Dawgs put PERSCO back online

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Paul Dean
  • 407th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
ALI BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  It was 5 p.m. on Oct. 2 and the 407th Personnel Support for Contingency Operations section here was winding down the day shift. The cable dawgs of the 407th Expeditionary Communications Squadron were doing the same.

But things changed rapidly 10 minutes later when 1st Lt. Adam Pudenz walked into the communication squadron compound. The PERSCO team chief could not contact them by phone or e-mail because the PERSCO building had no telephone or computer network service.

“We knew what that meant right away,” said Tech. Sgt. Carl Beaty, the 407th ECS noncommissioned officer in charge of base information infrastructure who is deployed from Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D.

If both systems were down it meant that a cable system had been severed somewhere between the PERSCO building and the communications compound.

Sergeant Beaty and his team scrambled to find the broken link.

PERSCO would have had a long and difficult day Oct. 3 without communications, said Lieutenant Pudenz, who is deployed from Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C. “We use all kinds of systems to file all kinds of reports and get important information every day. Most of these things are done using the telephone and the (secure and unsecured) Internet. I’m sure everybody knows from experience that PERSCO handles a lot of issues for them. A lot of those actions require communications.”

The 407th ECS Airmen walked the route of the communication line and found the cut quickly. A contractor working near the PERSCO building had accidentally torn the wire while digging. There were 200 broken copper wires and six broken strands of fiber optic cable in the hole. It was getting dark, and it was a mess.

The team went into an organized scatter -- some getting lighting, and others gathering tools and equipment.

The site was an eerie scene a little while later. The sky was almost moonless and the area was pitch black except for the small hole illuminated by halogen work lights. The cable dawgs were in and around the hole, splicing and dicing trying to make ends meet. The task of matching 12 halves of fiber optic paled in comparison to the copper problem, which included two cables with four groups of 25 wires, each with a unique pattern and color code.

Darkness and dust also compounded what would be a difficult task under the best of conditions. Then the generator died, but still they continued. The crew used flashlights to keep going while they waited for the lights to turn on again.

After three intensive hours, the phones and Internet were back online in the PERSCO building.

“These guys really went above and beyond, considering the circumstances,” Sergeant Beaty said. “They knew what had to be done and they took the ball and ran.”

“It was really something,” said Staff Sgt. Paul Mattke, a 407th ECS voice and network systems journeyman also deployed from Ellsworth. “Everybody knew what their part of the job was and they just took it upon themselves to make sure it got done, whatever it took.”

“I take my hat off to all of them,” Lieutenant Pudenz said. “They told me that things would be taken care of as quickly as possible, but seeing the mess there a couple of hours ago and now being able to log on and dial a phone is really something.”