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380AEW Article

Senior NCO pays it forward in helping Airman

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. J.G. Buzanowski
  • 380th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  It all started off with a "hello."

While leaving the fitness center, Master Sgt. Tanya Williams offered the greeting to a wayward junior enlisted Airman who looked lost.

As it turns out, the young Airman had just arrived to the 380th AEW, dropped off most of his luggage in his room and was trying to find the dining facility. Unfortunately, he was walking the wrong way.

"I thought about back when I was new to my first base, which was overseas, and everything looked the same," said Williams, the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing paralegal. "People stopped to help me instead of just letting me wander around lost. So I just said 'hello' to him and we started talking."

Rather than just point him in the direction of the dining facility and sending him on his way, she took the time to escort him to get breakfast and waited with his bag while he got a meal, as bags aren't allowed in the dining facility.

After talking with the vehicle maintainer, she discovered he'd arrived earlier than his reporting date, so no one from his new work center knew to greet him. He said he was going to walk to the vehicle maintenance facility, not necessarily knowing how far it is. Williams called over to the section and a noncommissioned officer immediately came to take care of the young Airman instead.

The art of saying hello and being willingly observant to new people here enabled at least one Airman to start his deployment with a positive experience, said Capt. Daniel Rodarte, who saw Williams helping the Airman.

"She's an inspiration to all of us," said Rodarte, the wing sexual assault response coordinator. "The ability to keep our ever-growing installation still feeling like a smaller community can have a very positive impact on someone's deployment, no matter how new."

For Williams, deployed from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Forth Worth, it was just something she would hope someone would do for her or anyone new to a base.

"Everybody's been the new person at some point," she said. "We all just need to look out for each other, especially while deployed."