Mideast edition, Wednesday, August 22, 2007

MIHAIL KOGALNICEANU AIR BASE, Romania — If there is a base anywhere on the globe that needs to be built or fixed, it is a safe bet that the Navy Seabees are either there or on their way.

That is why it’s not unusual to see Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 40 from Port Hueneme, Calif., unloading its heavy equipment at this Romanian base near the Black Sea.

For the first time, Navy construction battalions have made Romania a permanent detachment, much like the one in Rota, Spain. Navy bases in Souda Bay, Crete, and Sigonella, Sicily, also once had such detachments. Between 20 and 30 sailors deploy to a base with the job of fixing anything and everything needed.

Seabees typically build and fight alongside Marines, but in this case they’re helping airmen and soldiers dig into their new bases in Bulgaria and Romania while performing humanitarian missions in both countries. The Seabees will be in country on six-month deployments.

Before the Army begins rotating a brigade-sized force in and out of Eastern Europe, possibly next year, the Seabees will likely be welcoming its second group of sailors.

Navy Lt. Brad Coleman, the Romania detachment’s officer in charge, said contractors would do the bulk of the base work, freeing Seabees to go off base and “do good” by building orphanages, digging wells and refurbishing health clinics. It is part of a plan to establish a good first impression of incoming U.S. forces scheduled to rotate in and out of the area for training.

“While units come in to train, we go out into the nearby villages,” Coleman said. “They go train, and we go to work.”

Since the beginning of the war in Iraq in 2003, Seabee battalions have changed the way they have deployed to Europe and the Middle East. The Navy base in Rota is no longer home to roughly 900 Seabees waiting to deploy at a moment’s notice. It now has a small detachment, as Romania does.

The battalion is broken into small detachments spread across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, with most sailors deployed to Kuwait.

Many of the Seabees are eager to get to work, but the first rotation of sailors is focusing on getting situated in Romania so the next group can focus on what the battalions do best: build.

There is plenty to do.

Half of the detachment’s equipment is coming from Kuwait. The other half is coming out of a warehouse in Gulfport, Miss. A lot of the equipment has stayed in storage since 1993 and has never been used. For example, a Chevy truck that is more than 14 years old has only 800 miles on the odometer.

Petty Officer 1st Class Justin Richards, an equipment operator with the battalion, said a lot of the equipment collected dust in storage and needs a tuneup. While the equipment looks like new on the outside, the lack of use is forcing sailors to do some extra work to get everything operable.

“A lot of the seals have gone bad,” Richards said. “The batteries are junk.”

Seabees are working six days a week to get everything up and running. But the detachment will have time to work on three humanitarian projects during the first rotation: making improvements to a clinic in nearby Constanta and renovating an elementary school and retirement home in Bulgaria.

“We wish we could do more on the outside,” Coleman said. “Seabees love to go out and help.”