Thanks to a Congressional grant and the support of the U.S. Army, surgical teams from Tripler have visited eight countries in the past five years. Their mission is called "Sight, Sound and Smile," because they repair cataracts, restore hearing, and fix cleft lips and palates.

"We're going to bring four surgeons. We're going to run three operating room tables all at the same time with those four surgeons moving in and out. And we have two of our technicians with us to assist. With that we're going to partner with almost a mirror group from Bangladesh. They're going to help us with the Anesthesia part of it. Their surgeons are at the table with us," Dr. Ben Cable said.

"If there are a couple of hundred people who can get surgery potentially, we only can pick around 50 of them, so only some of the people can actually get surgery. We can make big differences for a lot of these patients. But we really also hope to focus on training the physicians over there so that their surgeons can do the surgery as well after we leave," Dr. Chris Klem said.

Both men see these missions as a chance to build friendships and partnerships with people in other countries and to show the world that the American military really wants to help.

"This is really one of the most gratifying things that I do as a physician, helping people that otherwise wouldn't get helped," Dr. Klem said.

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