Digging In

Photo By Maj. Gretel Weiskopf | Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Reynoldo Castro helps Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Heranio Wagayen complete the last corner of fencing in a new recreation area, Jan. 20. Both Castro and Wagayen are utilitymen with Navy Mobile Construction Battalion 4 and have been deployed here since mid-August to support Joint Task Force Guantanamo and U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. JTF Guantanamo conducts safe, humane, legal and transparent care and custody of detained enemy combatants, including those convicted by military commission and those ordered released. The JTF conducts intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination for the protection of detainees and personnel working in JTF Guantanamo facilities and in support of the Global War on Terror. JTF Guantanamo provides support to the Office of Military Commissions, to law enforcement and to war crimes investigations. The JTF conducts planning for and on order responds to Caribbean mass migration operations.  

01.23.2009

Story by Sgt. Gretel Weiskopf 

Joint Task Force Guantanamo Public Affairs

By Gretel Sharpee
Joint Task Force Guantanamo

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - Helping ensure the safe and humane treatment of detainees is a responsibility undertaken by more than just the personnel in Joint Task Force Guantanamo. For the Seabees of Navy Mobile Construction Battalion 4, doing construction projects for the JTF is just another way to keep the mission moving forward.

For the past few weeks, a small crew of Seabees has been working in various parts of the camps building new fence lines to help make the care and detention of detainees as safe as possible.

"We built a fenced-in area to the classrooms so the detainees could walk right there, hopefully making it easier for the detainees and the guards," said Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffrey Wyttenbach, a builder with NMCB-4. "[We] help the mission move forward."

"What we are working on now will be a new [recreation] yard, so we are putting in fencing and concrete underneath [the fencing]," Wyttenbach said.

For NMCB-4, this will be one of their last projects in the six months they have been here before they return to Port Hueneme, Calif., which is primarily an engineering, maintenance and construction base.

"When we work [for the JTF] we actually see right away how we help the mission," said Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan Britton, a builder with the NMCB-4. "If we didn't do this, it would be a delay and that isn't what works around here."

• Date Taken: 01.23.2009
• Date Posted: 01.27.2009 09:36
• Story ID: 29327