Steven Cheaney This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. thefacts.com

   www.thefacts.com/story.lasso?w - [Cached]

   Published on: 5/7/2003   Last Visited: 5/7/2003

   WEST COLUMBIA - Steven Cheaney will soon have the Houston skyline as the backdrop for his work in the military.
   
   His last job came with the backdrop of war.
   
   For the last seven months, the 37-year-old Navy petty officer has been in the Middle East as part of the U.S. forces doing battle with Iraq.
   
   "You could look out at the distance and see bombs being dropped," he said of the Iraqi horizon.
   ...
   The danger is over for Cheaney, 37. He has been transferred to the U.S. Navy's Houston recruiting district office. Cheaney is on a 30-day leave. Next month, he will go to Pensacola, Fla., to train as a recruiter. Then he will be assigned to Houston district office.
   
   "Now the only things that scare me are drunk drivers, hurricanes and fires," Cheaney said with a smile.
   
   The West Columbia resident came home last week and was reunited with his wife, Mary, and their four children. She said that she is glad to have her husband back at home doing chores, rather than in the midst of the dangers of war.
   
   "I've got a whole list of ‘honey do's' for him," she said.
   
   Cheaney, a 1983 graduate of Columbia High School, has been in the Navy for 16 years. He moved back to the area in 1995, when he was a recruiter for the Navy. He left the area as a recruiter in 1998, but kept his home here. His most recent posting was at a base in Gulfport, Miss.
   
   In 16 years, Cheaney has been deployed to many places around the world, including Japan, Bahrain and Puerto Rico, before his latest deployment to the war in Iraq.
   
   Cheaney's job in the Middle East was as a mess specialist with the U.S. Naval Construction Battalion, known as the Seabees. He was responsible for food production for the troops in the Seabees, which build structures such as bridges.
   
   Cheaney said he was deployed to Kuwait in October. He spent four months at an air base in Al Jabar, where the Seabees built a 17-acre concrete pad for landing helicopters, he said.
   
   "I was making about 160 or 170 plates for one meal," he said of his time in Al Jabar. "I was doing that for four meals a day - breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight rations."
   
   Cheaney was then moved to Camp 93 in northern Iraq, where he stayed for a month before moving into northern Kuwait in March.
   
   Cheaney said not long after arriving in Iraq, there was a horrific sandstorm that lasted four days.
   
   "It was the worst one they had in 50 years," Cheaney said. "I crawled in a 15-ton dump truck - me and two other guys. You couldn't see beyond the hood. It got so bad, you could only see where the blade of the windshield wiper was. I was in there for a good 10 hours."
   
   Cheaney said he will never forget the sand.
   
   "It was in the food, in your tent, in your eyes," Cheaney said. "There was no place it was not."
   
   Cheaney was in the midst of renegotiating his duty assignment when he was deployed. The war delayed the reassignment by about two months, he said.
   
   When he was informed he was coming home, he said he had mixed feelings. He wanted be with his family in West Columbia, but felt guilty about leaving his other "family" in Iraq.
   
   "There's a camaraderie there with the other men and women," Cheaney said. "When you eat, sleep and live with the same group of people, it's like it's with your own family. You know when they are sad and when they are happy. I left one family to come back to another family."
   
   Cheaney said that while he was in the Middle East, he got care packages from neighbors and local veterans groups. Some neighbors even helped his family by mowing the lawn and repairing a vehicle. He said the support meant a lot.
   
   "That's a boost of morale," he said.