Photos

Lance Cpl. Keith Peterson, a 24-year-old Marine metalworker from Niles, Mich., utilizes a military tractor, operated by Cpl. Wesley D. Porter, a 25-year-old native of New London, Mo., to reach the top of a 14-foot steel beam during a fortification project near the Iraqi-Jordanian border at Camp Turaybil, Iraq, Jan. 4, 2005. After a suicide bomber killed two Marines and injured six others early last month, combat engineers from Combat Service Support Battalion 7 have spent the past three weeks fortifying the camp. The Marines have worked daily to emplace barriers, elevate watch towers, set concertina wire, and install steel gates so the Marine provisional infantrymen who operate here can better control traffic. The combat engineers are reserve Marines from the Peoria, Ill.-based Charlie Engineer Company activated for service in Operation Iraqi Freedom.