MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. – -- Fifteen sailors from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4 traveled from
Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme, Calif., to construct a building at Camp Wilson, and are scheduled to complete the project Dec. 5.
The building is part of the Marine Air Ground Task Force complex at the Combat Center, which will consist of several similar structures, to be used by units going through Enhanced Mojave Viper said Lance Barlow, an engineering technician with the Public Works Division here.
“The MAGTF compound here is going to have a total of five buildings,” the La Quinta, Calif., native said. “They completed the first one about a month before this current one started. This current one is around 5,000 square feet and is the largest of all of them.”
The project, which went under construction Oct. 26, will soon be completed under budget. Lower construction costs were achieved thanks in part to the use of Seabee labor.
“This type of building would have cost around $1 million, but when it’s all said and done, this project will be done at around $100,000,” he said. “They get great training, because those same structures are what they will be building when they go overseas.”
Barlow said while the construction serves dual purposes, it depends on availability of personnel to accomplish.
“The only thing that holds up the process is the rotation of units,” he said. “It’s not always Seabees; we’ve had Marine units come out here to build other structures. We wait and schedule for a unit to be available to do the construction so we can get them trained, and benefit the base from it at a lower cost.”
Sailors working on the structure said they not only received sufficient training from the venture, but a sense of fulfillment as well.
“We do use projects like this as good training,” said Petty Officer 2nd Class Boyardo Molina, the job supervisor, who is a native of Ventura County, Calif. “We get to help out the Marines with their training facilities by building this too. We don’t know what this one is going to be used for, but it’s good to be helping someone out with what is just normally training to us.”
One of Molina’s sailors, Petty Officer 3rd Class James Miskimen, a builder with the battalion, said this visit to the Combat Center has been a production one in terms of building morale and supporting the Marine Corps.
“We got lucky this year coming out here,” said the Port Hueneme, Calif., native. “We got a squad bay to stay in on mainside, which is pretty nice. It’s great for both us and the Marines because you get new facilities out here, and we get to get out to another base and do something different for training.”
The next construction project does not have a set date for its beginning or completion, but plans are in the works to set into motion in the near future.