MONROVIA, Liberia – Soldiers of the 902nd Engineer Battalion, out of Grafenwoehr, Germany, completed the Buchanan Ebola Treatment Unit in support of 36th Engineer Brigade and the Joint Forces Command – United Assistance as part of Operation United Assistance, Nov. 21.
“The mission took us 22 days to complete,” said 1st Lt. Abraham Richardson, a platoon leader and a native of Hartland, Maine. “It was a challenge; we all worked long hours and took showers with water bottles.”
Richardson said they received support and equipment from the community to help build the ETU's.
“We had the right mixture of engineer [personnel] to overcome the challenges,” said Maj. Uzoma Aniniba, of 36th Engineer Brigade, a Denver, Colorado, native and the officer in charge of the ETU build at Buchanan. “There's three pillars to the mission: construction, healthcare and logistics, and as engineers, we had the construction effort.”
Specialist Jamie Mack, a Park County, Indiana, native said he was able to learn new skills.
“This was definitely a different experience for me,” said Mack. “I had the opportunity to cross-train on different jobs and learned a lot while making a difference. It means a lot to me that we are the first Army group to have the ETU built by us.”
The Buchanan ETU is one of seventeen facilities scheduled to be established by the Department of Defense in support of the U.S. Agency for International Development-led effort to contain the Ebola virus outbreak in Western Africa.
An ETU is meant to provide a resource that protects families and communities from the spread of Ebola by isolating those with the Ebola virus in a medical facility and providing them treatment.
Date Taken: | 11.22.2014 |
Date Posted: | 11.23.2014 13:07 |
Story ID: | 148587 |
Location: | MONROVIA, LR |
Web Views: | 619 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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