‘Legend’ goes home after six months

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Bob Oldham
  • 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
TALLIL AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  She is outgoing and friendly. She is an icon at the base’s shopette, and she is going home Jan. 24 after serving six months here.

Anyone who has shopped at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service’s shopette in the Air Force’s tent city here cannot help but know Heidi Stover, the store manager.

A 62-year-old mother of four and grandmother of seven, Mrs. Stover has seen a lot during the past six months, and said the people she has met here will forever stay in her mind.

“They are my kids,” she said, referring to American and coalition airmen and soldiers who shopped at her store. “It didn’t matter if they’re Italian, if they’re Dutch, if they’re British, Estonian -- I treat them all like family.”

During her tour, she has seen the AAFES operation here become more robust.

“When I first got here, I thought ‘what have I gotten myself into,’” she said. “The temperatures were 120, 130, 140 (degrees Fahrenheit).”

She survived the summer heat and an abundance of crickets.

“They were all over, literally all over,” she said. “I said, ‘What am I going to do?’”

But as each day went by, it got better and better, she said.

Her husband, retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Marion Stover, did not want her to deploy at first. But she said he knew the importance AAFES plays in a deployed servicemember’s life. She said he talks about his service in Vietnam and how “it was great to have an exchange there and for somebody to be there and to get you the items you needed.”

As a 25-year employee of AAFES, she volunteered to come here. Within a month of volunteering, she was on her way from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., to bring a little piece of home to airmen and soldiers deployed here.

Robin Price, an AAFES team leader, said Mrs. Stover’s departure is bittersweet. They shared a tent in tent city for the past few months, and she said it will be a little quieter with Mrs. Stover gone.

“We’re certainly going to miss her,” Mrs. Price said. “She certainly loves her troops over there at the Air Force side.”