The Seay, with a crew of 30, carried approximately 690 pieces of equipment and hardware that had been used by U.S. military troops in Kuwait, and each piece needed to be inspected before it could be returned to its home base. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Debbie Carter and Agriculture Specialist Marcus Hammons were waiting for her to arrive so they could begin the inspection process.

After the Seay tied up, Inspector Carter and Specialist Hammons went on board to talk to the captain and clear the ship. Carter, a former U.S. Customs inspector, went over the crew and passenger manifest and the list of souvenirs that the crew had purchased when the ship stopped in Greece. Agriculture Specialist Hammons had to identify spices that a crewman had brought back for his wife and mother-in-law. He saw nothing that might be a contaminant in the spices, so he let them go on their way.

Photo Credit: Gerald L. Nino

Agriculture Specialists Hammons, Frank, and Western discuss plans for the afternoon inspections.

Hammons also had to inspect all the food on board the ship: food supplies in the storage rooms, refrigerators, freezer, and in the kitchen. In the refrigerator, he quarantined a shipment of grapefruit that had been bought overseas and in the kitchen, he cut open a suspicious-looking apple and an orange, but found nothing more dangerous than a little rot. He also had to inspect the incinerator room and check the garbage that could not be burned to make sure that it had been stored properly until the crew could legally dispose of it.

The big show
It was almost dark when a crew of longshoremen boarded the ship and began removing equipment that had made the long trip from Kuwait to Texas. Each piece of equipment that arrives from overseas must be carefully inspected for snails, insects, or dirt that might harbor insects or plant material that, if not detected and stopped, could easily threaten America's own food supply. "We get a lot of pressure from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Cattleman's Association to keep foot and mouth disease out of the U.S.," said Agriculture Specialist Doug Frank, the lead inspector on the team.

CBP Agriculture Specialist Kenneth Western, and CBP Officer Bruce Guyote joined Frank, Carter, and Hammons to inspect the ship. As each piece of equipment was driven or towed off of the ship, it was carefully inspected to make sure that no dirt or insect hitchhikers had come along for the ride. The equipment included tracked vehicles, jeeps, troop carriers, helicopters, Coast Guard boats, and other pieces of military hardware. There were also a large number of containers to inspect, both inside and out.

All returning equipment and containers were cleaned in Kuwait before being loaded onto the Seay. Unfortunately, unexpected sand or dust storms can come up and deposit dirt back onto the newly cleaned equipment. And containers can accumulate dirt on their undersides just by sitting on the loading docks.

This parade of vehicles continued as darkness fell and the lights came on. At 11 p.m. the inspection was called to a halt to continue the following day.

Morning arrives
At 7 a.m., the parade of vehicles and containers started again. Agriculture Specialist Western inspected the vehicles and boats that came off the back of the ship, often crawling under a vehicle with a flashlight to be able to see inside the engine or other places dust and dirt might hide. After the equipment was inspected, it was sent to one of two destinations: clean equipment was sent over to a staging yard where it would be loaded onto railcars and sent to its final destination. Or, in the case of 14 helicopters, the rotors were reattached and the helicopters were flown home. Dirty equipment was sent to the washing area to be hosed down and then to the staging yard. CBP officers Carter and Guyote performed the same equipment inspections at the front of the Seay.

Photo Credit: Gerald L. Nino

CBP Officer Carter and Agriculture Specialist Hammons take a look at a suspect orange in the Seay's dining hall.

Containers were sent to another station to be inspected by Agriculture Specialist Hammons. The containers were subjected to the same scrutiny as the vehicles. A flat-bed truck delivered the containers to a forklift that raised them to allow Agriculture Specialist Hammons to look under the container and in all the nooks and crevices that make up the bottom of a container where sand, dirt and other things can accumulate. He also searched for insects and snails, and did find several empty wasp pupae. If live insects had been found, the containers would have been tented and fumigated. Clean containers were sent to the staging area while the dirty containers went to the wash station and then to staging area.

The wash station
"Fortunately, here at Beaumont we have the only Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services Veterinary-approved wash station on the Texas Gulf coast," says Agriculture Specialist Doug Frank. "There are very strict guidelines that must be followed to gain approval to have a wash station, and the port of Beaumont was able to fulfill all the criteria needed to have an approved station. The entire complex-washing, staging, and loading areas-has to be covered with a permanent hard surface, either concrete or asphalt, to prevent contamination of clean tires, clean undercarriages, or any accessory of a vehicle or container. It must have access to a high-pressure water system like a fire hydrant. The wash station has to have drains that flow directly into the city's sewage treatment system. The entire area has to slope towards the drain opening on all sides, and the wash station and drain must be able to be enclosed for soil containment."

The port of Beaumont not only handles military shipments coming back from the Middle East it also handles equipment returning from exercises held in South America.

Fifth in foreign trade
According to data reported by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the port of Beaumont is ranked fifth in foreign trade among United States ports. This keeps inspectors very busy clearing commercial cargo, in addition to military shipments. When asked about some of his strangest discoveries in commercial cargo shipments, Agriculture Specialist Hammons replied, "I found two large hives of killer bees in one cargo shipment, and in a shipment of steel products from Russia, I found six different species of insects in one load that had been buffered by wood. The wood they use is not finished and it tends to harbor insects."

The inspection of the Seay was completed that day. It involved a relatively small amount of cargo-only 690 pieces of equipment-compared to shipments of more than 1,000 pieces of military equipment, which take several days to inspect. The military inspections are in addition to all the other cargo that must be inspected and cleared.

The CBP inspection force at the port of Beaumont, Tex., may be small, but it's well organized and very efficient.

Most of the LMSR ships are named for Medal of Honor recipients. The Navy christened the 950-foot-long ship the USNS Seay on June 20, 1998, at Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans, La. Because the ship would be used to transport tons of Army equipment, Navy officials decided to name the vessel in honor of a soldier. They chose Army Sgt. William "Bill" Seay, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for gallantry in action while serving in Vietnam on August 25, 1968. Seay had been a driver in the 62nd Transportation Medium Truck Company, 7th Transportation Battalion, 48th Transportation Group, near Ap Hi, Vietnam. While on a re-supply mission, his unit came under intense rocket, machine gun, and automatic weapon fire from a reinforced North Vietnamese army battalion. "He didn't just defend. As enemy fire intensified, so too did his response," said Air Force General Walter Kross, Commander, U.S. Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill., at the christening ceremony. Seay picked off a sniper. Then, as grenades rained down on him and his buddies, he repeatedly rose from cover and, braving enemy fire, pitched the grenades back, killing several of the enemy. "Painfully wounded, he continued to return fire and encouraged his fellow soldiers until he detected three enemy soldiers penetrating his position, preparing to fire on his comrades," Kross said. "Without thought for his own safety, in severe pain, and with only his left hand usable, he stood and took them under fire, killing all three of them." Ultimately, Seay was killed by a sniper's bullet.