Senior Airman Jose Obregon (left) watches while Army Sgt. 1st Class Jose Lantigua checks a patient’s vital signs Monday in the Air Force-run hospital in Balad. Lantigua was learning the hospital's procedures on his first day of volunteering at the hospital. Although the 46-year-old’s day job is to work with computers for the Katterbach-based 412th Aviation Support Battalion, Lantigua is a certified licensed practical nurse and plans to use those skills as a volunteer at the hospital during his deployment. (James Warden / S&S)
BALAD, Iraq — Sgt. 1st Class Jose Lantigua has the calm bedside manner of a nurse. The 46-year-old also has a nurse’s familiarity with the duties involved, even if Monday was his first time at the Air Force-run hospital in Balad. But Lantigua isn’t a nurse — at least, that’s not his day job with the Army.
While he maintains the Licensed Practical Nurse certification he got seven years ago, he spends his days in Iraq working on computers for the Katterbach, Germany-based 412th Aviation Support Battalion.
“I got too much free time, I guess,” he said. “I get one day off. I might as well use it.”
Lantigua is one of several soldiers, airmen and civilians who spend their already limited free time volunteering at the hospital.
About 70 volunteers show up each day to help hospital staff with tasks that would otherwise take them away from their primary jobs, said Airman 1st Class Rendon Corbin. The volunteers do work ranging from reading to injured children to more technical medical tasks done by those like Lantigua who have professional certifications.
“They’re just like one of us when they’re here,” Corbin said.
Air Force Staff Sgt. Jason Stroude, the hospital’s helicopter pad boss, explained that he has up to a dozen full-time employees working for him, but all of them are office employees. He depends on the volunteers to haul the incoming patients from the helicopters to the appropriate area.
“These guys are very much my manpower,” he said, gesturing to a handful of volunteers waiting for the next helicopter to come in. “Their assistance is pretty much a critical asset.”
When Air Force Master Sgt. Bill Butler attended the required volunteer training class the other night, for example, six helicopters came in laden with patients. The class stopped and all the students helped unload the helicopters.
Those in the class were a diverse group, the 45-year-old recalled, including young airmen, lieutenant colonels and F-16 pilots.
What they all have in common are busy schedules. Air Force Master Sgt. Mario Rodriguez — like Butler, one of the volunteers waiting for helicopters Monday — works 12- to 13-hour days, six days a week. Yet he got to the hospital by 8 a.m. to see how he could help, “just to be a comfort to some of these guys, kind of like a ministry,” he said.
“I just thought I could be of some use rather than sit in my room and watch DVDs,” the 44-year-old aircraft loader from San Antonio said.
Butler acknowledged that it may not always be easy for people to get up and spend their free time volunteering, but he said that doesn’t matter for him.
“You just do it,” he said. “You make up your mind you’re going to do it and just do it. It’s part of being a professional soldier.”
