Photo By Master Sgt. Andrew Lee | Senior Airman Michael Payne, a 467th Expedition Prime Beef Squadron engineering...... read more read more
MOSUL, Iraq - Coming to Iraq for his first deployment, a young airman didn’t get fazed or lose his mindset on work while others would have been distracted with all that was going on around him.
Working the only way he knows how, the 20 year-old senior airman has eagerly hopped from base to base across Iraq and has been a major piece in the success of the missions he’s been a part of.
Senior Airman Michael Payne, a 467th Expedition Prime Beef Squadron engineering assistant, has been deployed less than four months, but has done a year’s worth of work.
Working with the Marez Facility Engineering Team, Payne has been to five locations throughout Iraq helping with construction management and site surveys as well as drafting and printing maps of each location.
Payne spent some time at Contingency Operating Site Erbil where in less than a month, his team and he worked on a 100 million dollar build-up of road, ditches and fuel pits for more than three miles.
“We put in a lot of work at Erbil,” Payne said. “The fact that we did all our work on the big project in less than a month was great but knowing that it’s going to make things easier for others felt better.”
While at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, the Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., airman, put in some more work to help out others, but this time it wasn’t for the U.S. military.
“When I was down in Al Asad AB I was helping lay down the ground work for an Iraqi military dining facility,” the St. Louis native said. “It was going to be their first one, so it was nice to know I was helping out a foreign military in a big way.”
As the end of the year and Operation New Dawn draw closer, more and more bases are transitioning back to Iraqi control. As part of the process to give back what will eventually be Iraqi property again, Payne and his team have to accurately produce maps that show what we say we are giving them is actually there.
“Construction management and ground work is a big portion of the job, but site surveying and drafting and printing up maps is a good percentage as well,” said the Air Force engineer. “When we go out to site survey and use our equipment we have to be very aware and precise of how we set up. If we aren’t correct when we do our job, we can lose our credibility and the maps become inaccurate and can’t properly show what were giving back.”
Most men and women in their 20s only learn about what’s going on in the Middle East and how the U.S. is trying to help improve the region from the internet or television. Payne is seeing it in person. He is making his mark on history by contributing to the future success of Iraq.
“The job I have here has given me the opportunities to travel and help develop a few locations around Iraq,” Payne said. “Knowing that I am participating in something historical and in improving the areas that we’ll be giving back to Iraq is a rewarding experience.”
| Date Taken: | 04.19.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 04.19.2011 06:45 |
| Story ID: | 68961 |
| Location: | MOSUL, IQ |
| Web Views: | 236 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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