FROM OUR PRINT EDITIONBy Dennis LaRueYOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- And still they serve, volunteers all. They are the men and women of the Air Force Reserve's 910th Operations and 910th Maintenance groups.Their hours are long, their training rigorous and demanding for the active duty they've been assigned in hostile climes, duty against people hostile to the United States. And they contend, from time to time, with the bureaucracy who's supposed to be working in their behalf.Assignments half-way around the world can come -- and often have -- on short notice.Extensions of their active duty have become commonplace, separation from their families routine. Helping overcome the physical distances are means of communication unknown in previous conflicts, e-mail, or over too expensive for widespread use, the telephone.Their living quarters and the quality of the food the Air Force provides, here and abroad, would create envy among those who preceded them. Regardless, being separated from their families and being away from home is no easier today.Still they serve, volunteers who believe in their fellow reservists and the United States.These are some of their stories.Tech. Sgt. Krista Rosato, aviation resource managerSgt. Rosato, on active duty more than a year, "has put my life on hold," she says.Her civilian job, customer-service specialist for MBNA, the credit-card giant, prepared her well for her duties as an aviation resource manager. "This was not a hard adjustment," Rosato says. "There are data bases to update every day," the aviation resource manager says."You have to make sure the flying time records are accurate and everybody is paid accurately [because] the officers and enlisted are paid on a different scale," Rosato says.Rosato likes what she does and aspires to be an officer. She intends to apply for officer training school when an opening occurs. She joined the Reserve in 1996 to help pay for college at the main campus of Kent State University -- she received her baccalaureate in business management in 2001 -- and has studied "all aspects of leadership skills."With two weeks' notice, Rosato was sent to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany and, again on two weeks' notice, was sent to Oman and Kuwait.She "worked in operations to make sure the flights would be flown every day." Deployment to Germany, she recalls, "was fun. There wasn't a lot of hardship. "The building we worked in was the same as this one. People worked hard over there."Service in Kuwait and Oman, about 1 1/2 months of 12 hours on, 12 hours off, was not as pleasant. "We lived in air-conditioned tents [in Kuwait, in air-conditioned trailers in Oman]. The coolness kept out the bugs and spiders," she says. The 910th's crews "flew around the clock, on longer missions, with longer hours."Adjusting to the heat and the change in time zones wasn't that hard. Being restricted to the base didn't bother her, she says, "because all Americans were restricted. Besides, there was nothing off base except sand. I was kind of liking the no-rain thing."The Air Force kept its member well-supplied with "tons of bottled water," Rosato says. And "the showers were fine" although the dry air reduced the need for a towel. "It was 115 degrees in Kuwait. No matter when you showered, you came out sweating. So you kept drinking plenty of water.Off-time was often spent in the gym. Her diet was healthful: "The food in Oman was quite good, Indian and Omani dishes," the technical sergeant says, supplemented by "plenty of cereals and fruits. And you could never go wrong with grilled cheese."Despite e-mail and satellite phones, separation from family and friends was tough emotionally. She has been pleased by the support given her from her employer. "MBNA has been absolutely great," Rosato says. "I keep them updated and they've been nothing but supportive."The most unsettling aspect of deployment? "We never knew when we were coming home," she says. "My group was given two week's notice but we didn't believe it until we were on the plane."Rosato is scheduled to be deployed to Kurdistan next month. While service in Asia is no walk in the park, "that's only 10% of it, 90% is what you make it," she says. "The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have it much harder."Sr. Airmen Curtis Stein and Kyle BurtonAirmen Curtis Stein of Sugar Creek would amend the Navy's old recruiting slogan to "Join the Air Force Reserve and see the world.""I've been to almost 20 countries," he says. Among them: Germany, Italy, Sardinia, Greece, Turkey, Kuwait, Oman, England, Kosovo and Bosnia. He's only 22.Burton, age 21, of Ravenna, has also logged a considerable number of hours in flight and "travelled most of Europe" since enlisting March 13, 2001. His basic training began Sept. 25, 2001, and he was near the end of his advanced training in Germany as an aerospace maintenance mechanic when he and Stein, another mechanic, were informed they had been activated. Both had to fly home to be officially assigned to active duty so they could fly back in their new status.Others in the reserve found themselves in similar situations and groused about what they saw as the needless expense and inefficiency of being flown home, sworn into active duty and flown back to the posts they'd left."The only way to do it correctly," explains Brig. Gen. Michael Gjede, "is to bring them home to see that their wills are in place, their families have the proper I.D. cards and that there aren't any medical issues." Were it simply swearing them into active duty, he agrees, there would be no need to fly them home. "For some," Gjede continues, "it's a brief opportunity to see their family. Some will be gone seven, eight months."Knowing he would be activated so soon after joining the reserve, Stein says, "wouldn't have changed anything. I've had a desire to serve."Stein was a student at Kent State University. The professors and administrations "have been understanding," he says.Burton echoes Stein. "I wouldn't change anything." After a semester at KSU, he transferred to the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics. "I'm enrolled there now," he says, and that school has been equally understanding."Flying is really exciting," Burton offers. As crew chiefs, they are "in charge of making sure the plane is ready to fly."Both men treat being in the reserve as an adventure, the downside being separated from family and not knowing how long active status will continue.Stein is engaged to another reservist. "It's rough whenever I leave her," he says. "It helps that she knows what the commitment is."1st Lt. George LenahanLt. Lenahan "is more familiar with combat procedures than local [910th Air Wing] procedures," he says, because of the "suddenness I was thrust into pilot duties."Lenahan, of Canfield, was "a new pilot" deployed with all of "20 hours of flying time under his belt," says Capt. Brent Davis.True, Lenahan is quick to admit. "A soon as I finished training, I was activated." Air Force pilot training is so "intensive," he says, he was prepared.Lenahan had his private pilot's license. "That seems to be an unwritten rule," he says.Lenahan, a systems analyst in civilian life, "always wanted to fly," he says. Once he was commissioned an officer and sent to flight school, he learned aspiring pilots come in two personalities, those who want to fly fighters and engage in combat and those who want to fly cargo craft in support of combat operations.Training is rigorous for both, he found: "10- to 12-hour days for most of 26 weeks. You had to know in great detail all the systems and procedures for both types of craft, the air-traffic control systems, the master visual-flight procedures, 'airbatics,' emergency procedures and formation flying."Lenahan came to love the C-130. "It's a very maneuverable plane," he says. "They're still flying into dirt airstrips." He takes satisfaction that he can take a C-130 as low as 200 feet to drop off the craft's payloads although 300 feet is more the rule.Lenahan has served in Oman and Kuwait as well as Germany. "I was in training at Little Rock when I was deployed to Germany," he remembers. In the Middle East, Lenahan and his colleagues found themselves in the air as much as 10 hours a day. "We flew every other day," he says. Eighteen-hour days were the norm on the days he flew because of the time spent in briefing and in the planes waiting to take off and time spent in landing zones.He flew soldiers in and out of Iraq and has only praise for the flight crews' competence.Air-conditioned tents made it easier to sleep. The food, "basically American cuisine," and "thousands of video tapes and DVDs and games in the rec rooms" helped pass the time. "We got off base to do some sightseeing" when time allowed, he says.Capt. Michelle MolliseCapt. Mollise, of Elizabeth, Pa., is another pilot whose civilian background lends itself to the Air Force. At Robert Morris College she earned her baccalaureate in business with a specialization in aviation management. Along the way, she received an associate's degree at Community College of Beaver County and passed the tests for her commercial and multi-instrument pilot's license.After Robert Morris, she took a job as a manager with United Express Airlines in Washington, D.C. "but found I missed flying." She enlisted in the Air Force Reserve in 1999, was sworn in as a staff sergeant and sent to officer training school. She was promoted to captain 11 months ago.Mollise has seen duty in Germany, an assignment she enjoyed because of her fluency in German and because of the number of hours she spent flying. "There were different missions in Germany all the time," she says. "We flew into Iraq two or three times during the war. We would deploy outside Iraq first and then fly into Iraq. It kept you on your toes. That and Afghanistan."Transporting troops in an out was the assignment of many of her flights. As might be expected, "There was a mood swing you could see between the people we were taking in and the people we were taking out," she says.On desert duty in Kuwait and Oman, where there was more stress, "I hung out in the gym a lot. When you feel stressed, you go run." She also took advantage of the rec room's music library "to unwind."Sustaining her, she says, "is the camaraderie" of her fellow 910th reservists and the support from her parents, Salvatore and Nancy Mollise. "They've been present every time to see me off," she says. One thing hasn't changed since she first saw a C-130. Growing up, "I was always around 130s," she remembers. "I always thought 130s were the coolest airplanes."Sr. Master Sgts. Rafael Zuniga and Michael PattonSergeants Zuniga and Patton are as indispensable as anyone can be to keeping the cargo planes flying out of Vienna.As fabrication flight chief, Patton of Hubbard oversees the welding shop that repairs and fabricates the metal in the aircraft. As accessories flight chief, Zuniga, of Highland Village, Texas, makes sure the electrical, environmental, hydraulic and fuel systems are in order. And, he says, "I make sure that scheduling and training is available to the personnel" he oversees.In civilian life, Patton is a manager at Thomas Steel Strip, Zuniga an aircraft maintenance technician at Delta Airlines. "I'm one of the lucky ones who gets to use my aircraft experience here," he says.Patton, 20 years in the military, is most familiar with machine shops. "That's where I got my hands-on experience," he remarks.Both laud their employers' support of their extended absences. "Thomas Steel has been absolutely great," Patton says. "They've carried my health benefits. They keep in touch. "As a large employer, it might seem that Delta can better afford Zuniga's absence. As he points out, though, many of his fellow Delta mechanics are also members of the Reserve and called to active duty. "Delta has been very understanding," he says.Both joined the Air Force right out of high school and take great satisfaction in their contributions to the service.Patton, 46, says he joined because "I needed an education for a trade and lacked money for college." Zuniga "saw an opportunity to become independent and get out on my own" when an Air Force recruiter saw him.He still lives in Texas and hasn't been home in eight months although his wife came to Cleveland last Christmas. "I keep in touch with my family by phone. [Shortly after he was activated in early 2003,] I changed my phone service to unlimited long distance. I talk to my wife every day. That's the hardest part of my deployment."Times being what they are for the domestic steel industry, Patton finds active duty "is easier than my civilian job. I work in an industry that's constantly trying to get more out of the equipment than it was designed for." The Air Force won't brook that.Both have been to Germany and were quartered off-base when the United States went to war with Iraq. "The hardest thing for us was the opposition the Germans had," Zuniga says. "We worked staggered shifts" and were driven to work "on different routes" to thwart the demonstrators. They did not put on their uniforms until they arrived at Ramstein.What made them most proud, they say, was the quality of the work their men produced. "It was amazing to me how much we out-performed [those on] active duty."Why? "Because of the experience and continuity" the 910th fosters. The relative lack of turnover, the camaraderie, the willingness to share -- all contributed to high morale and, as its members see it, accomplishing the mission."