AAFES employee home after 30-month stint in Iraq Published April 23, 2010 By John Stuart Tinker Public Affairs TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- Lisa Martin had unfinished business to settle. It was early 2007 when the Tinker Army and Air Force Exchange Service sales associate realized she had to go back. She still can't quite explain it, but she couldn't deny the impulse. She was heading back to Iraq. For nine months in 2006 Ms. Martin had been in southern Iraq. Her work in the AAFES store on a coalition base had been strenuous and difficult. It was also some of the most rewarding work she'd done. So in September 2007, Ms. Martin boarded a plane for Baghdad and waved farewell to her husband, grown kids and grandbaby. She was returning to take care of the unfinished business. "I came home in 2006 and got back into the swing of things here. Then looked around and I went 'I need to go back,'" Ms. Martin says. "It just didn't feel like I was done yet. It felt like there was more to do and I wanted to be one of the people doing it." They're perhaps less well known, the scores of support personnel who bolster deployed Airmen and Soldiers in the AOR. But behind each military individual in the fight is a host of assistance personnel in the wings. On today's battlefield these wings are broad. If you ask Ms. Martin, the wings are also very busy, and the mission is simple: effectively serve the troops. In the two and a half years that Ms. Martin was in Baghdad she worked at a trio of base AAFES stores. She called Sather Air Base, Camp Liberty and Camp Striker home on different occasions. The troops stationed there faced austere conditions of climate and belligerents. But the AAFES store regimen was no easy undertaking either. "We had 12-hour days," Ms. Martin says. "Usually I started from noon to midnight. There weren't any times we were standing around. There was always something to do. But we had a good time. We managed to keep each other company and had a good time at it." Ms. Martin volunteered for both her deployments. Others from Tinker had deployed before her and spoken highly of their experiences. "I'm up for a dare," Ms. Martin says of her decision to deploy. "I thought well, OK, that sounds fun. Let's give it a try, see what happens." For frame of reference, the AAFES store at Camp Liberty ranks second in revenue across the whole military. Scores of coalition troops browse the aisles stocked with merchandise each day. Almost all the items have traveled thousands of miles to flaunt their brightly packaged fronts to passersby. The supply chain for such an endeavor is striking and the selection surprisingly good for a war zone. Such was life for Ms. Martin in the AOR. Her job had more than a few stock crates of challenges. "I was outside a few times when we got mortared," Ms. Martin says. "I was just taking a walk in the morning and I was about a quarter mile away where the mortars hit inside the wire." Not a typical morning stroll to work for most AAFES employees. But it's understood -- as each deploying AAFES employee is given a helmet, flack vest and gas mask -- that they'll be facing adverse conditions. There were other difficulties, too. "Being in 130 degrees," Ms. Martin says rolling her eyes. "Considering my first deployment was 135 degrees most of the time, you know it's something to overcome. Once it's past 110, hot is hot. The sandstorms sucked. The sandstorms really sucked because you can't breathe in them when you take your 10-minute walk to work. And showers are useless." Sometimes the cumulative stress of the long, busy hours would take their toll, Ms. Martin says. The people around her were a family away from home, though. They were her shot in the arm. "The people you meet, the friends you make, the people you're helping out and serving -- they keep you going farther than you'd think," Ms. Martin says. "I would say 'I don't know if I can do this' and they would say 'yes you can it's another day, you'll be alright.'" Although there were hard stretches, the good days far outweighed the troublesome ones. Ms. Martin loved her job. Non-American employees often supplement AAFES stores personnel overseas, Ms. Martin explained. She had the fortune of working with a host of nationalities, regularly rubbing shoulders with Iraqis, Indians, Pakistanis, Ugandans, Ethiopians and Kyrgyz. Her personal experiences with Iraqis who worked at the stores only improved her work environment. "The few that I did get to know were very nice people," Ms. Martin says. "And they just wanted to do the same thing we were doing. Just work, earn a living, be with their families. If you listen to the conversations you can learn about the different cultures and that's a lot of fun." Most humorous were the "miss ships," Ms. Martin said. Items that arrive by accident and don't exactly fit in a war zone. "We got a crib one time," Ms. Martin says with a laugh. "We got a chainsaw, a weed eater, a couple boxes of diapers and toys." Her downtime was spent watching movies, going for walks around the compound or just sleeping -- a precious commodity in the AOR. But it finally had to end. In February of this year Ms. Martin returned to Oklahoma. She had 60 days left on her contract, but as the forces are downsizing, her return orders came two months early. She had traveled home eight times over the 30-month deployment, but she was glad to be home for good. You might be able to surmise the things she missed most while abroad. Three guesses. Television, soft drinks and American fast food. "They do have a lot of soft drinks in Iraq that are made and bottled in Kuwait, but the flavor isn't exactly the same," Ms. Martin says. "It's interesting though to see a Coke can or a Diet Coke can with Arabic writing on it." Ms. Martin's Iraqi adventure began in 2006 and ended only days ago. In the wake of her impressive tour she's confident she accomplished what she wanted. "I'm done going over there," she says. "You just know, you do. I don't know how to explain it." And yet something in her eyes and in her voice suggested the possibility of another tour. Then, the moment of truth. "Yeah, I would go again," Ms. Martin says wryly. Though not to Iraq or Afghanistan, she says. But she's still hesitant. "I don't know yet," she says. "I'm still chilling from being gone for two and a half years. I think I'm good, I did that for a while." It must depend on any unfinished business that might arise. Only time will tell.