A group of Navy veterans is using skills learned while training in preparation for war for a peaceful objective, according to a feature by Nelson Sigelman on the Martha’s Vineyard Times. VRHabilis, according to their website, stands for “Veteran Run Work”; work is habilis in Latin. Among the services that they provide are “military range management, remediation and emergency response”. VRHabilis is “owned and managed by former Navy Explosive Ordinance Disposal, Special Warfare and Deep Sea Diving professionals”, and they are able to provide disabled veterans with an opportunity to win government contracts through adaptive technology.

One of their ongoing projects is the cleanup of former target ranges along South Beach. In the Second World War, Martha’s Vineyard Airport served as a Naval Air Station, and flight units usually flew in the areas over and around the island to train before they were deployed to the Pacific. The US Army Corps of Engineers have, in recent years, begun a clean up of areas such as Martha’s Vineyard, which are termed as “Formerly Used Defense Sites”. Clean-up entails the search and removal of practice munitions dropped in the area decades ago. The portion of the clean-up that involves South Beach has been subcontracted to VRHabilis.

Now, former Navy deep sea divers are scouring the South Beach area for remnants of practice munitions. Despite the fact that these are only practice munitions, the divers still exercise caution when dealing with them. As of June 12, the team has reportedly recovered 103 ordinance items, which include old warheads and rocket motors. None of these ordinance items reportedly contained high explosives, as expressed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

So, what do they do to the stuff that they recover? The company’s business strategy reportedly also includes the selling of recovered metal materials as scrap. This is a process that reportedly helps defray costs.