Robert Bell

Service time with MCB-11:  10/1961 to 06/1964
Rank:  ENS / LTJG

Personal Info:  MCB-11 was my first assignment after CECOS (CEC Officers' School) in Port Hueneme.  I joined up shortly before the battalion deployed to Midway where I was assigned as Admin Officer and H Company Commander.  Towards the end of the deployment, I was sent to Eniwetok with a 20-man detail to dismantle and ship out a bunch of aluminum frame buildings that eventually wound be being reconstructed at Camp Kinser in Okinawa.  We deployed next to Guam shortly after Typhoon Karen devastated the island causing widespread damage and destruction.  During that deployment I served as C Company Commander.  My third deployment was to the small village of Kuchinarai in northeast Thailand as OIC of Seabee Team 1101 (originally called STAT 1101 - Seabee Technical Assistance Team).

I later served as OIC of the entire Seabee Team program in Vietnam, with headquarters located in Saigon and fifteen teams scattered around the southern provinces (1970).  Other Seabee assignments were as XO of NMCB-74 (1975-77) and Chief Staff Officer of 20NCR in Gulfport (1977-79).  I retired in 1989 as a Captain with 28 years of service.  I presently work as a property manager in northern Virginia.