Photo By Mark Olsen | Framed by a remnant of the old border fence, Airmen from the 177th Civil Engineer...... read more read more
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YUMA, Ariz. - The desert stretches for miles – an abundance of nothing.
Slashing across that vast expanse is the fence – a black line that separates the faded blue sky and the dull sand and sagebrush landscape.
Thirty-seven Airmen from the 177th Civil Engineer Squadron are here, performing their Annual Training assigned to Task Force Diamondback at Yuma, Arizona – part of Operation Jump Start building the most visible symbol of the immigration issue - the physical fence separating the United States and Mexico.
Upon their arrival, the 177th Airmen were briefed on the mission by the full-time Air and Army Guardsmen on the site. While the mission is a combined effort, the command and control is under the Arizona Army National Guard.
“Working with the Army Guard is significantly different for this group,” said Maj. James Layton Jr., commander, 177th Civil Engineer Squadron.
This fence, when done, will be part of a 900-mile long barrier between the U.S. and Mexican border. It does not extend the entire length of the border because certain portions are inaccessible and there isn’t a need for the fence to be built there. There are also different types of fences depending on the location.
In some areas, sensors or vehicle barriers are being installed. In areas where there are roads or towns near the border – specifically Yuma where the 177th Airmen are deployed – primary, secondary and tertiary – chain link – fence are being built.
Between the primary and secondary fences stadium-style lighting units are installed along a gravel road enabling United States Customs and Border Protection – the Border Patrol – agents to monitor the area.
The primary fence that the CE troops are installing is made up of three-eighths inch thick sheet steel panels that are eight feet wide by 14 feet tall. Each panel weighs 1,400 pounds.
Running along the center – top to bottom – is an I beam with two metal collars attached – one about five inches from the bottom and the other five feet above it. Along the right edge of the panel is a strip of metal that slips over edge of the previous panel. The panels are trucked in from, of all places Mexico.
August is not the time to be in Yuma. This is the second hottest place in the U.S.; right after Death Valley. During the day, the temperatures averages above 110 degrees; at night it drops to a 95. There is no shade and it rained – if you count a sprinkle – on the day CE left.
Work starts at 6 a.m. and lasts until 2 in the afternoon the CE Airmen split into two groups.
“One team worked south of Yuma on the hybrid fence,” said Capt. John M. Cosgrove, 177th Civil Engineer Squadron. “The other team worked on a secondary fence in San Luis which is about eight miles to the west of the hybrid fence site.”
Getting to either site means driving on gravel or undeveloped dirt/sand/dust roads. Four wheel drive vehicles wallow on these roads – you don’t want to break down out here because it is a long walk to wherever you wanted to be.
At the San Luis site, Master Sgt. Bill Brown and his group work with a team of full-time Army and Air Guardsmen placing the foundations for a heavy steel mesh fence. Closer to San Luis, Tech. Sgt. Howard Achilles and his crew load the foundations on a flatbed 18-wheeler and truck them out to Brown’s site.
At the main site, stretching out into what appears to infinity are six-foot tall bollards. These posts are actually poles attached to sheet metal plates that are driven into the ground. The work is both grueling and mind-numbingly repetitive. An Airman attaches a clamp to the top of a panel; a crane lifts the panel, which is then guided by a three-man team over the bollard, once it is in place, the crane lowers the panel until the collars slip over the bollard; then the panel is dropped with a loud crash, the clamp is released, the crane operator taps, well slams, the panel into a more upright position, straightens the next free bollard and the process starts over – for the rest of the day.
Aug. 20, the first day, the learning curve day where everyone is figuring out what to do and how to do it. The 177th Airmen promptly go and break the record for installing the most panels in a single day – 192.
Eight days later, they broke that record again and installed 218 panels.
“The cooperation between the Army and Air was great,” said Staff Sgt. Sam DeMaio III. “They brought us up to speed really quickly and we were able to accomplish the mission successfully.”
Further down the fence line are a team of arc welders. All work along the fence is nasty – but this is brutal. Each panel has to be welded to the bollard. Two Airmen teams adjust the level of each 1,400-pound panel using heavy-duty crowbars and sledgehammers to drive wedges into the collars to keep them in place.
Then a welder comes along, drives another wedge into the panel forcing it next to bollard and proceeds to weld the two together.
“A lot of people who are welding learned it out here,” said Capt. John Koza, 177th Civil Engineer Squadron.
“On this deployment, there are a lot of people working outside their skillsets,” said Layton. “Only the heavy equipment operators are working in their AFSCs [Air Force Specialty Codes].”
The biggest problem was not the heat or the roads – these were problems that could be overcome – it was supply.
“The crews would install all the fence panels on hand and then have to wait hours for supplies to come in,” said Cosgrove. “The panels were held up at the border due to the fact it did not open until nine a.m. Because of additional processing and inspection time the supplies wouldn’t arrive until near noon.”
This meant a lot of waiting around time for the panel teams.
Once the panels were delivered, the Airmen would have them up in record-breaking time.
According to the Desert Sentinel, the Arizona National Guard Public Affairs Office official Operation Jump Start magazine, “Sixty-two units from 35 states have come to Arizona to help with the tactical infrastructure border mission. For the period ending July 2007, Task Force Diamondback has completed 16 miles of primary fencing, 4.75 miles of secondary fencing, and improved 36.28 miles in addition to the 2.33 miles of new road since beginning operations in early 2006.”
“The 177th installed 1,055 steel panels of primary fence for a total of 1.4 miles. While 103 foundations and 94 mesh panels were installed at the San Luis site,” said Cosgrove.
So no other CE team has even come close to accomplishing what the 177th did during its tour with Task Force Diamondback.
The bigger question is the fence working?
That answer became obvious the first day. The fence that the main body of 177th CE Airmen were working on ran parallel to a road on the Mexican side. Near the fence, just off the highway was a PEMEX (PEtroleum MEXico) gas station. According to one Border Patrol agent, the station was a popular place for buses to stop, let off passengers who then crossed the border illegally. Before the 177th arrived, if you looked north across the border from the station, all you would see was desert. After the 177th left, all you saw was fence.
A quick look at Border Patrol statistics proves the worth of this project. The number of people attempting to cross the border illegally has fallen by 68 percent.
Attempts to drive across the border fell from 1,066 last year to 501 this year.
Even though there is a lot of nothing in the desert; there is one thing – the fence.
| Date Taken: | 09.04.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 11.30.2015 15:10 |
| Story ID: | 183115 |
| Location: | YUMA, AZ, US |
| Web Views: | 150 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Building a fence, by Mark Olsen, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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