Story by Lance Cpl. Dave Flores
Seabees with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3 attach an arch to a K-Span unit at Camp Wilson aboard Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, California, Feb. 2, 2017. NMCB 3 is in Camp Wilson for three weeks working on the construction of displacement walls and K-Span units for their upcoming deployment in April. (Photo by Lance Cpl. Dave Flores/170202-M-WB717-879)
MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. With Marines and sailors rotating through the Combat Center to conduct service-level Marine Air Ground Task Force combined-arms training, the continued maintenance and expansion of Camp Wilson is important to the accomplishment of Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command s mission.
Throughout the month of February, U.S. Navy Seabees with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3 will build two K-Span units and two displacement walls at Camp Wilson to expand the housing and facilities for Marines training aboard the installation.
Our battalion was tasked with helping expand the berthing as well as the erosion control here at Camp Wilson, said Ensign Frank Sysko, detachment Twentynine Palms Officer in Charge, NMCB 3. Not only does it benefit the Marines, it also improves the quality of the training here, and provides our team with experience that we will use on our upcoming deployment.
NMCB 3 will deploy in April to Camp Shields in Okinawa, Japan to build three much larger K-Span units to expand the housing for the unit s Alpha Company.
Out of the 21 sailors we have working here, only two of them have previously worked on K-Spans, so this is the perfect learning environment for them, said Chief Chris McPeters, detachment Twentynine Palms operations chief, NMCB 3. The design and construction of these K-Spans are simple when compared to the ones we will be building in Okinawa, so this is a time for them to really learn the machines and the process.
During the construction of the K-Spans, Brig. Gen. William F. Mullen III, Combat Center Commanding General, visited the Seabees from NMCB 3 to observe the progress.
With the primary use of our base being training, Camp Wilson is important, Mullen said. We like to bring in different units from different commands such as Navy Seabees or Army engineers to conduct training that is mutually beneficial.