2 Fighter Squadron pilots aid in New Orleans Published Feb. 29, 2008 By Jonas Hogg Gulf Defender TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- With their training schedules jos-tled by a two-month grounding, eight pilots from the F-15 basic course at Tyndall packed in, loaded up and headed for south Louisiana and the Big Easy. Capt. Teague Bodley, 1st Lt. John Newman, Capt. Shelby Robb, 1st Lt. Jonah Brown, Capt. Matt Werner, 1st Lt. Ashley Dobbins, 1st Lt. Cameron Hodge and Capt. Russell Badowski arrived in New Orleans just in time for Mardi Gras. But while Bourbon Street and the old town were full of revelers preparing for Lent (or just getting tanked), the pilots from the 2nd Fighter Squadron spent their days in the Ninth Ward, an area still reeling from Hurricane Katrina's devastation. Badowski said the initial inspira-tion came from a conversation with his wife. "I said, 'Hey, honey, what can I do to kill some of this time?' She just started listing off things. One of the things was, 'why don't you go to New Orleans and help out there?'" he said. The group found a company, OnSite Relief Inc., run by a Canadian group that provides lodging for volunteers looking for a short stint in the city. Once the group had a place to stay, the Air Force sanctioned the trip so the time spent volunteering didn't eat up leave time. They piled into a car, and off they went. "The first couple of days of con-struction we went to an elderly man's house in the lower Ninth Ward ... he is trying to rebuild his house basically from the ground up," Badowski said. Volunteering took the group from doing jobs such as painting and cosmetic fixes to doing structural work such as hanging drywall. After flooding, drying and dereliction, Badowski said each job presented its own difficulties. "They're not exactly the most square frames," he said. "It's a learning experience to say the least." The group also spent some time at local animal shelters, still hold-ing up the weight of a large number of Katrina dogs and Katrina cats left ownerless after the mass exodus from the city. But what made the biggest im-pression, Badowski said, was the contrast between the areas carefully manicured for the Mardi Gras crowds and the desolate, forlorn areas still struggling, "neighborhoods that are completely empty except for one or two houses under construction." "It's kind of depressing that the areas, where people actually live are the parts that were hit so hard versus where all the festivities take place. So that people can come in, and you're not going to see what happened," he said. Another reminder of the more human side of the loss was the ubiquitous crosses that emergency personnel had painted on houses after they had been cleared. "You see those on every single house. Even the houses we're rebuilding have those crosses painted over," Badowski said. He said even with the enormity of the task, the work is rewarding and the locals were appreciative. For those working to rebuild a life from the ground up, it was some-times shocking for them to learn that those lending a hand were training to spend their lives soaring above the clouds. "There's a little bit of surprise, but two seconds later they under-stand," he said. "It's kind of neat though, because F-15s fly around here from the guard, and I can say, 'Hey that's what I do," ... Some of the people around kind of find that pretty cool." Despite days full of manual labor, the group did find time to make it to the Fat Tuesday celebrations. Badowski said the almost nonstop schedule made for a "work hard, play hard" environ-ment. Despite the work of the nine pilots, Badowski said there is still much work to be done. "Man, we could do a much better job if we had a little bit more time."