 There is this little girl who I met early on in my stay in New Jersey. I never knew her name, but she had a hat, with a star on it. And right from the beginning, she would hold my finger and walk with me wherever I went. The OAW, which was Operations Allies Welcome, was a humanitarian mission that was intended to take Afghan refugees and kind of be the first step in transferring them into the United States. I was stationed in McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, and we were the night shift escorts, which our job was to basically take refugees who were coming from Philadelphia International. We were taking them from the bus and moving them to their rooms within the tents in Village 3. When it comes to preconceived notions, of course, there are a lot. I'm a person from a Western society, and I'm now having to work with people from an Eastern society. I expected them to have less than positive sentiments over the military, and they loved us. So a lot of preconceived notions were destroyed there, but a lot of now beliefs in the goodness within man have improved and have been strengthened by OAW. The biggest takeaway I would want people to have from OAW was that the military can do more. Is that we can do the humanitarian work that is fulfilling. We can do the things that make this world a much better place in the nice way. We can help people who need it. Helping refugees is a great feeling. The average day for me as a night escort in Village 3, they start off with getting there, and then you may have people who are coming into the camp, and then you'd have outbound, where you'd be taking villagers who were leaving to go to Philadelphia International to their final destination. And then one night when we're doing departures, I go to a tent, just like any other, and I realize a family who I'm loading up to go to Philadelphia International was that little girl. And the whole night she wouldn't let go of me. And I rode on the bus with her. I can still see her face going on that bus to leave the base. And I think I'm going to look back on OAW for the rest of my life.