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| Back home, Dean said, she realizes the gap between the media reporting of the plight in Iraq and what she witnessed during her deployment that just ended a month ago. "The soldiers who are over there right now are doing the most amazing things," Dean said. "They are rebuilding the country ... They are building schools. They are opening hospitals. They are doing all kinds of wonderful things for the people. "And it's not often reported over here what they are doing over there," Dean said. "It's not just a war; they're creating a country. And it's a wonderful thing." ... "The worst thing was when a young soldier came over after her brother had been killed in Iraq," Dean said. Dean ended up helping her locate his body and helped her write a eulogy. "None of that is in the job description, but that's what you do." |
Back from the desert: Stint in Iraq was latest deployment for LNAS Red Cross station manager Cheryl Dean
By Eiji Yamashita
Sentinel Reporter
LEMOORE NAVAL AIR STATION - Life at home goes on, with you or without you. It may take a good turn or it may take a bad turn. And it's just part of the military at war.
But in case of an emergency, whether it's babies being born or family members dying, a need is always there for U.S. soldiers deployed abroad to get the message quickly.
That's when people like Cheryl Dean come in.
Dean, American Red Cross station manager at the Lemoore Naval Air Station who recently returned from war-torn Iraq, is one of a handful people working seven days a week, up to 22 hours a day, as a personal communication link between the frontline American troops and their loved ones at home.
"Life cycle events happen all the time. And they don't stop because you're deployed," Dean said. "I think our most common message was deaths of a family members ... But the best ones were babies being born."
In her last assignment, Dean was in a northern Iraqi city of Mosul as part of a three-member team providing the armed forces emergency services to the Army's 101st Airborne Division.
When family emergency comes up, it was the team which passed the message on to the troops in one form or another. Communications were often maintained with their commands, but there were times they had to go out to the field to see them directly, even if that meant risking their lives, Dean said.
"There were some scary moments like the first time I had to run to a bunker, wearing a gas mask, a flat vest and 18 pounds of gear that goes with it," Dean said.
But the experience only strengthened her trust in the troops, Dean said.
"That was scary, but then I realized I was protected by the best Army, the best Air Force, the best Marine Corps in the world and they are not going to let anything happen to me. So it was not hard to be over there with them."
Dean, 48, has been doing this work with the American Red Cross for the last six years. She has served in South Korean near the DMZ for two years and in Saudi Arabia briefly two years ago. This year, she spent seven months in Kuwait and Iraq.
There were memorable moments in Iraq that were both uplifting and saddening, Dean said.
"The best thing I saw was the look on the father's face as ... he got to listen to his baby being born," Dean said. She helped connect him through multiple routes to his wife in a delivery room in a Tennessee hospital for his baby's arrival, Dean said.
"The worst thing was when a young soldier came over after her brother had been killed in Iraq," Dean said. Dean ended up helping her locate his body and helped her write a eulogy. "None of that is in the job description, but that's what you do."
The stay in Iraq was a peculiar experience, Dean said.
After all, the living conditions for humanitarian workers weren't any better from what troops had to endure - having to sleep in tents, running a three-quarters of a mile just to go to a bathroom, having no access to utilities. Besides, the heat in Iraq can hit the extreme of 142 degrees Fahrenheit, Dean said.
Dean said soldiers in uniforms looked like they were "hosed down with water" because they were sweating so profusely. "The humidity just zaps your strength and wipes you out," she said.
Back home, Dean said, she realizes the gap between the media reporting of the plight in Iraq and what she witnessed during her deployment that just ended a month ago.
"The soldiers who are over there right now are doing the most amazing things," Dean said. "They are rebuilding the country ... They are building schools. They are opening hospitals. They are doing all kinds of wonderful things for the people.
"And it's not often reported over here what they are doing over there," Dean said. "It's not just a war; they're creating a country. And it's a wonderful thing."
Nearly a month of break at home in Lemoore is nearing its end for Dean. By next Wednesday she is off to another overseas assignment, or "another adventure" as she put it.
Dean's next destination is Bahrain, an island state off the east coast of Saudi Arabia. She will be working out of the U.S. Naval Air Station based in the small Arab monarchy.
Her Lemoore base office is once again bare empty, as she had already packed up for the deployment.
"I'm excited ... The only thing I'm dreading is the plane ride," Dean joked.
Her "adventure" is a little joke between her two children, who are both in the military, because their mother, not them, always gets deployed to some of the harshest, remotest areas of the world, she said.
But Dean said she ekes out a thriving livelihood traveling the world serving troops abroad and their families back home. She doesn't foresee quitting her job for now.
"I have the best job in the world," Dean said. "Because both of my children are in the military, I feel like what I'm doing is an extension of taking care of someone else's children ... I have the best job in the world, and I love it. "
