About halfway through his deployment to Liberia to help in the fight against Ebola, a member of the Joint Communications Support Element came down with a fever.
For most people, that’s not very significant. But when you are working at the epicenter of a deadly epidemic, a fever raises concerns, because that’s one of Ebola’s first symptoms.
Fortunately for the serviceman, who works for the element at its MacDill Air Force Base headquarters, his body temperature never went above the threshold and he didn’t contract Ebola. But the incident showed both the safeguards in place for the troops and the urgency of their mission, say those from Tampa who were in Africa at the time.
“He just had what we call the field crud,” says Army Lt. Col. Marne Sutten, who commanded element members while they were in Africa. With as many as 20 living in a tent, as they were in Liberia, Sutten says that while she was concerned for the serviceman’s health, coming down with some kind of sickness is not unusual.
“I have to say, I am really proud of the service member,” says Sutten, 41, sitting in her office at MacDill, having returned last month from the mandatory 21-day quarantine process for all troops returning from the Ebola zone. “He immediately came forward and said ‘I have an elevated temperature.’ He knew what the signs were and stayed away from people and immediately came to me and we took him to medical.”
The mission is being led by the State Department’s U.S. Agency for International Development. The Pentagon, which is supporting that effort, says the mission so far has been successful, with the creation of a 25-bed hospital, 10 Ebola treatment units, more than 1,500 aid workers trained and fewer troops needed than originally thought.
While more than 8,000 people have perished so far, the vast majority in West Africa, the number of new cases has dramatically decreased as a result of improved health efforts, according to the World Health Organization.
In its latest figures, the number of new cases in Liberia, for instance, dropped from 300 new cases per week in August and September to just eight during the week ending Jan. 11.
Sutten and her team were among the first U.S. military personnel on the ground in Liberia, as well as Senegal. Their mission was to set up communications systems.
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When they arrived in Liberia last October, there wasn’t much to what is now a bustling military headquarters set up at the former Barclay Training Center in that nation’s capital, Monrovia.
The crew from the element helped change all that.
In a hurry.
“Imagine,” says Sutten, “a gravel parking lot and in 44 hours we set up tents, generators, air conditioners to keep the equipment cool, all the phones and computers to give the 101st Airborne Division, the joint task force command for the operation, the ability to communicate in Liberia.”
One of the first steps, says Army Sgt. 1st Class Erasmo Torres, was finding a safe place for the generators, the backbone of the operation.
It wasn’t easy.
“The biggest challenge was finding suitable real estate,” says Torres, 30, who was making his first trip with the element. “We were looking for a spot that can hold the equipment. It had to be on level ground. There was a lot of soggy grass and we need a place to put the generators without them sinking into the ground.”
Sutten and her team proved immensely popular, because Army Maj. Gen. Gary J. Volesky’s headquarters unit wasn’t the only one that needed to communicate.
Engineers, medical and transportation personnel and the sustainment brigade marshaling supplies all needed secure, reliable telephone, video and Internet communications, as well, says Sutten.
Once the element’s communications system was set up, Air Force Staff Sgt. Zachary Myers, a satellite communications specialist, spent a lot of his time helping out other groups who had come to Monrovia.
“Everyone wants to talk out,” says Myers, 27. “We went and helped where we could. I helped one of the medical teams who showed up with communications gear that wasn’t working. I helped them with their systems and got them up and running.”
Word of the unit’s success quickly spread to the highest levels.
Volesky regularly used the element’s communications tent, says Sutten, and was a very happy customer. But the kudos came from even higher.
“Interestingly enough, POTUS made a phone call on our architecture to thank us,” says Sutten, referring to President Barack Obama.
About a week into the mission, the president called Volesky and wanted to talk to the troops, as well.
“Three service members from JCSE sat in on POTUS talking,” says Sutten. “He thanked us and said he really appreciated what we were doing. It was kind of a motivator.”
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No mission goes without at least a few problems.
With precautions in place that included working only with U.S. personnel and health-screened Liberians, using gloves, having plenty of bleach and chlorine on hand and having twice-daily temperature checks, there wasn’t much fear of contracting Ebola, says Sutten.
For the element, moisture was the biggest enemy in the hot, humid Liberian climate.
“We had a lot of things overheat,” says Sutten. “It was so humid that it got into the computer system running the generators. Our generator mechanics did an amazing job of trying to keep up.”
Lose power and the air conditioners go out. Lose air conditioning and the tents with all the computer servers become steam baths, resulting in a communications blackout.
“It could quickly go from being 78 degrees in a room with servers in it to 105 degrees,” says Sutten. “Oh yeah, the system went down, twice that I know of.”
But the element was prepared.
“We rehearsed for that, like a crew drill,” says Sutten, who as the daughter of retired Army Maj. Gen. Charles Sutten Jr. was born into the military life.
Things were far worse for the Liberians in so many ways, Sutten says.
Though mostly confined to the compound where large walls separated it from the beach, Sutten says there were occasional forays to Firestone, the town with the huge tire factory that also served as headquarters for the sustainment brigade. It was during trips out to that unit, stationed at the tire factory surrounded by large rubber plants, that Sutten got to see just how tough Liberians really have it.
And then there were the daily death tallies, numbers from the World Health Organization highlighted on one of the three big screens, called battle boards, that the element had set up in the communications tents to give those in charge of the operation an overview of what was happening.
“The numbers were in the 30s every day,” says Sutten. “The hardest moments were seeing the numbers on daily basis. The Liberians are kind people, trying to live their lives, and you’d see the number of deaths and felt sorry for them. It is such a horrible disease.”
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A little more than a month after they arrived, the JCSE crew packed up and started the long trip back to Tampa.
But they had to make detours first.
Under the Pentagon’s protocol for troops in the Ebola zone, they had to go to one of seven quarantine facilities — five in the United States and one each in Germany and Italy — for 21 days of isolation, which is enough time for those who contract the disease to show its effects.
Element members went to several different facilities, but Sutten, Torres and Myers all went to Fort Bliss, Texas.
For them, the base was aptly named, and a far cry from what they were expecting.
The base gave up one of its newest barracks to the effort. All personnel returning from Africa got their own room and shared a bathroom with only one other person.
“They brought food in for us,” says Sutten. “We had the ability to order pizza and stuff. The pizza delivery guy would come to the front desk, and we would pay over the phone. They had a gym for us, TVs and PlayStations. It was nice.”
Myers says he thought the isolation time was a welcome change.
“It was pretty nice honestly,” he says. “The amenities were better than I thought they would be. We went from living in a tent with 18 guys to having your own room, and being able to reach back home on a daily basis with Internet.”
Torres says he never worried about being sick, or found any real relief after the twice-daily temperature checks.
“I wasn’t feeling any symptoms, so I wasn’t concerned,” he says. “Overall, it was a very positive experience.”
But it wasn’t play time.
There was mandatory training to do, says Sutten. Individual service members gave talks on lessons learned. There was also the military’s resiliency training to help them cope with the stresses of deployment and returning home.
“I had a lot of work to do,” says Sutten of her 21 days at Bliss. “Vacation? Not so much.”
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Working in Africa was rewarding, say the element members, who spent previous deployments in combat zones.
“The biggest takeaway was being able to go over and help out for once, on a humanitarian mission,” says Myers. “I haven’t been able to be part of that before, so it was good. It was good being able to see smiling faces as we rolled by on the bus. They were happy the Americans were there.”
For Torres, who saw combat all over the Middle East, Liberia was a welcome respite.
“It was really nice not having people shoot at me,” he says.
Sutten says that Liberia offered a rare opportunity.
“It sounds pretty simplistic,” she says. “But this is one of the only deployments you will ever have in your military experience where you might solve a problem. There are things the Liberians are doing really, really well now. The 101st and element guys did amazing jobs.”
Knowing that her team played a role is an experience Sutten says she will cherish,
“Liberia might have a fighting chance to make things better,” says Sutten, “and that’s a pretty cool deployment to be on.”
PHOTO: U.S. Army Lt. Col. Marne Sutton, right, speaks with CWO Mike Brooks inside the command center. Both are members of the Tampa-based Joint Communication Support Element. JOINT COMMUNICATIONS SUPPORT ELEMENT