Dining facility Airmen 'beef up' operations to support Operation Odyssey Dawn

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman David Dobrydney
  • 313th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
313TH AIR EXPEDITIONARY WING, U.S. Air Forces in Eurpoe (AFNS) --  Hundreds of Airmen have arrived here to support Operation Odyssey Dawn, and they are all hungry.

The dining facility has progressed from serving 450 meals a day to 1,600 since the start of the operation to enforce a no-fly zone to protect civilians in Libya.

To support this increase, a team of nine Airmen deployed from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany.

Staff Sgt. Patricia Harvey, the NCO in charge of the flight kitchen, said when the team arrived, they found the meals being served out of the base club, as the main dining facility is under renovation.

"We had to inventory what we needed and move things around," Harvey said.

Many of the Airmen forming the 313th AEW are on flight crews. To date, the Spangdahlem AB Airmen have distributed more than 350 flight meals.

"It's easy and accessible," said Senior Airman Kaythi Saw, a flight kitchen assistant. "Instead of messing up their sleep schedules, they can just call (an order) in and pick it up."

Packing the meals requires attention to detail, not just to ensure the meals are complete, but also to get past customs, she said. Because of stateside restrictions on foreign produce, the flight kitchen personnel must avoid putting fruit and vegetables in the meals, which are subject to inspection.

"If meals are on a flight headed to the U.S., they need to be stamped 'USDA approved,'" Harvey said.

Meanwhile, other Airmen have been working as servers, cashiers and in quality assurance confirming that health and agricultural standards are met, Harvey said. They work closely with the local nationals who had been working the dining facility before the arrival of the Odyssey Dawn Airmen.

"Like any team, we have to get to know each other," Harvey said. "We have a language barrier, but we work with the shift supervisors, and we overcome it."

Cooperation goes beyond getting past the difference in language, Airman Saw said.

"We're not here to take over," she said. "We compromise and try to make it better."