Seapower - October 2011

“Providing fuel to a combat outpost [in Afghanistan] takes a lot of effort. You have to convoy fuel out there. So we came up with a strategy to incorporate solar lighting into those combat outposts. It eliminated the need for refueling for generators to support that. That’s probably been one that has helped save a number of lives, and also provided an economical and clean way to provide that mission.”

We also have a detachment of Seabees going into Vietnam. This is our first military presence back into Vietnam in many, many years and we’re really looking to build a foundation of trust and partnership with them.

We’re aligned very much with our fleet commanders. For example, Seabees aboard the [amphibious transport dock ship] USS Cleveland participated in Pacific Partnership, where a ship will visit several ports and provide some medical assistance, do some positive engagement with the local government there — and the Seabees will renovate schools and clinics and do some small community service projects.

We’ve gone to places like Papua-New Guinea, Micronesia and Tonga. We’ve done that in South America in Continuing Promise ’ 10 on the [amphibious assault ship] USS Iwo Jima. They continue to do humanitarian projects in places including Haiti, Suriname, Colombia and Costa Rica. They make short visits, but they have a huge impact.

We’re doing the same thing with Africa Partnership Stations. In one of the best examples, we sent Seabees out about a month ahead of time to actually build a new school from the ground up, and we timed that for when the ship does its engagement as part of that partnership station. It really leaves a lasting impression of what partnership with the United States provides to those countries and how they can improve security within the region with cooperation.

We had a small, but important, role in the tsunami and earthquake [relief] in Japan, mostly in port clearing, where we had an underwater construction team help survey and help the Japanese people in preparing to clear their ports.

If you think of the Port of Prince [Haiti] Airport and the amount of materials that you get in there in a day, you get another order of magnitude of capability when a port is opened. It took some pretty complex construction to essentially rebuild the pilings under an existing pier while it was damaged. They were able to take that on and make that an effective port again.

One of the things most people don’t know about [Hurricane] Katrina is we had about 3,000 Seabees help in the recovery effort. They cleared about 750 miles of road, moved tons of debris and repaired about 85 schools in that [Gulf Coast] region.

Bulldozers were symbolic of the Seabees in World War II. What new technologies are you embracing? HANDLEY: We’re using bulldozers and the same types of earth-moving equipment that we’ve had in the past to build roads and do the heavy up-and-down lifting. The biggest difference is that in the equipment we have in Afghanistan and Iraq now, we’ve incorporated armor. An operator “outside the wire,” working in that combat environment, has some protection between him and any insurgent who might decide to fire rounds in his direction.

Many years ago, the equipment would have lots of levers and complex hydraulics. Today, it looks a little bit more like a Playstation. It’s got a joystick. Our young Seabees really enjoy it. They’re able to train with that joystick before they actually get on a piece of equipment.

We’re looking at alternative energy. We’ve built a number of combat outposts out and around the city of Kandahar and a number of them included security checkpoints with lighting. Providing fuel to a combat outpost takes a lot of effort. You have to convoy fuel out there. So we came up with a strategy to incorporate solar lighting into those combat outposts. It eliminated the need for refueling for generators to support that. That’s probably been one that has helped save a number of lives, and also provided an economical and clean way to provide that mission.

The satellite communications that we use today give us full-spectrum capability. It has given us great technical reachback capability. We will send Seabees out to look at a bridge and take digital photographs of it, make drawings of it and take measurements. We will send that in a package back to engineers here in Norfolk at Naval Facilities Engineering Command Atlantic. They have experts who will work on it and then send us back answers and solutions within 24 hours. We get a reachback to a huge suite of technical expertise that we didn’t have access to before. That’s been a huge force multiplier for us.