{"id":203644,"date":"2015-06-08T06:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-06-07T20:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=203644"},"modified":"2015-06-08T06:00:40","modified_gmt":"2015-06-07T20:00:40","slug":"welcome-reception-for-uss-milius-held","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/welcome-reception-for-uss-milius-held\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome reception for USS Milius held"},"content":{"rendered":"

A welcome reception was held Friday for the crewmembers of the USS Milius at Kanoa Resort\u2019s Club C in Susupe.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A welcome reception was held for the crew members of the USS Milius by the Saipan Chamber of Commerce at Kanoa Resort\u2019s Club C last Friday. Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman spoke to formally welcome the Navy and presented them a plaque. (Frauleine S. Villanueva)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Saipan Chamber of Commerce welcomed the crew when they arrived Thursday and hosted the reception as well.<\/p>\n

About 300 sailors are aboard the guided missile destroyer.<\/p>\n

SCC executive director Jill Arenovski and some members of Legislature, including House vice speaker Rep. Rafael\u00a0S.\u00a0Demapan (R-Saipan) and Rep. Joseph Lee Pan\u00a0Guerrero (R-Saipan) were present at the Club C reception.<\/p>\n

Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman, who chairs the Chamber\u2019s military affairs committee, presented the Navy with a welcoming plaque as well souvenirs from the Chamber. The Navy previously presented gifts to the Chamber as well.<\/p>\n

On behalf of its crew, USS Milius\u2019 captain, Commander Michael Rak, accepted the plaque.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have definitely felt very welcome,\u201d Rak said. \u201cThis is already\u2014even though it\u2019s only been 24 hours\u2014by far the best port visit that we have had.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crew spent almost 200 days in the Arabian Gulf and went through Singapore before coming to Saipan.<\/p>\n

Choosing Saipan<\/strong>
\nAccording to Rak, they actually chose to come to Saipan after he experienced the island\u2019s hospitality during his previous deployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very happy to be here, the crew is very happy to be here. Thank you for the hospitality,\u201d Rak said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tropical, everyone\u2019s been so nice, it\u2019s fantastic,\u201d operations officer Lt. Jessica Poniatoski said. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to be almost home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several activities were prepared for the crew such as sports events and visits to various tourist sites and historic landmarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talk a lot on our ship about U.S. Navy heritage and to actually get to see some up close, some local sites where historical events happened is really something,\u201d Rak said. \u201cNowhere else have we had this kind of welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A welcome reception was held Friday for the crewmembers of the USS Milius at Kanoa…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":203649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5183,5184,5185,448],"class_list":["post-203644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-arabian-gulf","tag-commander-michael-rak","tag-jessica-poniatoski","tag-kanoa-resort"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}