Downrange: Our Airmen's perspective Published June 24, 2009 436th AW Public Affairs DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. -- Rank/Name: Senior Airman Jerry W. Baker Unit: 436th Operations Support Squadron Deployed Unit/Location: 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, Southwest Asia Describe your job at your deployed location: We support 9 - 15 missions a day, preparing night vision goggles, combat survivor evader locater radios, aircrew laser eye protection glasses for aircrew and we issue them their 9mm pistols, as well. The day to day includes inspecting and maintaining the previously mentioned equipment and the prepositioned Life Support Equipment on the C-17s, which due to the high ops tempo, do not stay on the ground for very long. What was one of the most memorable experiences? We had a transient aircrew one time and they didn't have night vision goggles. We had to supply them with some, so we had to lug our tester out to the flightline and the aircrew preflighted the goggles in the crew bunk which we darkened by closing curtains and turning off lights. All said and done, they got off the ground on time and safely flew their mission with our equipment. How did your job at Dover prepare you or relate to your deloyed duties? My job at Dover pretty much mirrors my job here in the desert, the only difference is a much higher ops tempo and not a lot of time to do the work on the aircraft. How did Dover's airlift mission affect your deployed mission and/or quality of life there? It greatly affected our mission, when we needed supplies from back at Dover, we could count on it being here in a matter of days. Quality of life wise, there is always mail and packages coming in off of Dover tails.