A Pass In Time: Work It

The best thing to do on a deployment is start a routine and stick with it. That's what makes the time pass by the fastest. I got into my routine early on, and rarely departed from it. Our work schedule was 12-hour days, six days a week, which sounds like a lot, but it's actually a good thing for three reasons. First off, we have a mission to do, and the more we work, the quicker the mission gets done. Second, if people have too much time off, they start to think about home too much and get depressed easily. Third, it's not like there's a lot to do on days off anyway. I usually spent my days off at the shop doing laundry and writing e-mails. Most people say it's not really a day off--it's more like a day you can sleep in. Speaking of sleep, one of the "luxuries" of life in the desert is the consistent sleeping schedule. I rarely got less than eight hours of sleep each night (as opposed to the five or six I get while I'm home). After working a twelve-hour day, all I really wanted to do was sleep. Plus, there wasn't exactly a plethora of choices in the activity department. After hitting the gym and showering, I'd go back to my pod and read until I drifted off.

Me & My Sweeper
Originally uploaded by currtdawg.

The deployment, for me, consisted of two phases. Phase I lasted the first two months, my time on the sweeper. This could also be classified as the Phase from Hell. As I mentioned before, most of the utility work was contracted out to KBR, which left my shop severely over-staffed. Therefore, nine of us were loaned out to the Heavy Equipment shop, commonly known as Dirt Boyz. They had us do their boring, idiot work, so they could do more interesting jobs like pour concrete pads and haul gravel. True, those things don't sound exactly desirable, but when compared with sweeper duty, they're phenomenal. Imagine driving a very loud truck, sometimes lacking air conditioning or a radio or both, up and down a half-mile stretch of road at 10 MPH for countless hours by yourself, trying not to be lulled to sleep by the droning of the motor. And, other than lunch, we couldn't really take a break because the policy was to keep at least two sweepers on the airfield at any given time. The only "breaks" we got were to hide out behind a hangar, turn off the engine for a little peace and quiet, and try not to fall asleep. And as if the trucks weren't loud enough, there were F-16s taking off constantly. We couldn't wear ear plugs since we had to be able to hear if the control tower called. Whenever I had a day off, I would just lay on my bed and enjoy the silence. Our job was to drive around the flight line and pick up FOD (foreign object debris). Made up mostly of small rocks, tumbleweed, and dirt, it was anything that could be sucked into the intake of an F-16 and cause damage to the engine. I developed a keen eye for spotting pebbles from several metres away. Besides driving around all day looking for FOD, we were also at the mercy of airfield management personnel, who also drove around looking for FOD. We were constantly being called all over the place to sweep certain areas they deemed "FODded out." Most of them were pretty cool, but sometimes we'd get called to sweep an area and arrive to find two little rocks on the ground that could just as quickly have been picked up by hand. What made things even worse was the rain, which created lots and lots of mud. So when trucks came on the flightline, they would track mud all over the place, which usually had rocks embedded in it. People rarely did thorough FOD checks on their tires, which just created more work for us.

Repairing Lines
Originally uploaded by currtdawg.

Mid-way through November, the Dirt Boyz got some new management, and, albeit through clenched teeth, devoted some manpower to help sweep the flightline. Being the highest ranking of the sweepers, I was first on the list to go back to the shop. Needless to say, I was elated. Thus began Phase II, or the Happy Phase. Work in the shop was much more laid back. The best part was that I wasn't by myself any longer. There were about eight of us doing whichever jobs didn't fall under KBR's contract. There weren't many, but they were varied and kept us busy enough. Most of the crew was from Hill, but we were augmented by a smaller crew from Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico. They were cool people, and I enjoyed working with them, especially TSgt Cabano, who kinda reminded me of my friend Garah. Our jobs were mostly small things like replacing a water heater element or investigating leaks. Occasionally, we would get a major water line break, but those, more often than not, were caused by contractors; therefore, the contractors fixed them, but we supplied parts and had to supervise. One of the big projects on which I worked was mapping out all the water and waste lines in H-6. Most were already on the existing map, but Marshall and I walked all the lines, making sure the map was accurate, plus updating things that weren't plotted. We worked with the engineering assistants and used the GPS system, which was pretty cool. Our Operations Chief, Captain Dusang, put us in charge of it, expecting it to keep us busy for a month, and we did our best to stretch it out, but we probably only did about three days of actual work on it. When we presented her with our results, her exact words were, "This is EXACTLY what I wanted! You guys worked SO HARD on this!" And we were all, "Um....yeah. We sure did!" It was hard to keep a straight face. Jobs in the desert are different than when we're at home station. Since most of the buildings are temporary, most repairs are total hack jobs. We do whatever needs to be done to correct the problem, and nothing more. The worst was when things in our shop were going really slow, and coincidentally, ridiculous jobs would appear out of nowhere. The stupidest had to be when we had to take the sewer truck into H-6 after it rained and suck up all the water puddles, knowing full well it would just rain more in a couple days.
I'm sure you can imagine how happy we were to see our replacements arrive. They came from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The day they arrived, it was cold and foggy and rainy. They probably thought the plane went off course or something. One of the cool things about the Air Force is running into people you knew from bases where I was stationed earlier in my career. I saw Ashley Rasmussen (from Nellis), David Lyons (from Misawa), and Andy Moeller (who was at Hill before PCSing to Kadena about a year ago). I also saw Andrew Gonzales and Martin Caluag, both from my Misawa days. Martin was there with the Army, and Andrew was there as a Force Protection escort. It's a small Air Force, we sometimes say.