By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Garas
Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 15 Public Affairs
CAMP SHELBY, Miss. – Elements from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 15, based in Belton Mo., departed today for its final deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
After the battalion returns, it will be decommissioned Oct. 1, 2013, and it’s members will be assigned to other construction battalions.
Following theater mission tasking, the Battalion task tailored into several detachments by supported commander priority, deploying to numerous locations throughout the country to support a wide-variety of civil engineering operations.
“As our last deployment, we are making a big effort to make this a great one for us,“ said Commanding Officer Anthony Spinler. “But we are helping bring these other service members home and that’s a great final-mission to have.”
Spinler added that the Seabees of NMCB 15 are already moving ahead and that the unit successfully completed its homeport training cycle at Gulfport Miss., in only 10 weeks.
“It was significantly shorter than an active-duty homeport training cycle which is about seven or eight months,” said Master Chief Charles Church, training officer for NMCB 15.
During the past three months, the battalion trained to complete various tasks to demonstrate proficiency in civil engineering operations and combat support and successfully completed their Final Evaluation Problem (FEP), in late February. FEP is a graded evolution used to train and evaluate Seabees on various scenarios they may face.
“Our main job is to keep the people who do the kinetic fight completely enabled,” said Church. “Our main job is to build bases, primary force support and protection to keep the warfighters fighting.”
Seabees are a critical engineer element to International Security Assistance Force assisting the Afghan National Army to conduct effective engineer operations. During homeport NMCB 15 was exposed to extensive Afghan language and culture classes in order to increase its operational effectiveness.
According to Construction Mechanic 1st Class Steven Hoye, the training has been intensive but critical to the units success.
“It’s been good quality stuff, said Hoye. “This crash course in Pashto language taught me more than I ever thought I could learn. This is going to be very helpful over there.”
Despite the high operational tempo and vast amount of work to get the battalion prepared, Spinler says he is confident NNMCB 15 is ready to handle the job.
“I have very high expectations of us doing great work,” said Spinler, “The Seabees are a very essential combat construction element and their skills are widely coveted by every supported commander.”
NMCB 15 is currently deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and is an expeditionary element of U.S. Naval Forces that act as civil engineers and support various units worldwide through national force readiness, humanitarian assistance, and building and maintaining infrastructure.
For more news, visit www.navy.mil
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