ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. Navy Seabees train to build a Mabey Compact 200 bridge at Camp 93, in the northern Kuwait desert. The camp was named in honor of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed during a terrorist hijacking on Sept. 11, 2001.

Pearl Harbor Seabees
lay foundation
in Persian Gulf

They literally pave the way
by building aviation facilities

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Thirty Navy Seabees from Pearl Harbor are already in the Persian Gulf area -- hard at work in Kuwait building an airfield and aviation ordnance storage facilities.

Isle-based troops prepare for war These are the Hawaii-based units involved in the buildup to a potential war with Iraq. NAVY Destroyer USS Paul Hamilton; Frigate USS Reuben James; Sub USS Cheyenne; Sub USS Honolulu; Sub USS Louisville; Sub USS Chicago; Sub USS Columbia; Sub USS Key West; 30 Seabees MARINES 250 from 1st Radio Battalion; 40 reservists from 4th Force Reconnaissance; 200 from Marine Forces Pacific ARMY Three reservists from the 30th Military History Detachment HAWAII AIR NATIONAL GUARD 24 from 154th Security Forces Squadron; One from the 154th Communications Flight

The Associated Press reported that it took 60 days for the Seabees to build an airfield to be used by Marine Corps planes at a secret location in Kuwait.

Twenty of the Seabees are members of 30th Naval Construction Regiment, which is working out of Camp 93 in northern Kuwait, according to the report.

Last week, the Seabees worked on their bridging skills in Kuwait and were visited by Marine Maj. Gen. James Amos, who presented them with two Marine swords as a gesture of appreciation for building the airfield and what he described as "probably the largest ... aviation ordnance storage area since Vietnam."

"I don't think we'd be able to do what we think we have to do had the Seabees not been there," he said.

Daryl Smith, spokesman for 1st Naval Construction Division in Norfolk, Va., said the 20 Seabees are normally stationed at Pearl Harbor. The Seabees started leaving for the Middle East in September, with the last group departing the islands last month.

He said an additional 10 Hawaii Naval Reserve Seabees, who belong to Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit 303, also are deployed to the Gulf area. The unit is made up of 170 Navy reservists from Hawaii and California. Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 50 of them were activated to fill security positions while doing maintenance and other military construction work at Pearl Harbor.

"We're here to support the force," Capt. William Rudich, commander of the 25-member 30th Naval Construction Regiment, told the Associated Press in Kuwait.

Many of the more than 1,000 Seabees in the region are based at Camp 93, a desert camp of tents named in honor of the passengers who fought hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001.

Rear Adm. Charles Kubic, commander of the 1st Naval Construction Division, said Seabees go everywhere the Marines go.

In World War II, Seabees were recruited from the civilian construction trades and worked for the Navy's Civil Engineer Corps, according to a Navy history. More than 325,000 men served as Seabees in World War II, building airstrips, bridges, roads, warehouses, hospitals, gasoline storage tanks and housing on 300 Pacific islands. Seabees is a nickname for Construction Battalion, or CB.

During the Korean War, more than 10,000 Seabees fought on the Korean peninsula, landing at Inchon with the assault troops and building causeways.

Seabee teams in the Vietnam War fought alongside Marines and Army soldiers but also built schools and infrastructure and provided health-care service.

During the Gulf War, 4,000 active duty and 1,000 Seabee reservists built 10 camps for more than 42,000 personnel and laid down 6 million square feet of aircraft parking apron in Saudi Arabia.