Navy Calls Seabees to Active Duty : Port Hueneme: A reserve construction battalion is being deployed worldwide, replacing active-duty crews diverted to Saudi Arabia.

Seabee reservists from around the country--members of the first naval construction battalion called to active duty since Vietnam--have been moving out from Port Hueneme this week to military bases around the globe.

Over the last three days, 757 members of Reserve Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 23 have left Port Hueneme to replace active-duty Seabee construction crews that were diverted to Saudi Arabia to build facilities for U.S. troops.

The movement of Seabee reservists is scheduled to be completed this morning when 10 remaining reservists ship out for Guam.

The reserve battalion, headquartered in Ft. Belvoir, Va., trained at the Naval Construction Battalion Center at Port Hueneme in October in preparation for active duty, said Lt. Cmdr. Doug McVicar, the battalion’s executive officer.

McVicar is one of the reservists scheduled to leave today for Guam from Port Hueneme, the traditional departure point for Seabees going overseas. Earlier this week, Seabee reservists departed for Okinawa, South Korea, Japan, Midway Island and Adak, Alaska.

“We are picking up high-priority construction projects that were abandoned by the active troops when they went to Saudi Arabia,” McVicar said. “All these are considered crucial to support the fleet.”

Although Navy officials have activated 58 Seabee reservists to help with training and administrative duties at Port Hueneme, this week’s departure marks the first reserve Seabee battalion called to duty as a result of the U.S. buildup in the Middle East.

Naval reserve headquarters have not indicated whether any of the other 16 reserve battalions will be called to duty, including the two located in Southern California.

“We haven’t received any real direction on mobilization or recall,” said Chief Warrant Officer Duane Wolfe, a spokesman for the reserve Seabee Battalion 17 that has headquarters at Port Hueneme.

“I don’t think the 16th Battalion is facing an imminent recall,” said Cmdr. Earl Naab, commanding officer of Southern California’s other reserve battalion. Its 600 reservists are based at the Armed Forces Reserve Center at Los Alamitos in Orange County.

Battalion 23 was the first to be called up because it received the best score in the competition among reserve battalions, McVicar said. “We have a very elaborate scoring system that scores each battalion’s readiness,” he said.

Three years ago, McVicar said, the battalion’s reservists--mostly from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia--decided to try to improve its ranking from 14th to first. “When the decision came to recall, we were on the top of the list,” he said.

Other officials with the Seabee reserves were unaware of the final scoring, but Naab said his unit in Los Alamitos did not score as well as the battalion based in Port Hueneme. “They are ahead of us, I know that,” he said.

Wolfe said he didn’t think that the commander of reserve Seabee battalions had released the scores. “We did do pretty well this year, but I don’t know what the final ranking was.”

Vincent A. Transano, the Seabee’s chief historian at Port Hueneme, said the Navy last activated a full Seabee reserve battalion in May, 1968. At the time, Battalions 12 and 22 were sent to DaNang, Vietnam, to build facilities, he said. They were returned to reserve status in May, 1969, he said.

Since then, the Navy has called up small numbers of volunteers from Seabee reserves to help after disasters, such as Hurricane Hugo in Charleston, S.C., and Puerto Rico, and last year’s earthquake in San Francisco.