Services Airmen ensure people get ‘comforts of home’

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Catharine Schmidt
  • Air Force Print News
SAN ANTONIO --  Airmen with the 147th Fighter Wing services flight at Ellington Field, Texas, are ensuring everyone supporting Hurricane Rita relief efforts have a hot meal to eat and a comfortable bed to sleep in.

While some servicemembers deployed there from various parts of the country are sleeping and working in the same building for accountability purposes, the services Airmen made it their mission to make everyone as comfortable as possible -- even if that included bringing in more Airmen to help eight guardsmen activated by the 147th FW.

“We brought in services units from (Fort Worth, Texas) and Colorado to help provide hot meals three times a day to all the people we have here,” said Lt. Col. Mary Mercier, the services flight commander. “Many of these Airmen were in New Orleans supporting Hurricane Katrina and were activated only days after returning home for Hurricane Rita.”

But the Airmen said they do not mind. The Airmen from Fort Worth are now operating out of Ellington Field’s dining facility providing hot meals for everyone on the airfield, whether they are permanent party, servicemembers deployed here or even visitors.

“We just want to do what we can -- service before self. It just gives you a good feeling,” said Master Sgt. Jerri Mathis, the dining facility supervisor who came from Fort Worth. “Especially after being deployed to the desert -- here we’re supporting our (home). It’s a great feeling to be helping our state.”

“It makes me feel really good to help everyone out,” said Airman 1st Class Ilias Simpson, also out of Fort Worth. “It’s great to see the guys come in here and get a hot meal, and they’re so grateful. We don’t mind working 16-hour days.”

“The morale with our team has been good,” Sergeant Mathis added. “At times, it wavers a little bit but only because of the uncertainty of when this will be over. But 90 percent of the time, everyone has high morale.”

While these deployed Airmen are giving everyone at the airfield hot meals, the 147th Airmen are making sure their counterparts’ stay here is comfortable.

“The 147th is treating us great. They got us lodging off base and transportation,” Airman Simpson said. “They’re taking really good care of us, and let us run the kitchen as if it’s our own.”

Not only are the services Airmen taking care of their comrades, they were also ensuring families and even pets were safe before Hurricane Rita was expected to hit Houston.

“We housed parents, civilians, children and pets who weren’t able to evacuate for Rita,” said Senior Master Sgt. Priscilla Malone, the services flight superintendent. “We had to coordinate with civil engineers so they could tell us which buildings were the most structurally sound. If Rita had taken a different course, everyone’s lives would’ve still been saved. It’s a lot, because when you deal with people’s creature comforts, then you have their feelings, so it tends to be more emotional than technical. And that’s why it’s so crucial and so important.”

Although some may think these Airmen have had enough of the long days away from home, Colonel Mercier said their morale has not diminished, and they are still working hard to get the job done.

“Everyone is making the best of things,” she said. “It just amazes me how hard people work and how willing they are to do so.”

“We are the mama of the (Air Force) in that we take care of the creature comforts of the (servicemembers), and often times people take for granted a hot meal or a bed to lay their heads in. But it becomes crucial in an emergency situation,” Sergeant Malone said.

“It is the morale factor that will break an emergency situation,” she said. “It allows everyone to do their job. We do it in combat, in peacetime or humanitarian (missions).”

The situations these Airmen have faced since Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita have given many of these services Airmen a new look at life.

“We take for granted so much and we don’t realize how blessed we are,” Sergeant Malone said. “So it’s really important to me that I ensure my fellow comrades get hot meals and get a good night’s sleep. Because the little thing you take for granted, are the big things that will hurt you.” (Senior Airman Danielle Johnson contributed to this article.)