MANAMA, Bahrain --
Participants in the course multi-national
service members with closing comments given by Rear Adm. Paul Schlise, deputy
commander, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, and Brigadier General Francis
Donovan, commander, Naval Amphibious Force, Task Force 51/5th Marine
Expeditionary Brigade.
Schlise emphasized building continued working
relations between all partner nations, with Donovan emphasizing that the
military is not the only response entity in the area.
“I’ve been through this course I think three
times in my career and this is the first time I’ve seen the international
partnership here and that’s fantastic,” said Donovan. “At the end of the day,
in any kind of situation like this, it’s not the U.S. military that’s going to
really be solving these problems. It’s going to be our partners.”
The course was held in a classroom environment over
two days which includes interactive presentations, case-study methodology and
group exercises where students discuss how they would handle a certain disaster
situation and who they would contact for different aspects of the situation.
“This was an opportunity to bring together a
number of different partner militaries,” said Albert Gembara, the humanitarian assistance advisor
for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. “To look at how the humanitarian
assistance disaster relief operations work, how the international humanitarian
architecture is designed and how to work with civilian organizations, civilian
entities, in this space to support those kinds of operations.”
Gembara added that the course was a good chance
for the different nations to have a dialogue on some of the unique challenges
that each nation faces as well as the different abilities that each one brings.
In 2004, USAID/OFDA created the JHOC to
establish a formal learning environment for select U.S. military leaders and
planners to discuss how the Department of Defense, Department of State and
USAID work collaboratively during humanitarian assistance/disaster response
operations.
The course highlights how humanitarian agencies
relate to the U.S. military's mission and its role and responsibilities when
supporting foreign humanitarian assistance/ disaster relief operations, specifically
as provided for under Department of Defense Directive 5100.46.
U.S. 5th Fleet area of
operations encompasses about 2.5 million square miles of water area and
includes the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman, Red Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean.
The expanse is comprised of 20 countries and includes three critical choke
points at the Strait of Hormuz, the Suez Canal and the Strait of Bab al Mandeb
at the southern tip of Yemen.