| By Lt. James Vandenberg
AIA, CEC, USNR (Seabees)
BED ’84 MARCH ’85
Lt. Vandenberg (BED ’84 MARCH ’85) recently
returned from 10 months in Iraq as a “combat architect” with
the First Marine Expeditionary Force (IMEF) in Al Anbar Province,
western Iraq. He was called to active duty from his job as
state architect for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.
He
was tasked with working with local sheiks to determine their
construction needs in Al Fallujah, Ar Ramadi, and later on
the western border with Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia from
the
Al Asad Forward Operating Base. What came out of these meetings,
he tells us, was a need to design and construct hospitals,
schools, and security projects.
Security has moved to the forefront of operations
in Iraq. Al Anbar province, the largest and most untamed, contains
the area of western desert and the Sunni Triangle. The province
borders Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia along 550 miles of inhospitable
terrain. It is within this area, called “AO Denver,” that
the 7th Regimental Combat Team (RCT-7) of the Marine First Division
(1MARDIV) operates. The area also contains the Euphrates River,
and thus the Navy Seabees are there to provide construction expertise
and contracting capability to employ Iraqi workers and Iraqi
contractors to build civil projects such as schools, hospitals,
roads, and bridges. Priorities focus on security infrastructure,
including police stations, Iraqi National Guard compounds, and
Iraqi Border Defenses. Below is a brief summary of four types
of projects for which I was privileged to serve as the First
Marine Expeditionary Force Engineering Group Officer in Charge
of Construction (1MEG-OICC) unit.
Project Type 1: Iraqi Border Police denial forts
When Saddam Hussein’s regime fell, so did the internal
security of the country. Police forces and army units were disbanded.
The borders that had suffered some coalition attacks at the outset
of the war were abandoned, and the small over-watch forts along
the remote borders with Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia were
vacated. In this vacuum of power, foreign fighters and smugglers
began to cross the borders, bringing with them more fighters,
equipment, and weapons.
Topping the 1MEG-OICC’s list of projects when
we moved into our new office at the once-secret Iraqi Air Force
Base in western Al Anbar was establishing and sustaining the
once-defunct Border Police Force. After meetings in late April
2004 with the provincial leadership of the Border Police, the
Marines put forth a strategy to construct new border denial forts
at regular intervals along the most affected parts of the border
with Syria. With input from Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement
Colonel Ali A. Hady, I designed a Beau-Geste style “fort” with
rounded corner towers and a center courtyard surrounded by an
array of rooms, which would act as a fortress security point
at known crossing points to interdict the “rat lines” of
smugglers.
The forts were designed to be built in very remote locations
and occupied at any one time by 28 persons who patrol up and
down the border between the forts in vehicles. While the Civil
Affairs Group provided clothing, equipment, and training to the
enthusiastic volunteers swelling the ranks of the reestablished
Iraqi border patrol, it was up to me and the MEG OICC to solicit
the design for bids, award contracts, and oversee construction
of 32 forts along the 550-mile border.
The forts are approximately 16 miles apart. The first
eight were done as a test near the Euphrates River-crossing town
of Husaybah, an anti-coalition forces stronghold that served
as the scene of some of the post-combat war’s fiercest
fighting. The project was delayed by intimidation, kidnapping,
and beheading of several contractors working on coalition projects
the summer of 2004. Roadside bombs (improvised explosive devices,
or IEDs) brought the work to a halt for a while. Still, 24 additional
forts were awarded to three contractors, with 8 forts for each.
One contractor, threatened with death by masked insurgents at
his home, quit the job. During an on-site inspection, one fort
had been booby-trapped in an attempt to destroy it with explosives;
another had six artillery shells rigged to blow it up. During
our site visits, we brought along an Explosive Ordnance Disposal
person, who was able to diffuse the explosives and destroy the
shells, saving these two forts from destruction.
In addition to the danger of explosives, travel on
site visits was difficult at first. On July and August afternoons,
it is 140 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, and the metal of the
vehicle is too hot to touch. The most reliable means of travel
was to hop on a Marine patrol heading up and down the border
in light armor vehicles (LAVs). A patrol can take several days
and nights in the desert. It is a no-frills camping experience
where you sleep on the ground and knock off scorpions all night.
Time-honored construction
A denial fort has just one entry—on the Iraqi side of
the border. The side that faces the other border has no windows
so as not to receive small-arms fire. Construction techniques
are time-honored pre-industrial age. Foundations are built of
rock, and then 16-inch-thick, heavy-rock masonry walls are built
on top of the foundation walls. (There are no slabs-on-grade
or wood stud walls; in fact, there is very little wood used at
all.) Once the walls are built up to 10 feet tall, workers install
a wooden shoring system and pour a concrete roof with steel reinforcing
bars. When it is dry, they remove the shoring and use soil to
raise the floor up to about 6 inches below the finished floor
level and pour a concrete base. Hand-set floor tiles go into
a three-inch coat of setting mortar.
Workers rough-finish the walls with stucco, then trowel
on a gypsum-plaster finish coat. To complete the work, they cut
the glass and put in the steel window frames, paint the walls,
and install electrical and plumbing fixtures. Toilets are Eastern-style
trench toilets. It is normal to see the toilet combined with
a shower unit with the toilet acting as a floor drain.
Project Type 2: Ar Rutbah Hospital
The 25,000-person town of Ar Rutbah, which also served as the
center for regional health care for all of rural western Al Anbar
(an area the size of Utah), lost its hospital to coalition bombing
in the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom. For our second major project,
our design team devised, developed, drew, and is now overseeing
construction of a modern 25,000-square-foot, 100-bed hospital
on the same site as the destroyed hospital. I proposed and sketched
up a plan using centralized communicating public space and four
modular wings to reduce travel time from the entry lobby and
all other functions of the hospital.
To allow caregivers to observe and maintain visual
control over as many patient treatment and recovery rooms as
possible, the design incorporates a central open-air courtyard
with glass-enclosed corridors that allow through-views. All four
wings are quickly accessible by the center public waiting space,
which also offers prayer space for patients and visitors alike.
We tried a new concept on this project to get complete community
buy-in of the project. We wrote into the solicitation for bids
that the contractor must provide letters of approval and reference
from the Ar Rutbah City Council, mayor, police chief, Iraqi National
Guard commander, the local imams (clerics), and sheiks (the local
tribal leaders). These reference letters were heavily weighted
as a technical evaluation criterion. They weeded out a lot of
out-of-town contractors, which, if selected, may have added to
the volatile nature of the city. Twenty-five contractors submitted
bids for the project, and the selected contractor is from the
town and has close knowledge of the community and business relationships.
The project broke ground in September of last year; I was able
to fly in via helicopter for the ceremony.
Project Type 3: Iraqi National Guard (ING) Compounds
The third program I managed entailed construction
of 8 ING compounds for the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in cities
along the Euphrates River valley. These compounds provide security
for the Iraqis in the areas outside of cities and towns. Defensive
compounds have been designed using a modular concept of a menu
of buildings task-oriented and tailored to the needs of the area.
Each site gets a basic compound of a perimeter wall, entry control
gate, and headquarters building. As the unit is enlarged or requires
more facilities, buildings are added to the compound, accommodating
up to 250 people before the compound needs to be enlarged. As
of this writing, eight sites have been awarded for construction
in two phases of a three-phase master plan. However, none of
the eight sites has yet begun construction due to insurgent targeting
in these areas.
Project Type 4: Iraqi Border Police Training Academy
The fourth program I created and managed during my
tour in Iraq is the design and construction of a modular campus
plan for the training academy used by the border police and the
national police force. Situated next to an ancient oasis just
west of Al Asad Air Base, the plan includes classrooms; conference
spaces; living quarters; administrative areas; dining hall, stores,
and warehousing for weapons, uniforms, and training gear; and
a prayer space. We broke ground on the project last October and
in November were informed that we were to enlarge the academy
to four times the size! I am preparing the designs as of this
writing.
The site includes an old village that Saddam Hussein’s
regime relocated during the construction of the air base in 1985.
The buildings exhibit some ancient construction methods and have
been preserved for future study of their cultural significance.
A couple of rundown buildings and an old elementary school have
been incorporated into the design as training buildings.
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Iraqi Border police denial fort designed by
Lt. Vandenberg (BED '84 MARCH '85)
Border police denial fort, interior
Border denial fort (under construction)
Border denial fort (under construction)
Ar Rutbah Hospital
Caption
Iraqi National Guard (ING) Compound
Iraqi National Guard (ING) Compound
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