Pacific Command launched the “Pacific Partnership” initiative in 2005 after a devastating tsunami.

Commissioned in 1967, the Cleveland is the Navy's third-oldest
commissioned ship. It was first deployed to the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War 44 years ago and is scheduled to be decommissioned later this year.

Wilson said it was fitting that the Cleveland's service will have ended following a major humanitarian operation.

“This brings it all full circle,” he said. “It's a great way for the ship to end its mission and its role in the U.S. Navy. And I can't think of a
better deployment to end it on.”

City News Service contributed to this report.