{"id":30069,"date":"2023-10-04T16:34:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T16:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=30069"},"modified":"2023-10-05T06:43:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T06:43:41","slug":"koa-moana-23-concludes-in-oceania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=30069","title":{"rendered":"Koa Moana 23 Concludes in Oceania"},"content":{"rendered":"
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KOROR, PALAU — <\/span><\/p>\n

U.S. Marines and Sailors with I Marine Expeditionary Force concluded Task Force Koa Moana 23 in the Indo-Pacific region on Sept. 30, 2023. The task force was task-organized into multiple detachments with expertise in providing engineering, medical, maritime law enforcement, and explosive ordnance disposal capabilities.<\/p>\n

Named Koa Moana, a Hawaiian phrase meaning \u201cocean warrior,\u201d the task force is designed to strengthen relationships between the U.S. and partner nations in Oceania.<\/p>\n

\u201cKoa Moana is the Marine Corps\u2019 attempt to have a larger outreach in the Indo-Pacific,\u201d said 2nd Lt. Ryan Degnan, a native of Monroe, New York and a ground supply officer with the task force. \u201cWe are going to islands we haven\u2019t really been to before or haven\u2019t had a large presence in recent years. Micronesia is a good example of that. It\u2019s all about community relations; getting with the communities and helping them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Degnan, community relations is what differentiates the United States from its adversaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe like to get personal and make friends with countries,\u00a0if we have to come here in the future, we already know business owners and we have these pre-established relationships that we can use to our advantage.\u201d \u00a02nd Lt., Ryan Degnan, a ground supply officer with\u00a0Task Force Koa Moana 23<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This year\u2019s iteration deployed to six locations: Papua New Guinea, Republic of Palau, and the four states of the Federated States of Micronesia. Additionally, Koa Moana had three episodic locations: Guam, Kiribati, and Solomon Islands, which focused on monument clean ups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe accomplished more than 100 Operations, Activities, and Investments,\u201d said Degnan. \u201cWe had multiple projects; the big ones were hospital repairs in Kosrae and Chuuk. In Kosrae, the Marines basically rebuilt the whole hospital. They were able to work with the U.S. Department of the Interior to get funding and we supplied the labor.\u201d<\/p>\n

While many OAIs were created during the task force\u2019s pre-deployment site surveys, numerous projects were established while deployed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe discovered many projects on site,\u201d said Degnan. \u201cMany came from just talking with the community and building those relationships. Some were planned beforehand, but a good amount was created here when we talked to the right people and discovered things we didn\u2019t even realize were possible to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the three-month deployment, Marines and Sailors in Papua New Guinea worked on numerous renovation projects including a Papua New Guinea Defense Force shooting range, Port Moresby Nature Park, and PNGDF Air Transport Wing. In FSM, infrastructural projects included the Dr. Arthur P. Sigrah Memorial Hospital in Kosrae, Chuuk High School, Tomil Municipal Center on Yap and a Pohnpei shoot range. In Palau, projects included repairs to the Joint Range Complex and the flagpole at the president\u2019s office as well as dental work for elementary school students.<\/p>\n

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\n 230914-M-FP389-1017<\/span>
\n Photo by Cpl. Trent A. Henry<\/span><\/p>\n
U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Megan Roundpoint, a native of Akwesasne, New York and a motor transport operator with Task Force Koa Moana 23, speaks to Chuuk High School students during a recruiting event at Chuuk High School on Weno, Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia, Sept. 14, 2023. The state of Chuuk is a part of Task Force Koa Moana\u2019s deployment throughout the Indo-Pacific region, where Marines and Sailors from I Marine Expeditionary Force work to strengthen alliances and partnerships with development of interoperable capabilities, combined operations, theater security cooperation, and capacity-building efforts. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Trent A. Henry)<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

According to Degnan, many of the Marines were performing in tasks outside of their occupational specialties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of just had to make do with what we had and everyone was willing to learn new skills,\u201d said Degnan. \u201cIt\u2019s incredible how well these Marines performed out here. There are not too many engineers in our battalion; we have Motor-T, maintenance and supply and yet they were going out there and putting in work and long hours. They went above and beyond in all means. They were full speed the whole time. Just looking for each and every opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond labor-intensive projects, the task force also participated in numerous community relations activities including blood registration drives, mess nights, softball games and recruiting events.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuilding relationships all across the world is great, but maintaining those relationships is even more important,\u201d said Sgt. Xavier Bridges, a native of Kirbyville, Texas and the Task Force Koa Moana 23 Palau detachment platoon sergeant. \u201cThat is something we\u2019ve been able to do with Palau and the other islands. They love us out here and they asked us to stay, so I think that says a lot about us.\u201d<\/p>\n

For nearly a decade, Task Force Koa Moana has demonstrated U.S. commitment to the region and a shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, I would say Koa Moana was really successful,\u201d said Bridges. \u201cIt seems like every island really enjoyed having the Marines there to work on projects and help out in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

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KOROR, PALAU — U.S. Marines and Sailors with I Marine Expeditionary Force concluded Task Force Koa Moana 23 in the Indo-Pacific region on Sept. 30, 2023. The task force was task-organized into multiple detachments with expertise in providing engineering, medical, maritime law enforcement, and explosive ordnance disposal capabilities. Named Koa Moana, a Hawaiian phrase meaning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":30071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30069"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30072,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30069\/revisions\/30072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}