Brooklyn sailor continues 75 years of Seabee tradition
“We Build, We Fight” has been the motto of the U. S. Navy’s Construction Force, known as the “Seabees,” for the past 75 years. Brooklyn native and 2007 Tilden High School graduate, Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Marie Aurelien, builds and fights around the world as a member of a naval construction battalion center located in Gulfport, Mississippi.
Aurelien works as a builder which is responsible for building all Seabee structures.
The jobs of some of the Seabees today have remained unchanged since World War II, when the Seabees paved the 10,000-mile road to victory for the allies in the Pacific and in Europe, according to Lara Godbille, director of the U. S. Navy Seabee Museum.