Marines land in Camp Sherman

A platoon of U.S. Marines - members of the 23rd Combat Logistics Battalion, Engineering Services Company, a reserve unit based in Springfield - landed at Camp Sherman on July 13 to assist the Forest Service with the decommissioning and demolition of the historical Allingham Guard Station.

As part of a broader effort, approximately 50 Marines were located at several sites in both the Deschutes and Willamette National Forests for various projects.

Major Justin Dirico, the Marines' commanding officer, told The Nugget, "The Forest Service has been really good to us, and this is a great opportunity. We get great training - this is what we do: demolition, carpentry, and road work. It's also great for the state of Oregon, as their sons and daughters are able to work on the lands they've grown up on."

Dirico described the training and experience as a win for all involved, noting the Forest Service is constrained by budgetary issues, his Marines need training opportunities, and the taxpayer "gets a bigger bang for the buck."

Kassidy Kern, public affairs specialist and civil rights chair for the Deschutes National Forest, told The Nugget that the Allingham Guard Station "was originally built in the 1950s as a cookhouse for the nearby guard station and larger compound. When the guard station burned down, the use of the cookhouse was then converted to a guard station and the building has undergone modifications over the decades, which made it ineligible for listing on the historic registry. It has served as a place for one of our hand crews to be stationed out of, and then was also used as a fire camp until we moved fire camps in town to the schools."

Kern said the doors of the guard station were preserved prior to demolition, because "the hardware on the doors is historically significant and difficult to find. So when we do restoration projects on other buildings of the era, we should be able to repurpose them."

Amy Racki, recreation team leader for the Forest Service, told The Nugget that she enjoyed working with the Marines.

"It's a great opportunity to have Marines working in concert with the Forest Service, to help in restoring public lands," she said.

Racki said that the Forest Service has not decided on a future use of the former guard station, noting that all ideas were under review but that no definite plans had been decided on.

Marine Sergeant Navalharo is a logistics vehicle driver from Eugene.

"In eight years in the Corps I've seen houses blown up, blown up doors, watched line charges shot out of tanks, but watching them bulldoze the guard station was the best thing I've seen. It just went down," he said, smiling.

In addition to the demolition projects, Marines were busy cleaning up areas around the Allingham Guard Station that were choked with old wire, steel tracking, and treated construction timber, and gathering it for

removal.

The Marines will be working on both the Deschutes and Willamette National Forests until July 26.