POWERGRAMS

7 Smith is a field service representative in Montgomery. Photo by Dana McGregor "I kept a weapon locked and loaded at all times because you never knew if you were going to get attacked," Smith said. Next stop – the front lines Smith's unit finished its project in June and was sent home for three weeks of "R&R." Then, it was back to Afghanistan. But this time, they were sent to Kandahar, a terrorist hotbed. Smith, who had been promoted to staff sergeant E6, led his unit in a road construction project. "When we first got there, the terrain was so rough that it took about three hours to drive 20 miles," he said. "Our task was to make it a super highway so that military personnel could go back and forth with ease. By the time we finished, it took about 40 to 45 minutes to go the same distance." Smith said the U.S. soldiers had to keep their eyes open because terrorists had hidden bombs along the roads. A security team went ahead of the unit to spot and disarm IEDs. Because they were working "outside the wire" in hostile territory, the soldiers were always on guard. Smith remembers a few times when the men were forced to drop their tools to engage in firefights. The Army unit was a target even in their living quarters, Smith said. "Once we had a rocket-propelled grenade fired in our direction in the middle of the night, and it landed about 20 feet from where we were sleeping," Smith said. "Because we never knew what was going to happen, we would have our boots and weapons next to us. That's how we slept." Turning huts into homes Smith said when they arrived in Kabul, the living quarters were primitive. They slept in huts with rocky dirt floors. But as engineers, the men turned the place into a home, adding plywood partitions and flooring. Showers and a refrigerator were soon installed. But the soldiers had no way of quickly heating their food. That's when Smith, who worked in the Wetumpka Office at the time, turned to his coworkers for help. "The Wetumpka Office, led by James Thrash (former manager), sent me a microwave," Smith said. "You just don't know how proud I was of Alabama Power." The rest of the story Smith joined the Army Reserve in 1991 while attending Alabama A&M University in Huntsville. As an equipment operator, he spent the next 12 years traveling with his engineering unit on short overseas relief missions, including to Honduras, El Salvador, the Bahamas and Germany. They rebuilt roads, schools and other buildings following emergency situations and natural disasters. After returning from Afghanistan in March 2005, Smith made a promise to his wife that he would stay home. Smith, who has worked in and around the Montgomery area since joining Alabama Power in 1998, was still making the monthly trek to Huntsville for his weekend reserve duty. He switched to the Air Force Reserve in 2006, where he worked as a cargo inspector in the 908th Air Wing until he retired from the military five years later. Smith said hands down, the most difficult part of his military career was the months he spent in the Middle East. "It was a wartime situation," he said. "We knew we had to have each other's back, and we had to trust our life to the man next to us." "I thank God I was able to survive," he continued. "But no matter what happened over there, I knew I was called to defend my country." By Carla Davis

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