October 10, 2005‘Pick up & carry on’
At a time when Gulfport needs builders most, its Seabees prepare to deploy to Iraq
By Mark D. Faram
Times staff writer
The Seabees of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133 are full of “can-do” spirit. Just hours after Hurricane Katrina hammered the Gulf Coast — including their Gulfport, Miss., home port — NMCB 133 sailors were out amid the rubble, clearing debris and rescuing victims.
They were at it day and night for weeks.
Tragically, these first responders also were the first victims. Of the 650 members of the battalion, 119 lost “everything” in the storm, their commanding officer said. Just 15 sailors weathered the storm with no damage to their homes and possessions.
And now, just one month later, with homes lost or damaged, families still scattered and lives in utter disarray, the Navy is sending the battalion off to war. A scheduled six-month deployment to Iraq is just weeks away.
Can do? You bet, said Cmdr. Allen Stratman, the battalion commanding officer. While the unit will do what it can to ease the pain, he said, the deployment needs of the Navy must be met.
Others in the ranks, however, question that decision. They wonder if the Navy is asking too much of them and the family members who soon will be left behind to pick up Katrina’s pieces.
“We’re being asked to go over there and clean up someone else’s mess when we should be staying here, cleaning up our own mess,” said one beleaguered NMCB 133 Seabee who asked not to be identified. “They want us to rebuild Iraq when we should be rebuilding our own homes.”
What about a replacement?
The unnamed sailor said he figures as much as 70 percent of the unit was quietly questioning the need to deploy.
It’s not like the sailors want to duck deployment, he said. But in the wake of the historic hurricane and the devastation it wrought, he asked, can’t somebody else pick up the slack?
“It’s one thing to try and push another active battalion into our spot. I understand how hard that is,” said the enlisted Seabee. “But isn’t this the kind of thing that the reserves are for?”
“I believe they could find a way to bump us a bit, or at least find Seabees willing to volunteer to go in place of those with the greatest need of staying behind,” said another battalion member who also asked not to be named. “Not everyone has the same level of issues and it’s easier for some and harder for others.”
Stratman said he understands the complaints and confusion.
“We’ve had sailors who have lost everything — either their house or apartment is a total loss or it’s unlivable at the moment,” he said. “The scale of the devastation here is tough to grasp, so I’m well aware there are those who feel they shouldn’t have to deploy. Those feelings are totally natural.”
Still, the deployment is on.
Moving another unit up in the rotation as a replacement is not an option, he said.
“We have been training for this the past 10 months,” he said. “There’s no way another unit can get spun up quickly enough to replace us.”
The Navy has only eight active-duty Seabee battalions, split between Gulfport, Miss., and Port Hueneme, Calif. All are either deployed or in work-ups.
“The idea of our unit not going did briefly occur to us, but the issue is then, who goes in our place?” said Lt. Cmdr. Gordy Meyer, the unit’s operations’ officer. “All of the others here are in the same situation we’re in and maybe worse.”
Spinning up a Reserve unit to go this quickly, he said, would simply take too much time.
Commanders were able to buy some time, however. Originally scheduled to launch Oct. 1, they secured a one-month delay to help sailors get their affairs in as much order as possible.
NMCB 133 sailors aren’t just deploying to Iraq. Some are also going to Afghanistan, Guam and Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Wash., for their six months away.
Stratman also instituted liberal leave policies to allow families time to pack up and move to other places or to stabilize what home they have left in Gulfport. Seabee “tiger teams” have been helping their own battalion shipmates by using their building skills to make temporary repairs before insurance claims can be processed.
“What I need to make this a successful deployment is to have my people assured their families are taken care of,” Stratman said. “Most of these sailors, what they need to get ready is just a little time.”
One Seabee’s loved one, who asked not to be identified, however, said what she needs is her Seabee, not just a little time.
“I’ve been through deployments before. I’ve got no problem with him going and doing his job in normal times. But down here, times aren’t normal,” she said. “These guys are builders, and if there’s one thing we need in Gulfport right now, it’s all the builders we can get.”
Rolling with the punches
Ironically, some Seabees welcome the deployment as a way to escape the devastation around them.
“Frankly, I can’t wait to go,” said Gary Pearson, a utilitiesman constructionman with NMCB 133’s Foxtrot Company, who will deploy to Fallujah, Iraq. “I think not going and trying to put someone in our place would just make it tougher on another unit somewhere else. It’s our turn and we need to go.”
Pearson and his wife, Culinary Specialist 3rd Class Amanda Pearson, and 8-month-old daughter Briley, evacuated to a base shelter — Warehouse 19 — to ride out the storm. It was a good thing. Their apartment complex was hit hard by the storm.
“We were one of the first to be allowed off base to get a look at our homes,” Amanda Pearson said. “The roof of the apartment next door had come off, so we got water damage and, as a result, have lost a lot of things, but we’ve also been able to salvage things, too.
“I’d never seen so much destruction in my whole life,” Amanda said. “I didn’t think it would be anywhere near that bad.”
It wasn’t long before the word came down that Gary’s battalion was still deploying to Iraq.
“Everybody was so surprised that they were still going to deploy,” Amanda said. “For us, it didn’t seem like a big deal, but for others who have lost so much, I didn’t see how they would do it.”
“I agree this is tough on the families,” Stratman said. “I know they’re wondering why their Seabee has to go.”
The Pearsons, like others, had decisions to make. And quickly. Amanda was due to go on terminal leave 10 days after the storm hit. The Navy was willing to move her and the family’s household belongings to her hometown of Albany, Texas, where her family lives. They jumped at that opportunity.
“It’s really better this way,” Gary Pearson said. “Yes, I’m missing them, but they’re out of here for the time being, and when I get back from deployment, that’s when we’ll decide what to do — and hopefully the area will have recovered quite a bit by then.”
Pearson said he’s gotten a lot of help. His landlord terminated his lease to allow him to move out without penalty. His insurance company declared the family’s home and car a total loss and cut him a check almost immediately.
“My insurance company has been great,” Pearson said.
Right after the storm, he said, Navy and Marine Corps Relief Society officials offered everyone $200 cash grants.
“It really helped, because no ATMs were working and we needed money,” Pearson said.
Though he understands the difficulties many of his shipmates are going though, Pearson said he supports the deployment.
“It’s our job and we have to go,” he said. “We were so far along in our training cycle, it would just take too long to get someone spun up to a point they could take our place.”
Wait and see
The battalion’s operations officer took one of Katrina’s hardest hits. Meyer’s house was destroyed. He lived just one block from the beach.
“I was in Fallujah, Iraq, doing advance work for the deployment,” Meyer said. “I wasn’t even aware a hurricane was heading toward Gulfport until I caught a television video feed of the storm’s approach.
“Finally I saw footage shot from a helicopter going down the beach,” he said. “You could see the storm’s surge went quite a ways inland and it didn’t look good.”
Flying back to the United States the Friday after the storm, he could only get as far as Memphis, Tenn. He and Stratman rented a car and drove back to Gulfport.
“Driving into the area, so much was gone that I couldn’t get my navigational bearings,” he said. “Nothing looked remotely the same.”
When he finally got “home,” everything was gone. Only the concrete slab remained, along with some kitchen tiles.
Not only was his house gone, so was his Jeep Wrangler. He eventually found the vehicle nearby under tons of lumber — a child’s rag doll hanging from the roll bar and someone’s hot water heater in the back.
“I’d very much like to rebuild, but I’m going to have to see what happens with the insurance,” he said. “I’ll wait until after the deployment before deciding what to do.”
At the moment, Meyer’s mortgage company has given him a 60-day break from his payments. He’s moved into the bachelor officers’ quarters after a three-week stay with the unit’s executive officer.
“It’s pretty much a total loss as I’ve not been able to find much of anything worthwhile,” Meyer said of his household possessions. “I did find where my sofa landed and one of my mattresses, but so far, that is all.”
But in some ways, he says, having a total loss for him is actually easier when it comes to preparing for deployment.
“I’m not trying to stabilize a house or having to move out belongings, so in that regard it’s much easier for me,” he said. “I am simply starting over from scratch.’
Starting the cleanup
Steelworker 2nd Class Timothy Beam is a different case.
He returned to find his beachfront home had been picked up by the hurricane, turned around and slammed down across the street facing the opposite direction.
On Sept. 29, a month after the storm hit, Beam and his fiancee, Kristin Burdine, were found still combing through the wreckage, looking for things to salvage.
“I thought it would get easier with each time we came back,” Kristin said, wiping a tear with her wrist because her gloved hand was covered with dust. “But so far that hasn’t happened.”
They did salvage a Tiffany lamp and some things her grandmother gave her.
“We’ll rebuild after the deployment,” she said. “But not here, I don’t think. We’re planning to go farther inland, at least past the railroad tracks” where some of the storm surge was stopped by higher ground.
Equipment Operator 2nd Class Jason Erwin had only been in his house two weeks when the storm hit.
“We still had a lot of stuff in boxes,” he said. “We just grabbed what we could and left.”
Erwin and his wife, Tammi, took off for her parents’ house in Dothan, Ala., along with another member of the unit, Equipment Operator 2nd Class Eric Lockwood, who was renting a room in the couple’s home.
Because he lived more than five miles from the beach, Erwin was optimistic about their chances when he returned after the storm, he said.
That feeling soon faded.
“We’re a ways away from the Biloxi River, but we still got flooded,” he said. “Everything in the house is a total loss.”
Walking through his house with a Navy Times reporter, he pointed out the flood’s watermark near the ceiling. Mold and soaked drywall are evident.
He said that he and Lockwood have been working ever since, whenever he can, to gradually pile all their ruined belongings in a huge trash heap in the front yard, hoping the city will pick it up soon.
As he and Lockwood wandered the house, they grabbed soggy Battle Dress Uniforms they would need for work — and the looming deployment.
“All I own now is a bag of clothes and my laptop,” Lockwood said. “It was pretty tough to deal with at first, but I’ve come to terms with it now.
“Besides, my mother says it’s a good excuse to buy more stuff to replace it all anyway.”
He’s also got a sense of gratitude, seeing what happened to others.
“Hey, no matter how bad it was for me, there are others who are worse off,” he said.
To commemorate the hurricane, Lockwood got a “Katrina” tattoo, complete with the date, Aug. 29, 2005, with the comment “That was one bad bitch!”
He, like other unit members, received $360 in cash from the Red Cross and could soon get a bit more from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He refused the grant from Navy and Marine Corps Relief.
“I don’t ask for what I don’t need,” he said. “A lot of guys say just take it, but I just ignore them.”
Tammi has stayed in Dothan while Erwin and Lockwood are trying to clean out the house. Erwin figures it will have to be gutted down to the wooden studs and totally rebuilt. He hasn’t yet heard final answers from his insurance company.
“I’ve applied to get a FEMA trailer,” he said. “As long as they can hook up to my existing sewage, they’ll bring one here. They’re coming out next week to see if they can make it happen.”
He’s been told he’ll have it before he deploys, so his wife can come back and supervise the rebuilding process. He said he doesn’t want to leave his house sit unattended while he’s away in Iraq.
Erwin added that the trailer is his for 18 months free of charge, and he can buy it after that.
“I hope to have the house back together by then,” he said
Neither man is happy about deploying right now, though Lockwood says it’s easier for him because he’s got nothing.
“Sure, I’d rather be here to take care of it myself,” Erwin echoed. “But the reality is that I can’t, so I’ll do as much to get things started as I can and she’ll have to take care over when I leave.”
Both men say they still find it hard to believe this is happening to them.
“It is really a gut check to have to pick up and carry on,” Erwin said. “You don’t have to like it, you just have to pick up and carry on.”