Mendez Learning Center

Courtesy Photo | Soldiers build the future Mendez Learning Center, located on top of the 71st Corps Support Battalion tactical operation center, Jan. 31.  

QAYYARAH, IRAQ

03.21.2006

Courtesy Story

DVIDS Hub       

By Rachael Van Horn
KBR LNO

Q-WEST BASE COMPLEX, Iraq - It took 80 sheets of plywood, 80 four-by-sixes, 100 two-by-sixes, 35 six-by-sixes, 40 Soldiers on extra duty and 90 days to build. But even with all the needed material, the new 71st CSB Mendez Learning Center could not have come to fruition without spirit.

The center officially opened March 16.

"The colonel and [Command] Sgt. Maj. Spencer never asked me outright to do any of this," SPC Marcelo Balboa said. "They just brought me here and asked me to look at this building and tell them what I saw."

What Balboa saw was beyond anyone's imagination or ability to visualize, said Jim Spencer, command sergeant major, 71st Corps Support Battalion, based on Q-West Base Complex.

"This Soldier truly has been the life behind this project," Spencer said.

The project is a 3,000 square foot learning center that includes four classrooms that seat 24 students and a 50 station computer lab-all perched atop an old, dilapidated Iraqi concrete masonry building that has also benefited from Balboa's skills.

The Mendez Learning Center was named for PFC Antonio Mendez of the 40 TC killed in October 2005. The learning center was the brain-child of the 71st leadership who desired an opportunity for their Soldiers to continue to expand their education, even while fighting the global war on terrorism.

Neither Spencer nor his commander, Lt. Col. Russell Livingston could know that his Soldiers would be getting the education of their lifetimes just helping to build the center. That would be a later realization, one that strikes home every time a Soldier proudly says: "I helped build that."

The supporting structure for the Mendez Learning Center serves as home to the headquarters for the 71st CSB. But it was in dismal shape upon Spencer's arrival. Before he ever thought about a learning center, Spencer had to make the building at least habitable.

"It was terrible," Spencer said. The building was, he said, a minimally improved shell of a concrete structure obviously damaged by the war. The building was full of dirt. Its doors were comprised of rusted metal and the electricity was dangerous.

"We were frying printers and computers and people were getting shocked," Spencer said.

Quite by accident, while out and about doing some 'sensing sessions" at the 305th Quartermaster Company, Spencer noticed some desks and doors that were obviously newly constructed and he asked who had made them.

Enter Spc. Marcelo Balboa, a family man from Texas, who at 35 followed his son into the military just a short year ago. He now finds himself plying his civilian trade, but in a wholly different way for the Army.

Indeed, the work on the desks and doors was impressive, but what Spencer didn't know was that Balboa received the tasks with nothing more than the raw wood, a saw, a rock and some nails.

With that same tenacity and dedication, Balboa, the father of five, began the work toward turning an old Iraqi concrete structure into, easily, the most impressive building on Q-West Base Complex.

The Foundation

A simple desk was how his relationship and eventual attachment to the 71st CSB started, Balboa said. "They just brought me here and asked me to build this desk in the S-1 shop."

That November night, Balboa and his partner throughout the larger project, Cpl. Brad Woolley, worked all night on the desk for the S-1 shop together. After seeing the work, the requests just kept coming, Balboa said.

"They now have me attached to the 71st," he said.

So began Balboa's realization that just because he was in the Army, his days of working with leftovers and odds and ends, were not over. That included the people assigned to him, with whom he would accomplish the project.

"I had Soldiers who had no idea how to use tools or do any of this work," he said. "I had to teach them while we were building the project, how to use the tools. That first day, they cut the cords on the new saw we built."

Most of the labor provided for all the improvements made at the 71st CSB headquarters were achieved because someone had misbehaved.

Spencer combined his passion for the complete renovation of the headquarters and the creation of the learning center with his disdtain for undisciplined actions and created the perfect work crew for the building party.

"With what these guys learned doing this, they will leave here and never be the same," Balboa said.

With the same determination he used teaching Soldiers, Balboa created an idea for how the project worked.

Before the crew built anything, and because they were going to erect the building on the roof of an existing structure, Balboa had to visualize how much wood he thought he would need and began to build the learning center "backwards", he said. "I'm not an educated person," he said. "I just tried to imagine what it needed.

Workers didn't even have stairs that first few weeks to bring things up with -- they hadn't been built yet. Every scrap of wood Soldiers could find, including some "dunnage" " four-by-sixes that are normally discarded " were used to construct the center. The windows are out of discarded HUMVEE doors and the beams are the gusseted four-by-sixes.

But despite these roadblocks and others such as rain and ruined tools, 90 days later, the Soldiers accomplished their mission.

The center is comprised of not more than $10,000 of wood, but looks like a log home any self-respecting woodsman could be proud of. Its "lap and gap" siding makes one think of better days.

The building bears unique marks, in some places of a Soldier's miscalculation, and on others, another Soldier's creativity. Its sturdy desks are in place and nearly ready for students to tap their feet under.

Other utilities, such as air conditioners and wiring stand by as a silent testament to "other help" who have declined to be mentioned, but who have had equal pleasure in watching the project develop.

The same structure, built by carpenters in the United States, would have been upwards of $50,000, said KBR construction manager, Edward Parham.

But the most value was not in the materials that make up the building, said Balboa. The value is what has been realized from the construction of the center.

"When I went into the Army, I took the Army values seriously," he said. "This project, whatever becomes of it after I leave, has given me the chance to teach those values to Soldiers while we build."

• Date Taken: 03.21.2006
• Date Posted: 03.21.2006 09:07
• Story ID: 5789
• Location: QAYYARAH, IQ