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
(Free registration required)