Commanding officer of the "Steelworkers" of USS Stethem (DDG 63), Cmdr. Christopher Adams, shakes hands with Seabee Steelworker


Commanding officer of the "Steelworkers" of USS Stethem (DDG 63), Cmdr. Christopher Adams, shakes hands with Seabee Steelworker 1st Class Avory Thomas from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 3 during a tour of the guided-missile destroyer. The shipboard tour allowed Seabees to experience life aboard a Navy warship - many for the first and only time of their careers. The ship is named after Steelworker 2nd Class Robert Stethem who was murdered in Beirut during the 1985 hijacking of Trans World Airlines Flight 847. One of the first battalions commissioned during World War II, NMCB 3's legacy stands strong in its ability to build and fight anywhere in the world as either a full battalion or as a group of autonomous detachments, simultaneously completing critical engineering and construction missions. For this deployment, NMCB 3 has split into nine details to perform critical construction projects in remote island areas such as Timor-Leste, Tonga, Cambodia and the Philippines. The teams will also conduct operations in Atsugi, Yokosuka and Okinawa, Japan, Chinhae, Republic of Korea, and China Lake, Calif. The Naval Construction Force is a vital component of the maritime strategy. They provide deployable battalions capable of providing disaster preparation and recovery support, humanitarian assistance and combat operations support. NMCB 3 provides combatant commanders and Navy component commanders with combat-ready warfighters capable of general engineering, construction and limited combat engineering across the full range of military operations.


Size: 1643px × 1174px
Photo credit: © MixPix / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: 3, allowed, battalion, construction, destroyer., experience, force, group, guided-missile, lif, mobile, naval, ncf, nmcb, seabees, shipboard, tour