Military Times EDGE

The Army Corps of Engineers has turned up a lot of stuff over the years at construction sites around the country — so much stuff, in fact, that it doesn’t know exactly what it has. Now, with help from federal stimulus funds, the Corps is sorting through its collection of archaeological finds and getting veterans working at the same time.

The first of three new Veterans Curation Project laboratories opened Oct. 20 in Augusta, Ga.; the other two sites, in Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, Mo., are expected to open by the end of fiscal 2010. All the sites were chosen because they are home to large populations of wounded and recent veterans.

Each lab has slots for 10 veterans to train and work for up to six months cataloging, scanning and photographing hundreds of boxes of records and artifacts.

The photography and database skills they learn could help them get jobs as forensic technicians or in records management, a field that is poised for growth, said Dr. Sonny Trimble, head of the Corps’ Center for Expertise for the Curation and Management of Archaeological Collections. Veterans interested in a position at one of the labs should contact Trimble at Michael.K.Trimble@usace.army.mil.