Seabees - Can Do! Happy 75th Birthday to the Navy's Seabees.

March 5th is the 75th birthday of the U.S. Navy's Fighting Seabees. Born of the need for uniformed construction experts to build essential naval and air bases in the far-flung Pacific War, the new builder/warriors quickly made themselves indispensable to military commanders in all theaters of war. Seabees laid the floating causeways that made the invasion of Sicily possible. They built artificial ports and operated "Rhino Ferries" at the beaches of Normandy. They even ferried troops across the Rhine into Germany.

But it was in the Pacific where the Seabees made their biggest contributions. Beginning with Guadalcanal, every amphibious operation of that vicious war saw vital work by the Seabees: hundreds of airfields and ports, thousands of miles of roads, thousands of prefabricated "Quonset huts," hospitals, mess halls, and berthing facilities. Seabees built the runways from which B-29s pounded Japan and from which the Enola Gay brought ultimate destruction to the enemy.

Most people don’t realize it, but many of the characters in the famous musical, South Pacific, are Seabees. The author, James Michener, featured Seabees prominently in his breakthrough novel, Tales of the South Pacific. One of his nineteen tales deals exclusively with a Seabee battalion planning and constructing an airfield on a tropical island. It may well be the finest piece of fiction ever written about the Seabees in their long history.

Recruited from the civilian construction trades, many World War II Seabees were much older than their official records indicated. Marines were known to quip, "Never hit a Seabee. He may be some Marine's father." The Marines' ultimate compliment may have been the sign they posted on Iwo Jima:

"And when we reach the isles of Japan,
With our hats at a jaunty tilt,
We'll enter the City of Tokyo,
On roads that the Seabees built."

Seabees have enhanced their reputation in every conflict since their birth. Their floating causeways made the daring invasion at Inchon in Korea possible. Thousands of Seabees built bases, airfields, fire bases, roads, and hospitals all over Vietnam. The wars in the Middle East again demonstrated how vital these builder/fighters have become to American Military operations.

So Happy Birthday, Seabees! May your endeavors continue to inspire.

My third novel, Asphalt and Blood, tells the tale of Seabees in the 1968 Battle of Hue City. Although fictional, many of the characters are composites of real individuals and most of the seemingly-outrageous incidents in the novel did occur.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, is a Pentagon thriller about domestic terrorism.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure The Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.

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Why Must We Demonize Those Who Disagree With Us?

While I was writing my Vietnam Seabee novel, Asphalt and Blood, I read a number of memoirs by former soldiers in the conflict. I was somewhat surprised to learn that the U.S. Army purposefully trained its troops to consider the Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers as lesser forms of humans. I suppose that I shouldn’t have been surprised. The depiction of the Japanese enemy during World War II had been even more racist. In fact, the depiction of Germans in World War I as rapacious “Huns” was part of the same process.

The psychological purpose of such demonization is to make it easier for the trainee to kill the enemy in combat. If one is taught to hate the other side, killing becomes a reasonable reaction. Many of the electronic warfare games of today originated in military training programs designed to condition the user to “zapping” another human being.

While the military usefulness of such approaches may be understandable in times of war, why have we seemingly extended “demonization” to include just about anyone with whom we disagree? The practice has been particularly virulent during the recent U.S. election cycle. The practice was not exclusive to either party but extended across the spectrum of politics. As an amateur historian, I am well aware that American elections have been plagued with demonization since the beginning of the republic, but the advent of social media has allowed intensification beyond imagination a few decades ago. I have voted in the last 15 presidential elections, and I have never seen it so bad.

Demonization leads to hate. I have written before about how hatred does nothing but poison society. I have also written about “thought police” and their hateful results. Driving wedges between various segments of society will never result in a peaceful civilization. Breeding hatred is a sure path to the disintegration of any culture.

We as a society need to start listening to one another. We need to listen not to frame a counter-argument but to actually understand what the other is thinking. When negotiating engineering and construction contracts, I learned early on to first search for the items upon which both parties agree. To bind our nation together, we need to start looking for those points upon which we agree, both in our legislative bodies and in society as a whole.

Branding those who do not share our beliefs as inferior human beings is the product of intolerance and unwarranted arrogance. Looking down your nose at other segments of society does not prove the correctness of your vision. It just assures that you will be shortsighted.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, is a Pentagon thriller about domestic terrorism.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure The Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.

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The Fire Is Still There

On September 16th, I had the honor of attending a reunion of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion FOUR in Springfield, Virginia. BUC (Builder Chief) Jeff Parker, the principal organizer, invited me to the event. He had attended the reunion of the battalion in which I served, NMCB FORTY, last year and saw my presentation on my writing and my books. He purchased a copy of my Vietnam Seabee novel, ASPHALT AND BLOOD.  Having served in the Hue-Phu Bai area, the setting of the story, he identified with many of the events about which I wrote. He wanted to share them with his fellow veterans.

Any reunion of old Seabees brings out sea stories beyond count. Plenty were being bandied about when I entered the Hospitality Suite and started introducing myself. As I listened, I realized that I was in the company of Seabee legends. These were men who had performed amazing feats of construction under fire by an implacable enemy. Some had re-laid the first aluminum matting runway of the war at Chu Lai. Others had built camps and roads throughout the northern part of South Vietnam, the famed I Corps area. I was surprised by how many of their experiences mirrored my own.

Why do these men congregate every few years just to be together again? I believe that they realize that they share a set of experiences that set them apart from the civilian world in which they live.  A sense of brotherhood pervades these gatherings. It is so much more than just shared memories. The participants worked with each other, sweated with each other, took enemy fire together, and in some cases nearly died with each other. And the fire in their bellies that sustained them through those experiences still burns brightly today. They had each other’s backs in those days, and they still do today.

One factor I notice about Seabee reunions is that almost all the attendees are Vietnam veterans. A half-century after that unpopular conflict, the men and women who participated still feel a kinship for one another that subsequent generations seem to lack.  Some of this may be tied to the way many of us were treated when we came home. At best, we were treated like fools for having risked all in such a venture. At worst, we were vilified as war criminals, called “baby killers” and rapists. We were the young generation that listened when John Kennedy called on Americans to, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country!” We were asked to go halfway around the world and fight a tenacious foe in a fight without battle lines or easily identified enemies. We did our job. Despite what revisionist historians would tell you, we were not defeated on the battlefield. That war was lost by the politicians, not by the men in uniform.

I was grateful for the reception that the NMCB FOUR people gave to my short talk and to my writing. Many purchased copies, and I have already had very positive feedback. But then, ASPHALT AND BLOOD is a book about Seabees written by a Seabee.

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, is a Pentagon thriller about domestic terrorism.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure The Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.

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In Memorium

On Monday, Americans will celebrate Memorial Day. To many, Memorial Day represents the real beginning of summer. To others, the Indianapolis 500 auto race will claim most importance. The three-day holiday overall will be a festive time, with parties, parades, and cookouts. But for those of us who remember the original purpose of the holiday, Memorial Day will be a time to honor the members of the armed forces who sacrificed their lives in battle for the United States.

Memorial Day, which was originally called Decoration Day, was established in 1868 to honor the Union dead in the recently completed Civil War. Graves of the dead soldiers were decorated with flags and flowers. May 30 was chosen as the time for this event. After a few years, the celebration was broadened to include the dead of both sides in that fratricidal war. The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries brought further expansion with the heavy casualties of World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the wars in the Middle East.

In 1968, Congress established Memorial Day as a three-day Federal Holiday and set the date as the last Monday in May.

The first U.S. Navy Seabees to be honored on Memorial Day were the 272 enlisted men and 18 officers killed in WW2. The 500 Seabees killed in accidents during that war added to this total. The number of Seabees who died in the Korean War is hard to find. Amphibious Seabees served with their pontoon causeways at the invasion of Inchon and the evacuation of Wonson, the Korean War Dunkirk. No whole Seabee battalions were employed in Korea. Only detachments of Seabees operated there. But during the same time frame, a number of battalions carved an enormous airbase from the Philippines jungle at Cubi Point. This project has been called, “The largest military construction job since the Panama Canal.”

Seabees served all over the country in the Vietnam War. We built port facilities, airfields, aircraft support facilities, highways, logistics bases, firebases, hospitals, utility plants, and pipelines. Without our work, the combat forces would have had trouble operating in that undeveloped country.  My recent novel, ASPHALT AND BLOOD, is dedicated to the 168 Seabees and 1 attached Marine who gave their all in the Vietnam War.

Seabees have been an essential element in the wars fought around the Persian Gulf and in Afghanistan. As in previous wars, Seabees have died there also. The latest figures I found on the Internet are 19 Seabees killed in the Gulf wars and at least 34 in Afghanistan. The war with ISIS may yet claim others.

Before firing up the grill and icing the beer for next Monday’s festivities, we should all pause for a while and reflect on the sacrifices made by our war dead. Most of them were young men who should have had many years left ahead of them. They put aside their hopes and dreams for the future to go and serve where their country needed them. The Bible says that, “Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” Can less be said for those who laid down their lives for their fellow citizens?