By Rick Thompson, Pax River Public Affairs
PATUXENT RIVER, Md.—Naval Air Station Patuxent River welcomed home 11 of its own on June 4, celebrating their safe return from overseas deployments.
Known as individual augmentees or IAs, they walked down the red carpet into the atrium of the Rear Adm. William A. Moffett Building past friends and co-workers cheering and waving American flags. Also present were representatives from community organizations, veterans’ groups and three elementary schools.
“An IA Homecoming is a community-wide celebration to acknowledge your extraordinary service and thank you for all the sacrifices that you and your families go through to offer us the freedom that we enjoy daily,” said Capt. Andrew Macyko, commanding officer of the base in Lexington Park.
The IAs were assigned to a variety of duties in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, below are the IAs and how they served:
IT3 Ashley A. Benedix served in Camp Bucca, Iraq, from August 2008 to April 2009 as a guard force member attached to Navy Provisional Detainee Battalion Five. She performed security operations for approximately 18,000 detainees held in the Camp Bucca Theatre Internment Facility.
ATCS Stephen Diets served in northern Iraq from May 2008 to March 2009 and was attached to Joint CREW Composite Squadron ONE as Contingency Operating Base CREW Maintenance Field Site Lead.
HM3 Robert Dorr served as an AVT Corpsman assigned to Marine Light/Attack Helicopter Squadron 269 (HML/A-269) which was deployed to Al Asad, Iraq, from August to December 2008 and then to Al Taqqadum, Iraq, from December 2008 to February 2009. Dorr maintained medical readiness for the squadron.
CTRC(AW/NAC) Daniel “Shane” Gammon served on Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, from February to October 2008 as the Cryptologic Services Group NCOIC/LCPO.
Lt. Cmdr. Michael Kline served at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, from May 2008 to February 2009 and was attached to Joint CREW Composite Squadron ONE. He served as Brigade Electronic Warfare Officer, Chief of Transitions, and Counter-IED Chief for the Brigade and its seven subordinate U.S. Army Battalions and one U.S. Air Force Squadron.
HM2 Christopher Lebel served at Troop Medical/Dental Clinic Camp Virginia, Kuwait, from February to August 2008. Lebel ensured daily dental information recovery system reports were properly submitted for more than 120 patients each month. He also served as the supply petty officer and he maintained more than $1 million inventory of biomedical equipment and supplies.
Lt. Cmdr. Brian Simonson served in Afghanistan from July 2008 to March 2009 and was attached to the Counterinsurgency Training Center supporting the Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan as the support operations officer.
ABH2 Brendan Taylor served in Farah Province, Afghanistan, from March to November 2008 with the 101st Army Brigade as an assistant fuel representative for Western Afghanistan.
AWS1 Joseph Walker served in Iraq from April 2008 to March 2009 with Joint Crew Composite Squadron One where he provided direct CREW countermeasure support to the 7th and 9th Marine.
Lt. Cmdr. Brett Wilcox served in Iraq from March 2008 to February 2009 and was attached to the Coalition Army Advisory Training Team supporting the Multi-National Security Transition Command - Iraq as the Force Generation Unit Set Fielding Program Manager.
ATCS Dena Yarbrough served in Al Asad, Iraq, from June 2008 to March 2009 and was attached to the Joint CREW Composite Squadron ONE as an Electronic Warfare Officer.