Navy Ensign Mallory Smith, Naval Mobile Construction

Navy Ensign Mallory Smith, Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 3's Diego Garcia detachment's officer in charge, renders a salute to departing NMCB 5 officer in charge Navy Ensign Raymond Bendt during a battalion turnover ceremony. The Seabees from NMCB 3 located in Diego Garcia are tasked with building a 3,000 square-foot contractor living unit, which will serve as a residence for assigned civilian contractors. Aside from providing such personnel with a bedroom, restroom facilities, and laundry room, the project also provides a bridge for forming better relations amongst the contractor community as well as showing reinforced commitment to the allied British government. 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 detachments 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, South Korea and China Lake, Calif. The naval construction force is a vital component of the U.S. 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. (U.S. Navy photo by Equipment Operator 2nd Class Daanen M. Grasso/RELEASED)