Soldiers put skills to work

They'd arrived at the project site at 9 a.m., and by 11, a wall had gone up, a floor had been painted, the brush was coming down along the overgrown riverbank and hundreds of donated items were being unpacked and sorted for distribution. As soldiers with an Army brigade support battalion — a unit full of welders, carpenters, mechanics and other logistics specialists — it's the kind of thing they're trained for.

"We can pretty much accomplish any task that you give us, because we have so many different skill sets just within our little group of people," said 1st Lt. Peter K. Bennett, organizer of the day's mission.

On Friday morning, about 50 officers from the battalion attached to Fort Drum's 1st Brigade Combat Team were making that very clear, wielding chain saws, paint and plywood and making rapid progress, not on a civil affairs project or resupply mission in a war zone, but on a community service project at the Watertown Urban Mission, 247 Factory St.

The day was one in a regular series of volunteer projects set up by battalion commander Lt. Col. James R. Phillips meant to aid in professional development and team-building among his subordinate officers — and as a thank-you to the community for its strong support of soldiers and families, he said.

The commander usually charges his less-experienced officers with the responsibility of finding, organizing and executing the projects, which they try to do about every other month. "It gives them a chance to plan something," he said.

To Lt. Bennett, the rewards weren't only professional. The lanky 25-year-old from Bennington, Vt., raised his eyebrows and allowed a small grin when a higher-ranking officer walked by, saying, "Good job."

At the mission's outdoor donation shed, officers measured and cut boards for new walls. One of them joked with Col. Phillips that the group had decided to room together while deployed in Afghanistan. "We're gonna build our Afghan condo!" he told the commander, who shook his head and laughed.

Speculation is swirling that the 3,500-troop 1st Brigade Combat Team could head to Afghanistan as part of a troop level increase President Barack Obama is deliberating. The unit's planned January deployment to Iraq was canceled last month.

Drinking a Dr Pepper during a break from brush clearing was Lt. Ebenezer L. Ayettey, a platoon leader from Ghana by way of Queens who's been stationed at Fort Drum for about a year, where he lives on post. He said the service projects help the soldiers "feel a part of the community."

The idea of helping and working alongside civilians also is "very, very relevant," to the soldiers' work, he said, given the current efforts at nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By early afternoon, the group had repainted the floor of an auto maintenance bay, fortified the outdoor donation shed, felled, chopped and chipped trees and brush from along the parking lot, sorted hundreds of baskets for Christmas gifts, organized items in the thrift store and even scrubbed its high, dusty windows. Sunshine poured into the retail space, brightening its tightly packed shelves.

To the Urban Mission, the day's work was "a great help," said its executive director, Mary M. Morgan. The soldiers brought skills, muscles and equipment that other volunteer groups just couldn't provide.

"I've been here not quite five years and we've probably been talking about some of this stuff for at least three!" she laughed. "We didn't really have people that could do it."