Cable Dawgs keep airlift wing wired

Published Dec. 18, 2008
By Staff Sgt. Vincent Borden
386th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

SOUTHWEST ASIA -- The 386th Expeditionary Communications Squadron Cable and Antenna maintenance shop gives renewed purpose to the phrase "hanging out." The workcenter concentrates its efforts on the installation and maintenance of the wiring of the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing, which covers everything from crawling in manholes and working underground, to hanging suspended from towers installing connecting antennas.

The Cable Dawgs also maintain what amounts to miles of upkeep of fiber optic, local area network and copper cabling used to support all computer and radio equipment on base. The communication maintainers could work one day on the rather technical job of installing Secure Internet Protocol and LAN drops in offices and workcenters around the wing, to the more dangerous work of climbing towers hundreds of feet high for radio antenna installation.

Although they are dubbed the "Cable Dawgs" for their prowess with a range of cabling applications, at times they resemble creatures with capabilities that allow them to work comfortably underground, like groundhogs, or suspended in the air, like lemurs. They are the endangered species in a region and military service where it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to find either.

In a job with so many potential pitfalls for injury, the Cable Dawgs focus on providing the safest environment possible while they perform their duties. They also have to become comfortable with the idea it's always there.

"Our job is dangerous, but it depends on what you do" said Staff Sgt. Ryan Trandell, a 386th ECS Cable and Antenna Maintenance technician deployed from Yokota Air Base, Japan. "Pulling cable underground through manholes, you deal with confined space entry permits, doing atmospheric monitoring for things that you can't tell could kill. Dealing with the big cables themselves, if you get too much tension on them, [they] could pop and kill someone. So there are all different sorts of aspects to it."

Sergeant Trandell, a father of two whose newest addition came two weeks after he arrived at the wing, said he remembers an event that involved an old superintendent of his who had a cable "pop" on him while he was down doing work in a manhole. The cable shot up and hit him in the face, and he had to have major surgery to fix the damage.

Experiences like those keep Sergeant Trandell grounded, despite the fact he has no fear of heights. None of his team members do either. As a requirement through technical training, cable and antenna maintainers are tested for acrophobia before continuing further in the course. Their technical training consists of exercises that further their comfort level up high. They perform exercises which Sergeant Trandell said mirror volleyball; 12 students climb up 12 separate poles with their gear, and pass volleyballs to each other back and forth.

Sergeant Trandell, a native of Orlando, Fla., who graduated from technical training 10 years ago, said the training does what it's designed to do. He started out with 10 people in his class, and when he was finished the class was down to five.

Already a small career field, the Cable Dawgs have seen more cuts as a result of their positions being contracted out to civilian companies. But their dwindling numbers make Senior Airman Lakendrick Fisher feel even more elite than he did when he entered the career field five years ago.

"Everybody can't do the job," said Airman Fisher, a Greenville Miss., native deployed from Yokota Air Base, Japan. It's one of those kinds of career fields you can look at on the outside and say "that looks easy," but once you actually get your hands on it, you have to take your time with the cable and know what you're doing. It makes the [career field] stand alone."

Each of the Cable Dawgs is certified to climb towers up to 600 feet; climbing is something Airman Fisher said is one of the joys of the job. When he came in the military, the once separate career fields of antenna and cable maintenance had merged into one. Airman Fisher said he enjoys the antenna maintenance aspect of the job¬--the installation of very high frequency, ultra high frequency and high frequency antennas--the most.

"There's nothing like going to an open site, and you see go from nothing to something and you know you were a part of that," Airman Fisher said.

The Cable Dawgs get an opportunity to involve themselves in that process more often while they are deployed. Many times they can be seen hanging from harnesses on the legs of towers, with lines dangling from the tower to the ground, and tools and equipment being hoisted up and down them.

"We do everything we do stateside here, but a little bit more," said Sergeant Trandell. That "little bit" involves installing Secure Internet Protocol wiring in office buildings and maintaining entire tracts of copper and fiber optic infrastructures, a work usually reserved for contracting companies and Electrical and Instrumentation engineering teams in the U.S.

Sometimes love for the job comes down to love of working with the equipment; fiber optic cable, which Sergeant Trandell said is "much better" than the old copper cabling of the past, presents opportunities for continued employment when their military service is up. Many of the Dawgs can't imagine giving up the service just yet, however. Not unless they're forced to go.

But sometimes it comes down to the smaller nuisances of the work. Airman 1st Class Delvon Newbill, a 386th ECS Cable and Antenna maintenance deployed from Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., enjoys the quiet and calm that comes with being suspended hundreds of feet in the air, all alone with the elements. His enjoyment of his work is much more picturesque. For him, his work is not only necessary; it's a thing of beauty.

"[At Malmstrom] we maintain missile cables, and we go two and a half hours into the mountains and there are sights that you wouldn't believe," said Airman Newbill. "There's wild horses and everything running around. I show some of my friends pictures and they get jealous when I tell them 'This is my office.' It's beautiful."