Giovanna Brooker, a softline manager in the clothing and jewelry department, and Rose Isern, sales and merchandise manager at the Fort Gordon Post Exchange, check merchandise on the sales floor. Bonnie Heater/Fort Gordon Public Affairs The Army and Air Force Exchange Service’s motto is “We Go Where You Go.” The more than 44,000 employees support the men and women in the Armed Forces all over the world by providing good customer service and quality merchandise during war time or peace.

A handful of AAFES employees, much less than the one percent of the men and women who serve in our military today, volunteer to go to war torn areas of the world to bring a few comforts of home to our servicemembers. One of those dedicated volunteer is Rosa M. Isern, the Sales and Merchandise manager in the Fort Gordon Post Exchange. She arrived at Fort Gordon in July 2011 after completing a deployment of nearly three years in Iraq.

Isern began her employment with AAFES in 1991 when her husband was stationed in Germany. At the time she worked as a sales associate in the toy department, a year later, she was promoted to manager of the Power Zone at the AAFES store in Giessen, Germany.

Seven years later and after a few promotions she and her former husband departed Germany for the United States. The permanent change of station move brought them to Fort Drum, N.Y. Since AAFES couldn’t transfer her there at the time, she had to start her career over again as an associate in the cashier cage, on the sales floor and in the Class 6 Store. She later worked as the shift manager in the Fort Drum Military Clothing and Sales Store.

Since then she has taken on some pretty tough assignments with AAFES which has taken her to some remote parts of the world. Isern, who grew up in the warm topical climate of Puerto Rico, volunteered to work a year at the Thule Air Base, Greenland, which is located 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle. As a shift manager of the AAFES store there, she and her employees worked to meet the needs of the multinational population stationed there.

When the war broke out in Iraq Isern felt a strong urge to support the troops. She applied for a tour in Iraq, but was sent to manage a little store for AAFES in Khanabad, Uzbekistan.

“We lived in very primitive conditions,” she said. “I slept on a cot on the floor. We lived in tents and took our showers in a tent. In these remote locations in Iraq and Afghanistan we lived in the same conditions as our troops existed in.”

Isern recalled an incident which involved the U.S. Marines fighting there. “A Marine captain contacted me and asked for some specific supplies and merchandise,” she said. “I packed up about 30,000 to 35,000 pounds of merchandise including tobacco products, magazines, toilettes, snack foods such as chips and sodas and it was loaded on a Chinook helicopter.” They called these missions at that time “Rodeos”.

Wearing a Kevlar helmet, uniform and boots just as the Soldiers and Marines did, she boarded the helicopter. “We landed at a remote area and I set up a little store,” continued Isern. “Our arrival lifted the spirits of our Marines and special forces.

“We stay there to completed our mission; the next day we flew back,” explained Isern. “We did this every two weeks to support the troops in remote areas in Afghanistan.

“I can remember at one of the camps I flew into it sustained some shelling shortly after we arrived,” she added. “It was impossible to leave. At this particular location it was normal to be shelled three or four times a week. It wasn’t until the next day before we could safely fly out of there.”

Despite the dangers and inconvenience, Isern enjoyed her assignments because of the opportunity to help her customers and their families. At the large AAFES store in Mosul, Iraq, where they did about $1.5 million in sales the customer base was made up of Department of State civilian employees, Special Forces members, contractors, and members of our coalition forces. “You get to know each of them as they shop at AAFES,” said Isern. “They become your friends. Many share major events in their lives. They bring baby pictures at the birth of a child and share news of a Soldier who has been killed. This is true whether you are at a remote site in Afghanistan, or Iraq or at the Post Exchange at Mosul. You become a part of a big family.”

Isern, a two-time breast cancer survivor, who runs annually in a Susan G. Komen Race to raise money for breast cancer research, upholds and lives the AAFES motto just as our service members live up to the values in their service creeds.

“ I’m a mobile manager for AAFES; I go anywhere, especially where our military go,” explained Isern. For her dedication to our military and their families she received in December 2011 a plaque and certificate of appreciation for her contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation New Dawn missions for the period of November 2008 to June 2011.