He stocked warehouses, maintained ships, served food and drove trucks and forklifts.
With the Navy suffering severe shortages in men and equipment and with other theatres of war deemed more important, small, old and poorly maintained ships were activated from reserve and based in harbours in East Anglia, principally the port of Yarmouth, under the command of Admiral Adam Duncan.
Mr. Huntington said that raising money for maintaining ships was not an easy sell.
He described Tartus as a "technical facility for maintaining ships sailing in the Mediterranean".
They radioed Bahamian authorities, who in turn requested the help of the United States Coast Guard, which maintains ships and helicopters in the region for drug interdiction and rescue operations.
"Given the range of flags available, those interested in Mongolia are not interested in maintaining ships, in sailing well," he said.
It looks likely to do lots of business with Petrobras, Brazil's state-controlled oil giant, building and maintaining ships and rigs.
Democrats have argued that President Bush's proposed $8.3 billion missile defense budget, a $3 billion increase from last year, is exorbitant when other basic needs, like maintaining ships and buying ammunition, are being squeezed.
The port of Tartus, where the Soviet Navy has had the right to base and maintain ships for several years, has become a submarine base in the last few months, according to Zev Schiff, the military correspondent of the daily Haaretz.
Marine engineers "design, build, and maintain ships from aircraft carriers to submarines, from sailboats to tankers," according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The shooting occurred at a building on the Navy Yard campus that serves as the headquarters for the Naval Sea Systems Command, which engineers, purchases, builds and maintains ships and submarines for the Navy.
