USS Porter Returns to Black Sea
Story Number: NNS060407-16
Release Date: 4/7/2006 1:53:00 PM
By Journalist 1st Class Eric Brown, Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe Public Affairs
NAPLES, Italy (NNS) -- For the second time this year, USS Porter (DDG 78) transited through the Turkish Straits in April to engage with Black Sea navies.
Planned engagements with Romania, Turkey, Georgia and Bulgaria will directly support the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe (CNE) strategic priority of strengthening enduring partnerships in the region.
“These are our new friends,” Commodore, Task Force (CTF) 67 Capt. Bob Lally said of the countries Porter will be interacting with. “The excitement is because they invited us and want to engage with the U.S. Navy. Building new partnerships and strengthening existing ones, especially in this region, is extremely important in achieving our goals of greater maritime domain awareness and fostering an environment inhospitable to criminals and extremists.”
The visit follows Porter’s Black Sea trip in February, when the ship conducted port visits and training in Romania and Ukraine. This visit to the region will challenge the ship’s crew in several ways, said Lt. Cmdr. Murzban Morris, an operations staff member of CTF 67.
“The first is the pace of operations. We’re basically doing one thing right after another, with very little dead time in between,” Morris explained. “We’re going to come in, and in an 18-day span, work with four different countries integrating, training and engaging with them both in the community as well as military-to-military.”
Porter, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer homeported in Norfolk, Va., has been forward deployed to the U.S 6th Fleet since late November. Porter has been conducting operations in the Mediterranean and Black Seas in support of maritime and theater security cooperation.
The 507-foot-long ship weighs almost 9,000 tons and can exceed speeds of 30 knots. About 315 crew members serve aboard the ship, which was commissioned in March 1999, and can conduct air, surface and sub-surface operations simultaneously.
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