Checking tides and weather chart, emergency ops Dalia Gomez stands outside the District's RRV. It was deployed to help the Coast Guard at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach.

Matching the variety of military uniforms was the array of wheeled and tracked machines being offloaded from the vessel. Humvees, amphibious assault vehicles, light armored vehicles, 5- and 10-ton trucks, bulldozers—all queued to be driven onto civilian flatbed and stepdeck trucks. Along with hundreds of massive freight boxes, the rigs were headed for Marine and Army bases at Camp Pendleton, 29 Palms, Barstow and Yuma, Ariz.

And sitting like a white beacon amid the desert- and jungle-camo-colored conflation was the District’s Rapid Response Vehicle (RRV), tactically sited beneath the red castle flag to help bring gear home from the war. “We provided the RRV to the Coast Guard and other military people as an operations center,” said Dalia Gomez, a student worker for the Emergency Operations Branch on duty inside the RRV. “It’s a great opportunity for the Corps to let people know what we have, what we’re capable of and how we can help—not just the Corps but the community, state and nation itself.”

One of the least known phases of war consists of getting “beans and bullets”—metaphors for the huge amount of supplies an army needs to fight—back from the battlefield. More than 95% of all military supplies and equipment needed to fight a war moves via the sea. After Gulf War I, when it took six months to transport warriors and their equipment to the Arabian desert, the Pentagon realized it needed a faster seaborne system. The result was the LMSR program—Large Medium Speed Roll-on/Roll-off ships overseen by the Pentagon’s Military Sealift Command. The heavy-keeled vessels can carry 58 tanks and 48 other tracked vehicles, plus more than 900 trucks and other wheeled vehicles, and have a cargo capacity roughly the equivalent of eight football fields. Their own ramps and cranes help speed up the loading or unloading process.

Nearly all of them are named for Medal of Honor winners (one is named for Bob Hope). From the beginning of this year, these ships carried America’s military materiel to the Mideast, and now they’re returning some of the equipment till it’s needed the next time, somewhere else.

When Navigation Section’s Jim Fields heard that the ships were bound for L.A./Long Beach, he saw an opportunity for the Corps. He contacted Emergency Ops and got those team members signed on, then volunteered the District’s help to the Coast Guard. Emergency Ops Branch staffers drove their emergency command-and-control center to the port to serve as a communications ganglion.

The RRV is an International Harvester chassis and engine with a custom-built 36-foot-long body which can accommodate a staff of seven or more, according to a 1999 article in Engineer Update. Its equipment includes laptop computers, office software, global positioning system, digital cameras, phone and intercom system, satellite communications, cellular phone, radios (HF, VHF and CB), drafting and mapping software and wireless capability to network laptops within 200 feet of the RRV.

Crew inside RRV

Added Navy Lt. Ryan Halversen: “It’s providing a mobile headquarters for the Coast Guard, and the Coast Guard is providing our 24-hour watertight security for the ship. The Corps of Engineers trailer provides them with everything they could possibly need to communicate with their home station or their boats on the water. It’s much improved from what they had.”

With port protection a priority for the Dept. of Homeland Security, offloading the Sisler and other LMSRs required a high state of alert for the Coast Guard. “We are confronting the demands of securing America and fighting the global war on terrorism while successfully fulfilling all of our mission areas,” said Adm. Thomas Collins, Coast Guard commandant, in a statement on the service’s 213th birthday in August. “The Coast Guard is committed to securing America from all maritime threats.”

While not classified secret, the West Coast unloading operation, which included several other vessels after the Sisler, received no mainstream press coverage. No unauthorized persons were allowed within a 500-yard radius of the dock or from the surface to the floor of harbor waters. The ship was the third to be unloaded in August. And while the Marines were finally off duty after their Iraqi mission, other military services couldn’t drop their guard while the massive transport ships were potentially vulnerable. “The Coast Guard provides security for the ship at pier from the time it arrives till when it leaves,” said Lt. Halversen.

Gomez and other District team members manned the RRV around the clock during the four to five days it took to unload each ship. Other District workers who pulled daytime, midnight and graveyard shifts were Keith Ayers, Monique DeZiaueto, Eddie Duran, Fields, Megan Hamilton, Alex Hernandez, Jason Lambert, Santiago Munoz, Gerry Salas, Kris Savage and Steve Weiss.

For Gomez, who has worked at the District three and a half years, it was all part of her continuing education at the Corps. “I observe and make sure everything runs smoothly,” the Cal State L.A. grad said. Currently, she’s working on her teaching credential after getting her bachelor’s in child development. She someday hopes to obtain a doctorate in the field and teach at a university.

Meantime, she was clearly proud of the Corps’ role at this far end of Operation Iraqi Freedom. “The Coast Guard is pleased and we’re pleased that they’re pleased,” she said. “Here is an exercise where we can go out and say, This is who we are and this is what we can do for you.”

Welcome home.