America's North Shore Journal

Air Force 1^st Lt. Rebecca Bucher, 777^th Expe­di­tionary 'Prime BEEF' Squadron; Army Capt. Sarah Comeau, 45^th Sus­tain­ment Brigade; and Navy Lt. j.g. Mon­ica Rojas, 30^th Naval Con­struc­tion Reg­i­ment, rou­tinely pool their expe­ri­ence and skills to address expan­sion and sustainment-related chal­lenges. Photo by Maj. Shel­don Smith

Three women from dif­fer­ent ser­vices have come together to make a dif­fer­ence in the expan­sion and sus­tain­ment of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Naval sup­ply offi­cer Lt. j. g. Mon­ica Rojas with the 30^th Naval Con­struc­tion Reg­i­ment, Air Force civil engi­neer 1^st Lt. Rebecca Bucher with the 777^th Expe­di­tionary "Prime BEEF" Squadron, and Army logis­tics Capt. Sarah Comeau with the 45^th Sus­tain­ment Brigade met each other while deployed here. The three ser­vice mem­bers have formed a bond, and now work closely in all mat­ters regard­ing pro­cure­ment, logis­tics and con­struc­tion projects.

"It's rare for all the ser­vices to work together to accom­plish what we are accom­plish­ing: expan­sion and growth of [Regional Com­mand — South] in a deployed envi­ron­ment," said Comeau of St. Paul, Minn. "Between the three of us, we are cre­at­ing, build­ing, and sup­ply­ing both exist­ing and new [for­ward oper­at­ing bases] in south­ern Afghanistan."

Comeau sup­plies FOBs with all classes of sup­ply, orders what they need for sus­tain­ment, and ensures sup­plies and materiel get to the FOB in a timely man­ner. Short­ages of sup­plies and equip­ment can ham­per FOB con­struc­tion dur­ing a time when U.S. oper­a­tions in Afghanistan are intensifying.

The 45^th Sus­tain­ment Brigade is an inte­gral part of Joint Sus­tain­ment Com­mand – Afghanistan, which pro­vides com­mand and con­trol for units that pro­vide a wide range of sus­tain­ment ser­vices to com­bat forces belong­ing to or spon­sored by the U.S. The Prime BEEF Squadron exe­cutes projects planned by the 30^th NCR at FOBs and com­bat out­posts where sub­or­di­nate units work.

"We work together in build­ing up RC-South and sus­tain­ing our cur­rent units located in RC – South," said Rojas of Arling­ton, Texas. "I am the logis­tics side for the reg­i­ment, Sarah is the trans­porta­tion and sup­ply side for our Army Con­tacts, and Becky is the Air Force offi­cer that plans projects for the 30^th NCR."

The 30^th NCR is the Seabee unit from Port Huen­eme, Calif., that has over­all respon­si­bil­ity for all FOB con­struc­tion projects in RC-S.

"Each [of us] brings a sep­a­rate set of expe­ri­ences to the table," said Rojas. "The fact that we are all from dif­fer­ent ser­vices, back­grounds, and MOS's [mil­i­tary occu­pa­tional spe­cial­ties] or des­ig­na­tors gives a huge oppor­tu­nity for grow­ing from each other. We all have the same mis­sion, and are in the same loca­tion, but need each other's vary­ing edu­ca­tion and back­grounds in order to accom­plish that mission."

Although all three U.S. mil­i­tary mem­bers work in dif­fer­ent ser­vices, they all help each other in some way on KAF, and also all know the impor­tance of keep­ing fit espe­cially while deployed.

"I've always loved to work­out and it's even more impor­tant to stay active while deployed," said Bucher of O'Fallon, Ill., fol­low­ing the stren­u­ous work­out. "The oper­a­tional tempo can become quite stress­ful and stay­ing active keeps you not only fit, but alert and lets you clear your mind for at least a lit­tle while. It def­i­nitely recharges the batteries."

The United Kingdom's indoor soc­cer field at KAF is home to cir­cuit type exer­cises five days a week. This par­tic­u­lar train­ing con­sists of sev­eral games rang­ing from tag to races and cir­cuit training.

"It's like Ele­men­tary Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion except 100 times harder," said Comeau. "In the mid­dle of the work­out, I would've rather have run a marathon then fin­ished the seem­ingly end­less amount of sprint­ing and drills! But, in the end, it was def­i­nitely worth it!"

Lt. j.g. Mon­ica Rojas, 30^th Naval Con­struc­tion Reg­i­ment rides the back of Capt. Sarah Comeau, 45^th Sus­tain­ment Brigade com­pete with a team con­sist­ing of 1^st Lt. Rebecca Bucher, 777^th Expe­di­tionary 'Prime BEEF' Squadron, and a female British offi­cer dur­ing pig­gy­back relays in an indoor soc­cer field. In addi­tion to phys­i­cal activ­i­ties, the three women are linked by the logistics-related work they do. Photo by Maj. Shel­don Smith

"The UK soc­cer gym is the per­fect place to con­duct cir­cuit train­ing," said Rojas. "They have a new rou­tine every week and focus on every part of the body."

Peo­ple attend­ing the class are pri­mar­ily from coun­tries out­side the United States, mak­ing it a good net­work­ing oppor­tu­nity for the U.S. mil­i­tary on base to expand their scope of knowl­edge and con­tacts, said Rojas.

All three female offi­cers ran the Nov. 7 Free­dom Run half marathon on KAF.

DVIDS
Story by Maj. Shel­don Smith