Courtesy Photo | Senior Airman Michael Woods (front) uses a fiber inspection scope to check the quality...... read more read more
By Tech. Sgt. Paul Dean
407th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
10/05/2005
ALI BASE, Iraq -- It's Sunday afternoon at 5 p.m. and the 407th Personnel Support for Contingency Operations section here is winding down the day shift. The cable dawgs of the 407th Expeditionary Communications Squadron are doing the same.
Things changed rapidly 10 minutes later when 1st Lt. Adam Pudenz, PERSCO team chief, walked across Bedrock (tent city) to the communication squadron compound. He couldn't call or e-mail because the PERSCO building had no telephone or computer network service.
"We knew what that meant right away," said Tech. Sgt. Carl Beaty, 407th ECS noncommissioned officer in charge of base information infrastructure, deployed from the 28th Communication Squadron, Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D. If both systems were down it meant that a cable system had been severed somewhere between the PERSCO building and the communications compound.
Sergeant Beaty and his team scrambled to find the broken link.
PERSCO would have had a long and difficult day Monday without communications, said Lieutenant Pudenz, deployed from the 4th Mission Support Squadron, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C.
"We use all kinds of systems to file all kinds of reports and get important information every day. Most of these things are done using the telephone and the [secure and unsecured] Internet. I'm sure everybody knows from experience that PERSCO handles a lot of issues for them. Well, a lot of those actions require communications," said Lieutenant Pudenz.
The cable dawgs walked the route of the communication line and found the cut quickly.
A contractor working near the PERSCO building had accidentally torn the cables while digging. There were 200 broken copper wires and six broken strands of fiber optic cable in the hole. It was getting dark and it was a mess.
Sergeant Beaty had a crew of seven, including Staff Sgt. Brad Hendrix, a computer systems operator deployed from the 36th Communications Squadron, Anderson Air Force Base, Guam.
"I've been learning a lot about cable maintenance since I've been here," said Sergeant Hendrix. This stuff isn't really part of my [Air Force Specialty Code] but I wanted to see if I could actually do some of the things I've been learning about."
The team went into an organized scatter: some getting lighting, others going to get tools and equipment. Lieutenant Pudenz, realizing that the cable dawgs were going to do whatever it took to have him back in business quickly, went on a pizza run.
The site was an eerie scene a little while later. The sky was almost moonless and Bedrock was pitch black except for the small hole illuminated by a couple of halogen work lights. The cable dawgs were in and around the hole, splicing and dicing, doing this and that, trying to make ends meet. The task of matching 12 halves of fiber optic paled in comparison to the copper problem, which included two cables with four groups of 25 wires, each with unique patterns and color codes.
Darkness and dust compounded what would be a difficult task under the best of conditions. But this was where the action was and all the cable dawgs wanted in on it. Then the generator died, but still they continued. The crew used flashlights to keep going while they waited for the lights to turn on again.
By 8 p.m. the phones and Internet were back online in the PERSCO building.
"These guys really went above and beyond considering the circumstances," said Sergeant Beaty. "They knew what had to be done and they took the ball and ran."
"It was really something," said Staff Sgt. Paul Mattke, 407th ECS voice and network systems journeyman, also deployed from the 28th CS. "Everybody knew what their part of the job was. Everybody just took it upon themselves to make sure it got done, whatever it took."
"I take my hat off to all of them," said Lieutenant Pudenz, 'they told me that things would be taken care of as quickly as possible, but seeing the mess there a couple of hours ago and now being able to log on and dial a phone is really something."
The dawgs include:
Tech. Sgt. Carl Beaty, NCOIC, deployed from the 28th Communications Squadron, Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D.
Staff Sgt. Brad Hendrix, computer systems operator, deployed from the 36th Communications Squadron, Anderson Air Force Base, Guam.
Staff Sgt. David Isaacs, voice network systems journeyman, deployed from the 52nd Communications Squadron, Spangdahlem, Germany.
Staff Sgt. Paul Mattke, voice network systems journeyman, deployed from the 28th CS, Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D.
Staff Sgt. Fernando Perez, communications cable and antenna systems journeyman, deployed from the 65th Communications Squadron, Lajes Field, Azores.
Staff Sgt. Gary Sayre, voice network systems journeyman, deployed from the 62nd Communications Squadron, McChord Air Force Base, Wash.
Staff Sgt. Richard Trimble, computer network switching and cryptographic systems journeyman, deployed from the 28th CS.
Senior Airman Michael Woods, communications cable and antenna systems journeyman, deployed from the 65th CS, Lajes Field, Azores.
"This is a great example of teamwork. These Airmen arrived just two weeks ago from different bases for the start of their rotation"now they're a seamless team and won't stop working until the job is 100 percent complete," said Maj. Todd Glanzer, commander 407th ECS deployed from the 27th Communications Squadron, Cannon Air Force Base, N.M.
| Date Taken: | 10.22.2005 |
| Date Posted: | 10.22.2005 19:02 |
| Story ID: | 3456 |
| Location: | ALI BASE, IQ |
| Web Views: | 131 |
| Downloads: | 24 |
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