Team Edwards hosts Disability Employment Awareness breakfast

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  • By Diane Betzler
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Representatives from the Edwards Air Force Base Disability Employment Awareness Committee met with military and civilian folks Oct. 22 to introduce them to the AbilityOne Program and learn more about hiring people with disabilities. 

Hosted by the 95th Air Base Wing and co-sponsored by the Air Force Flight Test Center and NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, the meeting was held at Club Muroc where people got to relax, enjoy a hot breakfast and mingle before meeting guest speakers and learning about the everyday challenges people with disabilities are almost always forced to deal with in spite of the skills they have to offer. 

Col. Jerry Gandy, 95th Air Base Wing commander, welcomed everyone to the event and shared a little of the history of National Disability Employment Awareness Month. 

He said the process began in 1945 when Congress declared the first week in October as National Disability and Physically Handicapped Week. 

The colonel said that in 1962 the word physically was removed and in 1988 Congress expanded the week to a month and changed the name to National Disability Employment Awareness Month, which is recognized each October. 

"Today's theme is Expectation plus opportunity equals full participation and we're here today to talk about participating," Colonel Gandy said. 

Chaplin (Cpt.) Joshua Stoley, 95th ABW/HC opened the meeting with a prayer asking that the Edwards community and work places be free from the fear, stigma and prejudices about illnesses and disabilities. 

Gwen Ford, director of Business Operations & Business Development for Project Hired said the mission of her organization is to help people find and sustain employment. 

She said her organization works with companies that support hiring people with disabilities and said they have five locations in northern California. Ford said interested persons can call (408) 557-0880 to make an appointment. 

Keynote speaker Alvin Ramlu has tasted the ugliness of war and is left with the emotional and physical scars that too often are a result of what our warriors are left with after the battles are over. 

Ramlu talked about how the AbilityOne Program is helping him and other wounded American veterans get through the after effects of war and get back to the business of being self supportive and able to continue on in their pursuit of the American dream.
Ramlu's story begins pretty much right out of high school. He's a man who believes in his country, enough that he wanted to make the military his career so he joined the California Army National Guard right after graduation. 

"I thought the Army would provide me with new opportunities to make my life better," he told the breakfast crowd. 

The new recruit was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for basic training and said those 15 weeks were the hardest weeks of his life, but said, "When I finally graduated, I was proud and relieved." 

After Fort Sill Ramlu was sent to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri where he received an additional seven weeks of training driving trucks. 

From there, he went back to his home town of San Mateo, Calif., and went to work full time while continuing his National Guard duties. 

Ramlu said he knew it was just a matter of time before his Guard unit would be sent to Afghanistan or Iraq, so when he learned that the Army was looking for volunteers to go, he stepped up to the plate and volunteered. 

After more specific training that was geared to his mission, Ramlu headed out, "I was eager to get over there and start my time," he said. 

Ramlu said his family was happy to see him begin living the career he chose and said they were proud of him as they saw him off and told him to be careful. 

Private Ramlu was ready to do what he had been trained to do and was proud to be going off to serve his country. 

He was sent to Foward Operating Base Salerno, an urban area of Afghanistan known as an Al Qaeda training ground and Taliban hotspot. "There is a lot of stuff going on there," he said with a distant look of pain still showing in his eyes. 

On his second day in Afghanistan a rocket exploded just a hundred feet from where he was standing and Ramlu said, "That's when it sunk in that this is for real, this isn't a video game." 

Whenever he left the FOB, Ramlu did so fully armed, "I had three different weapons that I carried with me at all times," he said. 

Trained to use them, Ramlu never went far without his M-16, a 50 caliber machine gun, and an M-240 bravo that was mounted on top of the humvee he rode in. 

Ramlu was assigned to security-related missions and drove around looking for roadside bombs and IEDs, improvised explosive devises. 

"I had to clear them away to make the roads safe for the other troops that were leaving the FOB that day," he said, adding that his unit found at least three bombs a week. His job was called a Route Clearing Package Group or as they referred to themselves, the RCP unit. 

"We used to watch the locals to find out who was spying on us to report our locations."
Fluent in Urdu, Ramlu was able to communicate with the locals, he would ask questions like, "Where are the bad people," and translate the answers to his company. 

June 6, 2006, a date edged in his memory forever, a convoy he was riding in met with a suicide bomber near the Pakistan and Afghanistan boarder. 

"The bomber drove straight toward us and blew himself up," Ramlu said in a voice that was barely audible. 

He came to in time to see another rocket explode on the hood of the truck behind his.
"The guys behind us were burned and hanging out of their humvee." 

Ignoring his own injuries, Ramlu ran to the humvee and managed to pull two of his teammates from the burning vehicle while enemy fire raged on. Once he secured the wounded soldiers he went after the shooters, but by then they were gone. Ramlu then radioed for medevac. 

Both men he rescued that day survived and recovered from their injuries. 

"I found out later that one of the guys I helped came back to Iraq for another tour after his burns healed. I was proud to be a part of a group of such brave men," he said. 

Ramlu was presented a Combat Action Badge for his brave actions on that fateful day, which he displays with pride and says he's honored to wear. 

The horrors of war didn't end there for Ramlu, and the events that followed eventually started to take its toll on the young warrior and he began experiencing changes in his mental outlook, changes that frightened him. 

"While on duty in the Middle East I was notified that my grandmother had suffered a stroke, and I could not cope with the stress any longer," he said softly. "In the past I was seen as a leader and a good soldier, but now I wasn't acting like myself."

He wasn't sure what was happening, he only knew he was losing control, "But I wasn't the only one, everyone has high anxiety over there," he said. 

Ramlu says he came back with physical and mental scars, "On the physical side, I have a shrapnel scar on my thigh and permanent hearing loss and I suffer from headaches everyday," he said. 

He says the worse of his injuries is something called Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI. "TBI occurs when a sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. Symptoms of a TBI can be mild, moderate or severe. Basically, I have brain damage," he said, and explained exactly what that means. 

"I have problems with thinking, memory, reasoning, sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, expression and understanding." 

The war-time hero said he's also been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, and says that's been the hardest challenge for him so far. 

"When you're over there, feeling numb helps you cope in war time, but it is very strange to come home and not be able to snap out of it," he said, describing PTSD. 

Ramlu talked about the daily battles he now has to deal with, "When I'm in traffic and someone walks on the crosswalk, I think they are going to blow up. I constantly look in the rear view mirror because I think the enemy is going to get in my car. When cars drive close behind me, I think they are going to explode," he said, then shared what was perhaps his worst experience while in Afghanistan. 

"I was on guard duty, it was about 5:30 in the morning when a little girl who looked to be about 10 to 12 years old joined the line outside the base to come to work. She was wearing a balaclava -- a ski mask. She was in line with other locals waiting to be searched to come inside. 

"While I was looking at her from my guard tower, she exploded, killing about 12 to 20 people around her. I went into shock, the noise from the bomb was so loud," he said softly. 

Ramlu said he gets flashbacks of that incident when he's around his little sister or other little kids. 

"I try to tell myself I'm not there anymore, I'm here, I try to control it," he said. 

Ramlu said he knows he should be happy that he made it back alive, but said like many other veterans, he struggles with what they call survivor's guilt. 

"I question why I made it back alive when so many others didn't." 

Ramlu said that beside all the hardships he's had to deal with, he still loves the Army. "It made me who I am today," he said. 

He said if it wasn't for his injuries and resulting disabilities, he would have stayed in the Army and made the military his career. 

"I had to retired from the military on Feb. 13, 2009, I was brokenhearted," he said.
Once he retired from the Army, however, Ramlu didn't have a clue what he was going to do with his life and says thanks to the AbilityOne Program, he was able to make the transition from military life back to the life of a civilian.

AbilityOne introduced him to Project Hired, an organization that hires people with disabilities, he said. 

Today Ramlu works as a switchboard operator at a veteran's hospital in Palo Alto, Calif. He says he answers approximately 200 calls a day and deals with angry and often times abusive veterans, "but I have compassion for these people, I know how they feel, and I help them as best I can," he said, adding that he can relate to their struggles because he's still dealing with his own. 

"Thanks to the AbilityOne Program and Project Hired, I am able to do that." 

Ramlu says thanks to both programs he can now work and be a productive member of society while he's recovering. 

"Like thousand of other soldiers who have come home wounded since the war began, I have to rearrange my dreams," he said. 

Ramlu said he's not sure what the future holds for him, but says he knows he'll be alright as long as he can work and bring home a paycheck. 

"The AbilityOne Program and Project Hired makes that possible for me and thousands of others who need it so desperately," he said. 

Ramlu then reached out to employers and quoted former President John F. Kennedy who once said, "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them." 

"Signing an AbilityOne contract is your thanks in action," he told those who are in a position to hire. 

"When you go back to your office and a new contract requirement comes across your desk, I ask you to think of these words, and think of me and the 40,000 other people with disabilities who got up and went to work today because of the program. And please remember to think AbilityOne first," Ramlu asked. 

For more information about the AbilityOne Program, contact Gwen Ford at Project Hired or Sara Gray, marketing manager for NISH at (571) 226-4634; or Silvia Ortiz, business development manager at (925) 543-5100.