Seabees Given an Emotional Send-Off

[Judi Lynn]

April 13, 2004

CALIFORNIA
Seabees Given an Emotional Send-Off
Unsettling news from Iraq raises anxiety for members of the Navy construction corps.


By Steve Chawkins, Times Staff Writer


There's never a good time to go off to war, but for 100 Seabees at Port Hueneme, Monday afternoon was a particularly bad one.

The previous week had been among the deadliest for U.S. forces since the fighting in Iraq started. Foreign civilians were being kidnapped. Cities were erupting in anti-American hatred. At home, polls showed a growing number of people questioning the war.

The mood at Naval Base Ventura County was subdued. Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion Three milled around in a parking lot outside a base theater. Clad in khaki camouflage uniforms and desert boots, some hugged wives and children, girlfriends and parents. None knew when they would be back.
(snip)

The Seabees were established in World War II, with the motto "We Build, We Fight." In Iraq, Nevel said, the Seabees do the kind of things they do everywhere: build military camps, repair bridges, get power plants up and running, repave runways, patch up schools, fix what needs to be fixed. No Seabee based at Port Hueneme has died in Iraq, according to a base spokeswoman, but their work often places them in volatile areas.
(snip/...)

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-seabees13apr13,1,7747078.story?coll=la-headlines-california
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[0007]

1. During WWII I remember seeing a movie called "The Fighting Seabees

with John Wayne.

[Zerex71]

2. FYI

The term "Seabee" came from "CB" or Construction Battalion.

[havocmom]

3. Port Hueneme CB base is where I used to have to pass all those crates

stacked 10 high and stretching for a quarter mile... They were used to transport bodies home during Viet Nam. I hated those crates, just witting there, waiting.

Hueneme is a nice little base and hard to leave for the desert, I's guess. These are the guys who are out in the open building air strips and service buildings while opposition sits back and take shots at them.

Be safe, SeaBees.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

4. I guess we need them to start building

the gulag