Band Of Builders: Seabees In Iraq
By Andrew Scutro, Staff writer, The Navy Times ~ (Image: Construction Electrician Construction man Isaac Perkins, with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74, works at repairing a portion of the runway at Al Taqaddum Airfield in Iraq. The runway is the largest project currently underway by the Seabees in Iraq and is expected to be finished by February. Photo by M. Scott Mahaskey.) RAMADI, Iraq — A call to prayer floats out from a mosque and over the city at night, straight up against the lawnmower like buzz of an orbiting surveillance drone.
Crawling around a giant, green Rolls-Royce generator in a dark corner of the government center compound here, three Seabees and two civilian contractors with flashlights and wrenches struggle to revive the neglected monster. It will bring power to a handful of Iraqi police who have just arrived. They are supposed to work beside American forces at what used to be the headquarters of the Anbar provincial government. But for now, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, owns the inside of the bullet-pocked compound. Insurgents own what’s outside the wall. If U.S. forces are shifted and the Marines leave downtown Ramadi, the Iraqi police will need a fighting chance and electricity. Hence, the Seabees. “Now that the IPs are moving into the compound, they’ll want this,” said Chief Builder James Hix, who came out here with Construction Mechanic 2nd Class Larry Chatman and Construction Electrician 1st Class Alfred Brown. “The whole thought process is get the IPs up and running so we can phase troops out. You have to get them stable before we go anywhere. If we don’t, it would be a futile effort.” Seabees are doing all kinds of work in Iraq, but this job in particular will ease the eventual transition to Iraqi forces, if and when the U.S. leaves outposts such as the government center. “If it’s going to help the Iraqi people build a better life in the future, I guess that should be the first and foremost,” Chatman says. “But we have Marines out there. I think that would be the top priority if we’ve got us out there. We need to really make sure that we’re taken care of.” Hix, Chatman and Brown carried in their weapons, a giant tool box and two massive batteries. They rode with a menacing Marine convoy from the nearby Hurricane Point base. After prodding and pulling on the generator in the dark for two hours, it turns over and runs, but it can’t idle on its own. It needs parts. Poking around in the dark, they find another generator half the size of the green Rolls Royce. It’s newer, and after few adjustments, it sparks to life quickly. “Hell, that one purrs like a kitten,” Hix says in his country twang. The Seabees came out to restart the generators but also to assess the condition of the building where the Iraqis will live. Once a police headquarters and jail beside the provincial offices, it has been looted and torn apart. Wiring has been gouged out of the walls, and rooms emptied of anything that fit through the door. One electrical box is now a mind-boggling tangle of wires. Someone has used an indoor stairwell as a latrine. But a team of a dozen Seabees will come back and stay until January. With them, the standard of living will improve. Walking through the compound in the daylight, Hix, Brown and Chatman figure out what it will need. It needs a lot.
“A lot of this has already been ripped off and pilfered. We’ll have to bring in a new generator, new panels, new wires and completely rewire the whole thing,” Hix said. “It’s part of the bigger picture, to get the IPs out here, involved in the situation we have here in Ramadi.” The assessment team at the government center is a tiny element of the roughly 800 Seabees on the ground in Iraq under the 3rd Naval Construction Regiment. Hix and his men are from the active-duty Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74 based in Gulfport, Miss. Reservists from NMCB 18 are also in the country. Both are assigned to the regiment under forward headquarters of the I Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Fallujah. The regiment’s commodore is Capt. Scott Newman. His Seabees repair roads, patch holes in runways, drill wells, build housing on combat outposts and fortify positions for force protection. Heavily armed Seabee teams also escort convoys through some of the most remote and hostile terrain in Iraq. While a lot of reconstruction work in Iraq has been parceled out to civilian contractors, the Seabees work for the Marines, and they go where contractors cannot. “It’s right up there with what Seabees can do,” Newman said. “Seabees are a sought-after asset. Wherever we go, we improve what the standard is. We’re only limited by the materials we have, and we have quite a bit.” The Seabees are spread throughout Anbar province, operating out of superbases such as Al Asad and Taqaddum, where they can stash their construction materials and heavy machinery. From there, they move forward into combat outposts such as Rawah and into downtown Ramadi. While the material yards are stacked with lumber and other building supplies, the Seabees do have trouble getting parts and certain materials. The rehab job at the government center begins as soon as they have enough wire and pipe. Chief Construction Mechanic Tyler Watters runs the battalion maintenance shop of Alfa Company, NMCB 74, from a compound at Taqaddum known as called “Alfatraz.” The offices sit nestled underground in a former Iraqi bunker. The tire and welding shop are also in underground concrete shelters. The rest of the site is field-expedient. Mechanics rebuild Humvees in big tents on a floor made of metal aircraft pallets. Watters said he would like to see more work done by Seabees. But even for the tasks they have, they’re shorthanded. Part of the battalion is in Guam, and another detachment is spread out in undisclosed locations with undisclosed clients. “There’s not enough of us. We’re spread thin,” Watters said. “We get it done, though.”
His job depends on making the equipment work, which depends on every kind of spare part. His way around the shortages: bartering. Watters, 30, has been in the Navy for 11 years. He’s deployed seven times in the past seven years across Asia and the Pacific, Spain, Iraq once already and Pakistan. But in Iraq, getting spare parts quickly is an obstacle. Despite what Navy leadership says about streamlining maintenance practices and moving parts to the tip of the spear, Watters said he could get parts faster to Iraq by calling a machinery dealership in Gulfport and paying with his own credit card. Then again, doing more with less is a source of pride with the Seabees. “We’d be lazy dudes if they gave us everything we needed,” he said. Often the pieces for trade have nothing to do with the other. If someone wants a 22-volt heater for his hooch and he happens to have a tire Watters needs, heater is traded for tire. “Here, to fix something with nothing, you have to network,” he said. “It’s the military way.”
‘A once-in-a-lifetime job’ The Seabees have one of the larger scale reconstruction missions in Iraq. An old Saddam-era base, Taqaddum has two 14,000-foot runways, big enough to handle the largest cargo aircraft. But because of bomb damage from the Persian Gulf War, only one is in use, clogging the heavy flow of people and supplies into Iraq. Chief Builder Tony Chance from NMCB 74 is in charge of the project. He has crews working around the clock, rebuilding the runway section by section like a checkerboard.
“This is the most important project we have done so far for the Seabees [in Iraq]. It’s very important to the cause in the war on terror,” he said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime job because of the importance of it.” Chance gave responsibility for his work crews to 23-year-old Builder 2nd Class Cara Barton. Her daylight crew of 22 works from dawn until dark, when a night crew of 14 takes over. They carve through bad patches of runway and replace them with new concrete pads, connected underneath by metal rods. Barton said she likes being a busy Seabee because she’s not stuck at a desk or on a ship. When she gets out of the Navy, she wants to open a spa in her native Vermont. “I’m just a hard worker,” she said modestly.
Crawling around a giant, green Rolls-Royce generator in a dark corner of the government center compound here, three Seabees and two civilian contractors with flashlights and wrenches struggle to revive the neglected monster. It will bring power to a handful of Iraqi police who have just arrived. They are supposed to work beside American forces at what used to be the headquarters of the Anbar provincial government. But for now, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, owns the inside of the bullet-pocked compound. Insurgents own what’s outside the wall. If U.S. forces are shifted and the Marines leave downtown Ramadi, the Iraqi police will need a fighting chance and electricity. Hence, the Seabees. “Now that the IPs are moving into the compound, they’ll want this,” said Chief Builder James Hix, who came out here with Construction Mechanic 2nd Class Larry Chatman and Construction Electrician 1st Class Alfred Brown. “The whole thought process is get the IPs up and running so we can phase troops out. You have to get them stable before we go anywhere. If we don’t, it would be a futile effort.” Seabees are doing all kinds of work in Iraq, but this job in particular will ease the eventual transition to Iraqi forces, if and when the U.S. leaves outposts such as the government center. “If it’s going to help the Iraqi people build a better life in the future, I guess that should be the first and foremost,” Chatman says. “But we have Marines out there. I think that would be the top priority if we’ve got us out there. We need to really make sure that we’re taken care of.” Hix, Chatman and Brown carried in their weapons, a giant tool box and two massive batteries. They rode with a menacing Marine convoy from the nearby Hurricane Point base. After prodding and pulling on the generator in the dark for two hours, it turns over and runs, but it can’t idle on its own. It needs parts. Poking around in the dark, they find another generator half the size of the green Rolls Royce. It’s newer, and after few adjustments, it sparks to life quickly. “Hell, that one purrs like a kitten,” Hix says in his country twang. The Seabees came out to restart the generators but also to assess the condition of the building where the Iraqis will live. Once a police headquarters and jail beside the provincial offices, it has been looted and torn apart. Wiring has been gouged out of the walls, and rooms emptied of anything that fit through the door. One electrical box is now a mind-boggling tangle of wires. Someone has used an indoor stairwell as a latrine. But a team of a dozen Seabees will come back and stay until January. With them, the standard of living will improve. Walking through the compound in the daylight, Hix, Brown and Chatman figure out what it will need. It needs a lot.
“A lot of this has already been ripped off and pilfered. We’ll have to bring in a new generator, new panels, new wires and completely rewire the whole thing,” Hix said. “It’s part of the bigger picture, to get the IPs out here, involved in the situation we have here in Ramadi.” The assessment team at the government center is a tiny element of the roughly 800 Seabees on the ground in Iraq under the 3rd Naval Construction Regiment. Hix and his men are from the active-duty Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74 based in Gulfport, Miss. Reservists from NMCB 18 are also in the country. Both are assigned to the regiment under forward headquarters of the I Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Fallujah. The regiment’s commodore is Capt. Scott Newman. His Seabees repair roads, patch holes in runways, drill wells, build housing on combat outposts and fortify positions for force protection. Heavily armed Seabee teams also escort convoys through some of the most remote and hostile terrain in Iraq. While a lot of reconstruction work in Iraq has been parceled out to civilian contractors, the Seabees work for the Marines, and they go where contractors cannot. “It’s right up there with what Seabees can do,” Newman said. “Seabees are a sought-after asset. Wherever we go, we improve what the standard is. We’re only limited by the materials we have, and we have quite a bit.” The Seabees are spread throughout Anbar province, operating out of superbases such as Al Asad and Taqaddum, where they can stash their construction materials and heavy machinery. From there, they move forward into combat outposts such as Rawah and into downtown Ramadi. While the material yards are stacked with lumber and other building supplies, the Seabees do have trouble getting parts and certain materials. The rehab job at the government center begins as soon as they have enough wire and pipe. Chief Construction Mechanic Tyler Watters runs the battalion maintenance shop of Alfa Company, NMCB 74, from a compound at Taqaddum known as called “Alfatraz.” The offices sit nestled underground in a former Iraqi bunker. The tire and welding shop are also in underground concrete shelters. The rest of the site is field-expedient. Mechanics rebuild Humvees in big tents on a floor made of metal aircraft pallets. Watters said he would like to see more work done by Seabees. But even for the tasks they have, they’re shorthanded. Part of the battalion is in Guam, and another detachment is spread out in undisclosed locations with undisclosed clients. “There’s not enough of us. We’re spread thin,” Watters said. “We get it done, though.”
His job depends on making the equipment work, which depends on every kind of spare part. His way around the shortages: bartering. Watters, 30, has been in the Navy for 11 years. He’s deployed seven times in the past seven years across Asia and the Pacific, Spain, Iraq once already and Pakistan. But in Iraq, getting spare parts quickly is an obstacle. Despite what Navy leadership says about streamlining maintenance practices and moving parts to the tip of the spear, Watters said he could get parts faster to Iraq by calling a machinery dealership in Gulfport and paying with his own credit card. Then again, doing more with less is a source of pride with the Seabees. “We’d be lazy dudes if they gave us everything we needed,” he said. Often the pieces for trade have nothing to do with the other. If someone wants a 22-volt heater for his hooch and he happens to have a tire Watters needs, heater is traded for tire. “Here, to fix something with nothing, you have to network,” he said. “It’s the military way.”
‘A once-in-a-lifetime job’ The Seabees have one of the larger scale reconstruction missions in Iraq. An old Saddam-era base, Taqaddum has two 14,000-foot runways, big enough to handle the largest cargo aircraft. But because of bomb damage from the Persian Gulf War, only one is in use, clogging the heavy flow of people and supplies into Iraq. Chief Builder Tony Chance from NMCB 74 is in charge of the project. He has crews working around the clock, rebuilding the runway section by section like a checkerboard.
“This is the most important project we have done so far for the Seabees [in Iraq]. It’s very important to the cause in the war on terror,” he said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime job because of the importance of it.” Chance gave responsibility for his work crews to 23-year-old Builder 2nd Class Cara Barton. Her daylight crew of 22 works from dawn until dark, when a night crew of 14 takes over. They carve through bad patches of runway and replace them with new concrete pads, connected underneath by metal rods. Barton said she likes being a busy Seabee because she’s not stuck at a desk or on a ship. When she gets out of the Navy, she wants to open a spa in her native Vermont. “I’m just a hard worker,” she said modestly.
posted by Mike McCarville @ 6:03 AM
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