Tracking down the troops: she enjoys providing personnel service under fire

Airman, Dec, 2004 by Chuck Roberts

Detective. Executive. Warrior. Staff Sgt. La Shawndra Singleton's job requires her to be a little bit of each.

Where are they? The 29-year-old from East Cleveland, Ohio, left Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., to find them and provide personnel support. About 1,600 Airmen are in Iraq supporting Army missions such as running convoys and resupplying far-flung military outposts. Most of them processed through the Personnel Support for Contingency Operations, or PERSCO, center when they entered Kuwait enroute to Iraq.

From there, some ended up at military installations like Balad Air Base, Iraq, which has a healthy contingency of Airmen and Soldiers. But many Air Force civil engineers, security forces, vehicle operators and others just "disappeared" into a sea of green when they arrived. They scattered to 16 remote Army sites, like Camp Speicher near Tikrit, Iraq.

They fell under the 732nd Expeditionary Mission Support Group at Balad. The group commander wanted a PERSCO person to find out their specific locations so their personnel needs wouldn't fall through the cracks. Sergeant Single ton, an enlisted promotion technician, arrived at Balad in March and immediately set about tracking down the Airmen.

If she heard of an Airman visiting Balad from another camp, she grilled them for information to see if they belonged to her. Her network included the sign-in desk at billeting and the finance office where she found clues from checks written by Airmen picking up a few supplies.

"It teaches you to be creative," she said of life at a re mote location, "and it makes you think outside the box."

By early June, she had tracked down 99 percent of the group's 1,600 Airmen. Not bad for a one person shop. The standard ratio in the field is one personnel troop for every 150 Airmen served. She was supposed to return home at the end of June, but volunteered to stay until a three-man team formed to replace her in early September.

But the work didn't end when she added newfound Airmen to her spreadsheet. To provide the best customer service possible, Sergeant Singleton would often jump on the next available flight to take the personnel office to Airmen in the field. Issues such as securing a career job reservation in a timely manner don't go away when Airmen deploy.

The range of personnel issues she encountered sometimes stretched her seven years' Air Force personnel experience. In addition, she was involved in working Red Cross messages used to notify Airmen of personal problems back home. One such effort resulted in a 22-hour day.

"At the end of the day, I did all I could do, and that's fine. But you want to do everything and know the answer to every question," she said. "It's hard on them out there. They shouldn't have to worry about personnel issues."

Sergeant Singleton passes along the same support she enjoyed from parents who always encouraged her diverse, and often temporary, academic and athletic endeavors. When Sergeant Singleton joined the high school debate team, she found a worthy sparring partner in her morn while debating random topics in their living room.

"She taught me how to stay calm under pressure." A quality, she said, that has helped her both in Balad and elsewhere during her career.

Sergeant Singleton knows how much it means to her guys when she shows up to take care of their personnel needs. She would sometimes become emotional at the thanks they offered and the concern they expressed for the risk she took by traveling in Iraq.

But her office back at Balad wasn't much, if any, safer. At one point, Balad received more than 50 percent of attacks at airfields in the country. On Good Friday, more than 20 mortars and rockets hit the base. One of them killed an Airman after striking his tent.

One mortar, which she described as whistling like a freight train when it puts on the brakes, struck about 100 feet from the small metal trailer that serves as her office, knocking the blinds off the wall.

"You see the smoke and then 'boom.' But at least we hear it coming," she said.

She said truckers must also contend with improvised explosive devices on the road. And so must the Air Force vehicle operators who provide convoy security.

As a personnelist, Sergeant Singleton wasn't on the road with them. But she knew what she did for them made a difference in their lives. And that was enough.

"I feel honored," she said.

Career Field Facts

3S0X1--Personnel

Assigned: 6,564

Duties: Advises officers and Airmen of military personnel issues and programs. Manages selective re-enlistment and career Airman re-enlistment reservation programs, counseling Airmen on reenlistment opportunities and benefits. Maintains accountability for Airmen supporting the Army mission in Iraq.

Civilian application: Human resources manager.

Staff Sgt. La Shawndra Singleton

Personnel support for contingency operations, 732nd Expeditionary Mission Support Group, Balad Air Base, Iraq

Years in Air Force: Seven

Hometown: East Cleveland, Ohio

Reason for joining: "Just to do something different."