By BECKY THOMAS
Staff Reporter
Hospital Corpsman First Class Cherrie Davis-Dietrich has served in the military as a reservist for more than 20 years. She said that serving part-time has been good, steady work for her, and allowed her to advance her education while she worked her civilian job as a Teamster in highway construction.
Davis-Dietrich, a native of Spokane Valley who moved to Cheney after marrying her husband Tom Davis, began as a reservist with the Air Force before “bouncing branches,” she said, moving to the Navy and back to the Air Force while she trained, first in mechanics and then in the medical field. A couple of years ago, she went back to the Navy to continue her training in preventive medicine and environmental engineering.
“I was just learning whatever I could,” she said.
She wanted to continue her education, and enrolled in a Ph.D. program in public safety and emergency management.
Then, in January 2009, Davis-Dietrich's days of part-time military work ended. She was deployed to Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan as an individual augmentee with the Navy.
“They handpick these people individually,” she said. “They needed medical people in the Navy, both reserves and active military, and I just happened to fit the criteria for what they wanted.”
Davis-Dietrich said she'll never forget the six-month deployment that turned into a year. She spent that year doing many different things: she treated injured soldiers on the battlefield, worked in a state-of-the-art hospital, tested air and water quality on the base and helped coordinate a myriad of logistical challenges at KAF.
She was part of a group of individual augmentees from all over the U.S. who were deployed together. The Kandahar Airfield, with more than 13,000 troops from all over the world, was quite a change for Davis-Dietrich after serving for one weekend a month for so many years. She said the airfield was always busy, but its inhabitants rarely let their guards down, bracing for rocket attacks or news of fighting in the area.
“It was just like a quiet war. When it happened it happened, we were never prepared. It was not a comfortable feeling,” she said. “You watched your backside and you lived with your M16 or your M9 or whichever weapon you were issued,” she said, laughingly adding: “My gun was my purse.”
For the first two months of her deployment, Davis-Dietrich worked as a hospital corpsman, assisting doctors and nurses with sick and injured soldiers. During that time, she often left the base in a humvee to collect injured soldiers from battles. She said she was not prepared for what she saw.
“The humvee ambulances go out to the flight line and you bring in whatever is thrown at you,” she remembered. “Some was good, some bad, some not really recognizable. I mean, that's the way it was there and that's the way they came in to the hospital.”
Injured and sick soldiers were treated mostly in medical tents, but while Davis-Dietrich was at KAF a hospital was being built that could house complex equipment and withstand the rocket attacks that were common at the base.
The Role 3 NATO hospital opened in the spring of 2009, and Davis-Dietrich spent some time there, working with doctors, nurses and patients from dozens of countries. She listed some of them: “We had Romanian, Bulgarian, Slovakian, German, French, Danish, Dutch, British, Canadian Australian, Belgian,” she said. “And of course the local nationals and the detainees, which would be more the Taliban. We even cared for them.”
She was amazed by the way the staff worked together to save badly injured soldiers and civilians.
“All the different nationalities had their own facilities, their own areas where they stayed, and we all worked together, that was the fascinating part,” she said. “You couldn't always understand them but it was sure an interesting thing, one on one, getting to experience these other cultures.”
During the rest of Davis-Dietrich's deployment, she utilized some of her training in environmental engineering by testing air and water on the base as well as assessing chemical safety, emergency preparedness and other things. But she said that work was done on top of her duties managing projects on the base.
“Since it wasn't constant and busy, they also needed help logistically,” she said. “So probably half of my stay was mostly logistical support.”
She worked with local and international contractors ordering and shipping food, supplies, even vehicles into KAF. She also managed construction and road projects, assisted by her background in construction back home.
“It was quite challenging but I really learned how to be like a project manager, doing that type of job,” she said. “It was interesting. I kind of enjoyed it.”
Davis-Dietrich said her deployment was a struggle at times, but she was happy to have the experience.
“Looking back on it now, it all was good with a few exceptions,” she said. “I don't regret any of it. I loved the experience; it was something I can share for the rest of my life.”
Davis-Dietrich plans to finish her Ph.D. in the spring and she's currently working part-time as a bus driver for the Cheney School District as well as in the Navy reserves. She plans to retire from the military in a few years, and work with cities and government agencies in emergency planning.
She returned to Cheney in January, to a house her husband had built on a hill on South Betz Road. It was something they had talked and dreamed about before her deployment, Davis-Dietrich said. She's still readjusting to being out of a war zone, and sometimes a gust of wind around the Davis' home will make her jump. But, she said, “the view is beautiful.”
Becky Thomas can be reached at becky@cheneyfreepress.com.
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