Marine 'Pioneers' Volunteer In Yona Church Rebuilding
Chivalry is far from dead in Guam, even after devastating winds of Typhoon Karen struck November 11, demolishing nearly everything in her path. A case in point is the effort of 38 volunteer Pioneers of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, part of the recovery team here.
Upon completion of their initial assignment distributing tents, tools and building material, like all Marines, they longed for front line action, helping the needy people of Guam.
In the village of Yona they literally stumbled onto a project in the rubble of the church and school of St. Francis--a project that has proved to be both challenging and rewarding.
When Karen lashed the island the church-school compound was severely damaged, leaving intact not much more than the cement walls of the six month old buildings. The sisters had evacuated the nunnery in desperation as the intensity of Karen's winds mounted. They spent the night of the storm huddled under pews in the nearby chapel.
PIONEERS BUILD new roofs for the nunnery, chapel and main auditorium of the
Church and School of St. Francis in Yona. The men of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines are (L-R): 1st LT Philip
Carter, Pfc Richard D. Hoffman, and LCpl Harry D. Stephens. (U.S. Navy Photo)
At daybreak the viciousness of the wind made itself immediately apparent when light rain fell on the heads of the sisters as they carefully emerged from their hiding place on the floor. The chapel was without a roof but fortunately, no one had been injured by the mangled debris which then filled nearly half the building.
When word of this reached the Marines, 1st LT Philip Carter requested and was granted permission to use the Pioneers -- engineers who volunteered as a group-- to build roof for the nunnery, the chapel and the main church auditorium.
Under the able supervision of squad leader Sgt Paul Ledbetter, the men began to dig in and under, the wreckage everything of value, frugally salvaging each nail, beam and sheet of roofing.
The sisters are providing cool drinks and sandwiches to the men during their work day which has been running from sunup to sundown.
One of the men Navy corpsman Thomas L. Rancour, HM2, is doing double duty, somehow dividing his time between building roofs and administering typhoid vaccine to the villagers. As a part of the Navy's preventive medicine program, Rancour had "shot" 2,094 adults and children from Friday noon until sundown Sunday.
One of the sisters expressed the elated hopes of the villagers when she told the Pioneers, "Before the storm, we could walk outside here and enjoy a most beautiful view. Now, we need only look up" -- thanks to the men of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines on Guam.
