Lodging office provides basic comforts to deployed personnel

Published April 21, 2010
By Senior Airman Mindy Bloem
506th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs

KIRKUK REGIONAL AIR BASE, Iraq -- If you want to know how important the lodging office is to a deployed member, just ask someone whose last mission involved sleeping in a tent with no bathroom in sight and no cushiony mattress to sleep on after a long day's work.

The lodging staff at Kirkuk Regional Air Base may not be able to offer all the comforts of home, but they do the best with what they have.

"This job is important because we enable Air Force personnel to live as comfortable as possible in such an austere environment," said Staff Sgt. Natika Adams, 506th Expeditionary Force Support Squadron lodging front desk manager, deployed from Eielson AFB, Alaska. "We make sure their basic needs are taken care of and constantly try to improve their living conditions."

The lodging customers here are Air Force members as well as Air Force and Army transient personnel and contractors. The lodging staff provides basic essentials, including clean linen, beds, wall lockers, light bulbs, smoke detectors and cleaning products to their customers.

Tech. Sgt. Sebastian Lopez, 506th EFSS lodging manager, deployed from Pope AFB, N.C., is here for the second time in his career, and said he has a lot of insight into this base and uses that knowledge as a way to lend a hand.

"I enjoy having the ability to help people when there is no one else to turn to in all aspects of deployment, not just lodging issues," he said. "I enjoy the people I meet during the job."

Sergeant Adams said although her job here is different from her stateside job as a protocol specialist, she enjoys the change of pace.

"I've worked lodging stateside before, but deployed lodging is a different ball game," she said. "The main differences are the environment, living conditions and the guests we deal with. We are in a hostile environment and personnel know that. Because there are other locations that have worse conditions than we do, people who come through here generally appreciate what we can do for them and are grateful. That's what I love about the job: customer satisfaction."

Another aspect of the job to keep in mind here is the joint environment.

"We've had many requests to assist the Army with housing supplies, including beds and mattresses, and we accomplish this by working with our leadership, Airmen and Soldiers as one working force," Sergeant Lopez said. "I believe if we work together, there is nothing we can't achieve."

Even though a deployed environment is not ideal, Sergeant Lopez said he stays optimistic by focusing on the blessings here rather than on the negative parts.

"I look around and see how fortunate we are to have all that we have," he said. "I don't forget we are in a war zone, yet I see how privileged we are. That keeps me positive."
When some of those privileges involve indoor plumbing in your living quarters as well as heating and air conditioning, it's hard to disagree.

"We may not realize how important we are until someone doesn't have a place to sleep for the night, and we get to come to the rescue. At that moment, for that one person, we are the heroes they need because we give them a warm, safe, comfortable place to rest. And it's not a tent shared with 40 other people," he said.

So although there may not be a mint on the pillow when personnel arrive at KRAB, they can rest assured there will be a pillow, a bed and a wall locker.