Page 3 - Luke AFB Thunderbolt, Oct 5 2018

Thunderbolt news http://www.luke.af.mil
October 2018 3 Facebook.com/LukeThunderbolt
IN BRIEF
Gospel service anniversary
The Luke Community Chapel will celebrate the 45th church anniversary, “We’ve Come This Far By Faith.” Church revival is 7 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Chapel on the Mall, Youth & Young Adult Night is 7 p.m. Oct. 19 at the Luke Community Chapel, Praise & Worship is 10 a.m. Oct. 21 at LCC, and Afternoon Anniversary Worship & Celebration is 3 p.m. Oct. 21 at LCC. For more information, call rev. Don Shelton at 773-306-8664.
Health fair
The 56th Medical Group is hosting a Health Fair & Classic Car Show, “Tune-Up for Health,” 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 19 at Club Five Six. TrICArE enrolled beneficiaries who receive medical care from the 56th MDG are encouraged to attend. Admission and health screenings are free. A car show, healthy cooking demos, flu shots, static displays, preventive screen- ings, and healthy lifestyle information are included.
Thrift Shop/Airman’s Attic
The Thrift Shop/Airman’s Attic is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays for shopping and donations. There is an after-hours donation bin outside Bldg. 750. Consignments are accepted from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Proceeds benefit Luke AFB and the local community. The Airman’s Attic is available to members E-5 and below. Uniform items are free to all ranks. For more information, call 623-935-5782.
Wrap gifts for donations
Partner with the Army & Air Force Exchange Service to wrap gifts and raise money during the holiday season. The Exchange will set up tables and provide supplies to volunteer groups who will wrap gifts in exchange for donations. For more information, call 623-935-2671, ext. 221.
2018/2019 Military Child of the Year
Operation Homefront is accepting nominations through Dec. 5 for the 2018 Military Child of the Year Award and the 2019 Military Child of the Year Award for Innovation. To nomi- nate a child for the award, visit www.militarychildoftheyear. org and click the Nominations tab.
Retiree Appreciation Day
Luke Air Force Base retiree Appreciation Day is 8 to 11:30 a.m. Oct. 20 in the Navy Operations Support Center. Flu, shingle, pneumonia and tetanus shots will be given. Displays and demonstrations include weapons, military working dogs and more. The commissary and exchange will also feature sidewalk sales. Enter at the South Gate, take the first right and continue on the same road across to the north side of the base. The NOSC is on the right. For more information, call the retiree office at 623-935-3923.
November/December flightline feasts
A “Happy Thanksgiving” flightline feast is presented by the Luke Air Force Base Chaplain Corps at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 1 behind Hangar 914. The Winter Feast is 5:30 p.m. Dec. 6.
Exchange offers fee-free layaway
The Army & Air Force Exchange Service is offering fee-free layaway for items of $25 or more. A 15-percent of purchase price deposit is required. Items must be paid for by Dec. 24.
Worklife live webinars
The Federal Occupational Health Behavioral Health Ser- vices is offering the following webinars at 11 a.m. To register, go to FOH4You.com. For more information, call 800-222-0364.
• The Opioid Crisis — Oct. 10
Learn about opioid addiction and the effects it has on society.
• ‘Tis Season for Stress — Nov. 14
Learn ways to manage between family time, friends and celebrations, and the wallet.
Toastmasters on base
Toastmasters meets noon to 1 p.m. Thursdays in the Quiet Study room in the Luke Air Force Base Library. Improve communication and leadership skills through prepared and impromptu speaking. The cost is $20 to join and semiannual dues of $45. For more information, call Lynne Nutter at 623- 856-9838 or 602-740-6124.
Refugee recalls horrors
Story and photo by Senior Airman RIDGE SHAN
56th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
She remembers the smell. Without a functioning sanitation system, raw sewage lined the rows of tents in the camp. Families would shower by poking holes into cups and pouring small amounts of their rationed water into them. Not enough to clean a child.
She had no friends, save for her siblings. With no schools, the camp could not bring children together or teach them proper language skills, and spending time outside of her tent without her parents was unthink- able. Children would go missing. She had witnessed some being raped.
These memories are vivid for her. A recent trip to a Jamba Juice had stoked a particularly powerful one after a sip of a wheatgrass beverage. The fields around the camp were wheatgrass, and she could remember their taste, the way they felt against her skin as she ran through them in one of the few ways she could play.
“It took me back, and I saw myself running through the fields, just this little kid running,” said Tech. Sgt. Odette Youkhanna Esho, 56th Communications Squad- ron knowledge management cell NCO in charge. “We didn’t have toys or shoes. We didn’t have anything. It was an inhospitable place, just mud and dirt every- where, cold. It smelled nasty. But that [wheatgrass] was kind of my safe haven, to be able to run in it and eat it as a kid.”
Esho is a communications specialist at Luke Air Force Base. Her day-to-day responsibilities are primarily ad- ministrative in nature, but she manages a unit which guides the flow and distribution of communications and information integral to base cyber operations. As well, she doubles as an additional duty first sergeant, a position in which she is responsible for the well-being and discipline of her entire squadron.
Her commander, Maj. Nathaniel Edwards, testifies to her crucial role and hard work in the organization.
“Tech. sergeant Esho epitomizes what we should all strive for in terms of professionalism and dedication,” he said. “Esho, time and time again, puts in maximum effort and ensures that customers are satisfied. [She] aims for the stars every time.”
Esho stands at a firm 5-feet 6-inches tall. With raven-black hair pulled neatly into a bun and sunken almond-eyes that flit from object to object as she speaks, she doesn’t impose a particularly intimidating stature. She is self-admittedly shy, with an unending propensity for politeness, even to complete strangers. She is quick to gratitude, and has no aversion to apologizing for perceived slights. However, these traits belie a stern professionalism and a determination that is uncom- promising, and behind her unassuming exterior lies a grittiness born out of extraordinary circumstances.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, a series of deadly
Tech. Sgt. Odette Youkhanna Esho, 56th Commu- nications Squadron NCO in charge of knowledge management, stands at rest for a portrait Sept. 9
at White Tank Mountain Regional Park. As a child, Esho escaped from Iraq with her family as refugees after her father deserted from Saddam Hussein’s military. After spending two years in a Turkish refu- gee camp, Sergeant Esho was granted asylum in the United States.
conflicts and wars, both within Iraq and involving its neighboring countries, displaced tens of thousands of Iraqis, primarily ethnic and religious minorities. Many of these individuals were forced to flee into safer regions as refugees. As a young child, Esho and her family were among them.
“Iraq in general was an absolutely terrible place,” Esho said. “It just wasn’t very welcoming or accepting of you if you were of a different culture, or a different race, or a different religion.”
Esho is ethnically Assyrian and was born on the out- skirts of the Iraqi city of Mosul, in what used to be the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh. Nineveh was the capi- tal of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, an Iron-age civilization which ruled over a vast domain spanning from Egypt to Turkey between the 7th and 10th centuries B.C.
As a unique ethnic identity, the Assyrians have existed for thousands of years and continue to inhabit many of the places they originate from today, often as minorities and marginalized populations in their own ancestral homelands. To make matters worse, the pri- mary religion of most Assyrians is Christianity, which has traditionally made them particular targets for op- pression and violence by the various majority groups which have ruled over their homelands in countries like Syria, Iran, and Iraq.
Esho’s family faced these brutal realities doubly, living in Iraq under the oppressive rule of the regime
See REFuGEE, Page 8
THUNDERBOLT ALMANAC
Fiscal 2018 graduates
21st FS (calendar year).................................. 8 61st FS ............................................................ 0 62nd FS........................................................... 0 63rd FS ........................................................... 0 69th FS ........................................................... 0 309th FS ......................................................... 0 310th FS ......................................................... 0
Hours flown Sorties flown F-35 0 0
F-16 0 0
425th FS (calendar year) ............................... 0 550th FS ........................................................ 0 56th TrS ........................................................ 0 607th ACS...................................................... 0 372nd TrS, Det. 12 ....................................... 0 944th OG, Det. 2 ............................................ 0
(As of Oct. 1, 2018)
T-Bolts
Deployed around the world.
222 Luke Airmen are deployed to 14 locations