Airmen busy building gazebos

by Veronica Sandate Craker
Northwest Guardian

12/19/2014 - JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. -- For 21 days 15 service members and one civilian have been under controlled monitoring at Joint Base Lewis-McChord for the Ebola virus.

They've all returned from missions that took them to West Africa. While under supervision at the old World War II barracks on Lewis North, they have passed the time playing games, reading books and eating. But for three Airman civil engineers sitting around just wasn't going to cut it. Instead they decided to keep their hands busy by building two gazebos.

"We're the first group that came through here so we wanted to leave it a little bit better than when we came," Capt. John Richwine, 819th RED HORSE Squadron, said. "There's not as many outdoor areas with as much rain as this area gets. So we wanted to give a little bit of cover over the head for the other groups coming in later."

Joint Base Lewis-McChord is one of five installations receiving troops returning from West Africa. Service members and civilians are being monitored for the Ebola virus for 21 days before being released.

Richwine and three other Airman requested the lumber and JBLM officials had it sent in. The men built two 96 square-foot gazebos. And the Airmen are no stranger to construction. All three men are engineers.

"It's great, you don't have to be sitting around all day," Richwine said. "You can actually be doing something that means something."

All 16 people being monitored at JBLM were medically cleared and departed the base Tuesday.