Canadian Warship to Receive Navy Meritorious Unit AwardCanadian Warship to Receive Navy Meritorious Unit Award

By Chief Mass Communication Specialist (SW/AW) Julianne Metzger, Chief of Naval Operations Public Affairs

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy's top admiral will present a U.S. Navy unit award to a Canadian warship Feb. 20.

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Jonathan Greenert is to present the U.S. Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation (MUC) on Feb. 20 to HMCS Toronto (FFH 333) of the Royal Canadian Navy in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman, Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, and several members of U.S. and Canadian government and navy leadership will also attend the ceremony.

A non-U.S. naval force receiving a U.S. Navy unit decoration is a rarity; this event marking the fifth occurrence of such a decoration in the last 45 years.

Returning from a year-long deployment, the crew of the Toronto was selected to receive the prestigious award due to their continued support of Combined Task Force (CTF) 150. The Halifax-class frigate significantly disrupted the flow of drugs, criminal and terrorist activities in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.

While deployed Toronto responsibilities included tracking, boarding and searching maritime contacts of interest to CTF-150. Among Toronto's accomplishments during deployment which ended Feb. 1 of this year, the ship's crew seized six large caches of illegal drugs to include 1,300 kilograms of heroin and six tons of hashish. Seizures of a large magnitude can significantly affect unlawful organizations' ability to fund illegal operations.