 "Photo: Photo courtesy of Tanya Komas")
While some students will be sleeping off their hangovers Saturday, a lucky handful will be boarding a plane for a 10-day field trip to France to evaluate World War II bunkers.
"I get to fly over the whole ocean to France to work and be with the big dogs," said Alexx McAvoy. "Heck yeah I'm excited."
Five concrete industry management students will travel 17 hours to Normandy, France, to help evaluate historic concrete bunkers on Pointe du Hoc, which holds military defense structures bombed on D-Day during World War II.
"I'll know 50 years from now that I was partly responsible for preserving one of history's biggest moments," said junior Chad Golden, one of the students going.
He's looking forward to getting his hands dirty, he said.
Students will work with faculty and graduate students from Texas A&M University, said Tanya Komas, concrete repair and preservation professor and trip organizer.
Chico State students are the only undergraduates working on the project and will use high-class, ultra-sonic equipment to test different concrete structures and materials, Komas said. After the evaluation, the team will use data to suggest how to preserve and stabilize the military structures.
About three years ago, Texas A&M received a grant from the American Battle Monuments Commission to survey the site and assess the eroding cliffs where the structures rest, Komas said. With Komas' expertise in concrete repair and preservation, the people working on the project turned to her for help.
For the last two years Komas and Chico State students have contributed to the research, but it only recently became hands-on fieldwork, she said.
Students will produce a conditions report that will combine previous laboratory testing and upcoming fieldwork, and address important historical questions regarding the events of June 6, 1944. The tests will answer questions about resources and materials used to make foreign military concrete in the 1940s.
"I'll be part of something that our forefathers were," McAvoy said. "I'll be at the same wall they climbed and the same beach where millions of people lost their lives. I'll physically contribute to restoring this great American site."
Multiple companies are loaning the students equipment to evaluate the site. Komas applied for research grants and funding through Chico State to help with expenses, she said.
It's about $2,000 for each student, but various concrete industry associations, companies and the college of engineering helped with expenses. Komas had planned to take 20 students, but limited funding reduced that number.
The students will return March 18, but requiring them to miss a week of classes and coursework is a small price to pay, she said.
"Eventually the sea will reclaim all of it, and it will be just a memory," Komas said. "But there's a whole generation who don't know about this history for it to just be washed away."
Taylor Flores can be reached at tflores@theorion.com
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