...need better PR agents.
At least that was my conclusion after attending the
American Combat Veterans Center Annual Conference panel of active-duty sailors entitled, "Seabees & Civil Engineer Corps: Can-Do!" Even with my interest in all things U.S. Navy, what I knew of the
Seabees could fit in a thimble: "They work, they fight, they set up bases before the regular combat troops arrive, and people in the know respect them." That about covered it for me.
Fortunately, 2009 has been designated the
Year of the Seabees and Combat Engineer Corps, and so a panel of distinguished combat engineers had been chosen by the ACVC to educate me and my fellow attendees: CDR Paul J Odenthal, Asst. Chief of Staff for Logistics, 1st Naval Construction Division; LTJG Christopher Fairfield, currently the project manager overseeing the BRAC construction involved in combining Walter Reed and Bethesda; Senior Chief Builder Cloves Tennis, who had deployed in OIF I and OIF II, including completing 250 convoys in Al Anbar; CDR John J Adametz, commanding officer of U.S Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 7; and LT Ryan W. Thrun, recently returned from an IA (Individual Augmentee) billet in Afghanistan on a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT).
The session began somewhat inauspiciously with a powerpoint presentation, but it was brief, artfully-designed, and full of interesting pictures and graphics that did an excellent job of illustrating the breadth of the Seabees' activities and greographical reach--battalions are operating from Africa to Asia, the Middle East to South America and beyond. Activities range from combat support, such as preparing bases for Marines in Afghanistan, to humanitarian missions building bridges in South America or schools in Africa and handling hurricane recovery here at home.
Seabees, by nature and by training, are fundamentally engineers with all the impressive geek-think that comes with it. For them, a picture of a bridge they have designed and constructed is something akin to a proud grandparent's picture of the latest grandchild. They certainly have every right to be proud, as their unofficial motto seems to be "we do the impossible." The pictures in the presentation certainly were inspiring, and as the images of sailors hard at work among gigantic earthmovers, massive cranes and sections of prefabricated structures flashed by, I could've sworn I heard
Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor grunting from the back row.
Read the complete post at http://www.thedonovan.com/archives/2009/11/the_seabees.html
Posted
Nov 17 2009, 08:34 PM
by
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