 The USNS spearhead arrived in Rota as a starting point for her deployment to the US six-fleet area of operations, where she'll be supporting partnership building and maritime security efforts off the coast of West Africa in the Gulf of Guinea. The ship's master, Captain Douglas Cassavan, explained why the ship is such a valuable asset. It's our job is to provide all the support to the embarked attachments in order for them to complete the mission. The ship is pretty much a hollow shell that we can fill with whatever type of equipment and personnel in order to complete whatever mission is needed. The ship will provide a forward presence and serve to enhance interoperability among African partners. As part of the US Naval Forces Africa's Africa Partnership Station program. Commander Tim Farachi, Africa Partnership Station 16 mission commander, explained the ship's role in this effort. This will be the third year in a row that USNS spearhead has conducted this mission. So basically we'll be building off the previous year's work, theater security cooperation, maritime security operations, just working on increasing partner nation capacity, capability, working on the interoperability to make the maritime security operations more effective. From Naval Station Rota, I'm Petty Officer Devin Barnes.