Marines aim high, dig deep with ambitious shelter project

Photo By Cpl. Tommy Bellegarde | Lance Cpl. Dustin L. Wallace, a mortarman with 2nd Platoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, hacks into the rocky soil of Marjah, Helmand province, Afghanistan, May 1. Wallace and the other service members from 2nd Platoon are constructing massive underground shelters that according to plan, will house entire squads of Marines.  

MARJAH, AFGHANISTAN

04.30.2010

Story by Lance Cpl. Tommy Bellegarde  

I Marine Expeditionary Force

MARJAH, Afghanistan – While most people in the area were probably sleeping in this residential section of Marjah, Helmand province, Afghanistan, the Marines from 2nd Platoon, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, were busy hacking into the rocky earth with entrenching tools, shovels and axes. Flashlights and glow sticks illuminated the night sky, April 30, as the Marines slowly dug deeper and deeper into the ground.

The Marines are constructing underground berthing areas that according to plan, will become a series of elaborate bunkers upon completion.

"The end picture is supposed to be a hole about eighteen feet long and maybe eight feet wide and another eight feet deep," said Lance Cpl. Keith Burggraff, a fireteam leader with 2nd Platoon. "[The] inside of the holes [are] going to have rooms, walls built up with sandbags so each Marine can have his own little living space.

The objective is for each of 2nd Platoon's squads to have their own holes. That will require many construction hours given the massive size of the endeavor. The troops have already worked several week through long hours of digging and filling sandbags to bring the project to its current state.

"We got here the eighteenth [of April] and we've been slowly working on it ever since," said Lance Cpl. Dustin L. Wallace, a mortarman. "[I've] probably filled around five hundred [sandbags] since we've been here."

Not only is the work slow-going, but the labor of constantly digging into the rocky terrain has been excruciating at times.

"When you're using an e-tool and you ring one [of the rocks], you just want to quit," said Wallace, from Indianapolis. "You feel [the shock] all the way up to your teeth, your ears."

"It's lethargic. It gets old at times," agreed Seaman Apprentice Michael Christian Barnes, a corpsman. "If you just laugh it off and you just do that thing where you complain a little bit and make fun, then you just get through it."

The temperature is already rising in the Helmand desert. The holes will provide security, shelter and comfort to the Marines and sailors as summer approaches.

"There's not much to hide from the sun out here so when we get this done, it'll be much cooler," said the 20-year-old Wallace. "I think it'll be a lot better; shade that is."

The project still requires a tremendous amount of labor before it becomes an underground shelter capable of comfortably housing an entire squad of Marines. Nevertheless, 2nd Platoon's Marines and sailors feel that their hard work will pay off in the end.

"It'll be pretty hooked up," said Wallace. "I've never done anything like this. To be able to walk underground, I think it'll be pretty cool."

"It's going to be pretty awesome, I think," agreed Barnes, from Millstadt, Ill. "Having your own little room in the middle of the desert."

• Date Taken: 04.30.2010
• Date Posted: 05.08.2010 06:44
• Story ID: 49326
• Location: MARJAH, AF