Operation enduring freedom from the military engineer perspective

Engineer: The Professional Bulletin for Army Engineers, July, 2002 by Jerry T. Colonel Mohr, Frederick A. Lieutenant Commander Mucke, Donald L. Lieutenant Commander Maconi

As U.S. forces flowed into these new OEF bases, some preexisting environmental hazards were discovered that could potentially impact ecological and human health:

* Petroleum-, oil-, and lubricant-contaminated soils--uncovered while constructing force protection berms.

* Exposed asbestos from damaged tiles and insulation--found while repairing and occupying existing structures.

* Low-level radioactive contamination--discovered in soil during earthwork.

Engineers used the U.S. Army Center for Health Protection and Preventive Medicine to help assess these hazards and develop mitigation actions.

Like any military operation, OEF generated significant quantities of hazardous waste (HAZWASTE), including used oil, dead batteries, and waste fuel. HAZWASTE-disposal contracts for the remote forward installations could not be awarded in time to eliminate the need to accumulate and store significant amounts of the waste at bases. It took 7 months to award a HAZWASTE-disposal contract to a qualified contractor and provide the required formal notification to countries receiving the waste.

Base Camp Construction

As engineers made airfields operational and remediated mine/UXO and environmental hazards, their focus shifted to base camp construction to support the increasing flow of forces. They erected tent cities throughout the area of responsibility, using Harvest Eagle, Harvest Falcon, and Force Provider kits to support the ever-increasing force bed-down requirements.

CENTCOM engineers staffed and developed criteria for standardized guidance for planning and developing austere base camps and promulgated them in the "USCENTCOM Contingency and Long-Term Base Camp Facilities Standards." These standards will allow components to forecast resource requirements and provide tenant units with a common expectation for base camp construction.

CENTCOM Engineer Staff Augmentation

The CENTCOM engineering staff during peacetime is seven officers and one enlisted administrative specialist. With an OEF operational tempo of 24-hour days 7 days a week, the staff required augmentation from both mobilized Reservists and active-duty personnel on temporary duty.

Working through the J1 Directorate, the CENTCOM Engineer Division pursued staff augmentation. In addition to three assigned individual mobilization augmentee Reserve officers, CENTCOM executed its preexisting memorandums of understanding with service components for additional augmentees from both active and Reserve units. At the peak of OEF, the staff grew more than threefold. Work spaces became crowded, but the help was welcome.

Lessons Learned

During the first 9 months of OEF, the CENTCOM Engineer Division learned the following lessons on contingency engineering:

* Deploy more engineers earlier to support special operations forces and other operational units with equipment and skill sets to perform hasty construction. If such engineer assets could enter an area before the establishment of friendly operational airfields and without requiring helicopter support, they could quickly repair key airfields and establish air operations.