Las Vegan stays busy at remote base

Dick Benoit

Thursday, April 7, 2005 | 8:36 a.m.

Las Vegas students who choose the Vo-Tech option of secondary schooling aren't likely looking for cushy jobs after graduation. Nicole Cherry, a 2001 Vo-Tech High School graduate, is no exception.

According to Air Force public affairs writer John B. Denby IV, in a story filed from Manas Air Base in the Kyrgyz Republic, life at an isolated air base suits Airman 1st Class Cherry just fine.

Cherry, the daughter of Roberta Young of Las Vegas, is serving her country as a firefighter at this isolated camp where waves of troops are accommodated in tents and warehouses while waiting for connecting flights to and from deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Las Vegas airman and firefighter is helping ensure the safety of equipment and troops at one of the busiest in the region.

"I respond to structural, aircraft and medical emergencies as well as spending time in our dispatch center as the alarm room operator," Cherry said.

"As a firefighter, I work 24 hours on and 24 hours off, or as an alarm room operator I only work eight hours a day, with one day off in an entire month."

Cherry and her fellow airmen at Manas also help needy neighbors in a predominately Islamic surrounding community of more than 1 million people, a subject that hits close to her heart.

"I am a member of our base council that has donated to an effort to provide orphanages with shoes," Cherry said. "Our outreach program not only assists at orphanages and hospitals -- helping to donate for cancer treatments and anything those less fortunate might have to encounter -- we bring hope and happiness in even the littlest things we do to help out."

The air base where Cherry temporarily lives can be a noisy and hectic place -- the military's version of O'Hare Airport at rush hour, according to Denby, and, says Cherry, both the pace and inconveniences can seem never-ending.

"The shelves at the base exchange were empty, the lines at the dining hall seemed never-ending, the gym and our recreation tents were closed down as cots were set up for soldiers to sleep on. They even closed the library and stuck cots in there. These are the lengths we go to to get the mission accomplished."

Service members are deployed to Manas for four-to-six month stretches, but most say their brief stint is worth the effort.

"I feel as though each day blends into the next," commented Cherry. "Efforts are constant 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Yet we are economically boosting the local community while helping out at orphanages as well as hospitals and schools in any way we can. Our exposure in the community shows locals what Americans are really like, not just what they see on TV."

In brief