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Area Reservists return from Afghanistan
VIENNA
Air Force Reserve Tech. Sgt. Abby Scharboneau and Senior Airman Joshua Shaffer say they haven’t stopped smiling since arriving home Wednesday night from a deployment in Afghanistan.
Scharboneau and Shaffer are among 17 members of the 910th Airlift Wing’s 76th Aerial Port Squadron who this week finished active duty tours at Kandahar Airfield, a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) base where more than 10,000 coalition soldiers and contractors are based.
Scharboneau, 28, and Shaffer, 25, both of Warren, talked about their experiences between debriefing sessions Friday when they received advice on reuniting with families and friends and civilian jobs and dealing with changes that may have occurred.
Scharboneau, for whom this was a second deployment, has kept in touch via an Internet telephone and video-calling service, with her husband, Scott, and 2-year-old twin daughters, Allie and Cassie.
“I think that helps. They were excited I was home, and they remembered me. That was what I was worried about,” she said. The family celebrated a belated Christmas on Friday.
A daughter of Rick and Bonnie Ruetenik of Williamsfield, Scharboneau is a 2000 graduate of Pymatuning Valley High School and 2006 graduate of Youngstown State University.
The hardest part of the duty was having to work on a base controlled by NATO, not the Air Force, and having to adjust to different conditions and ways of doing things ... that and having the same food day after day, said Shaffer.
He is the son of Jim Shaffer of Kinsman and Anita Shaffer of The Bronx, N.Y.
The food seemed decent at first, but chicken and beef cubes and rice got a little old after a while, he said.
They typically worked 12 hours a day, six days a week. Scharboneau said she spent her off-duty time doing laundry and sleeping, and Shaffer said he worked out at the gym and watched a lot of movies and television. This was his third deployment in as many years.
They, along with the other reservists, are preparing to get back to their civilian lives, Scharboneau as a wife and mother and a teller at the 717 Credit Union in Hubbard.
Shaffer, a 2004 graduate of LaBrae High School, is a junior at Thiel College in Greenville, Pa., where he is studying to become a mathematics teacher.
Though she is glad to be home and not necessarily looking forward to her next deployment, Scharboneau said she is “proud to serve.”
Shaffer said he enjoys the dual life of a reservist and civilian and is “very proud. I’m doing my part for my country, and it is helping pay my way through college.”