THE WARRIOR ZONE: Facility offers something different for single service members

Published May 1, 2013
By Air Force Staff Sgt. Robert Barnett
JBER Public Affairs

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- Crammed into building 655 along with the Arctic Chill and the BOSS program is the Warrior Zone on JBER.

"The building is a community activity center," said Bill Miracle, Warrior Zone program manager with the 673d Force Support Squadron. "What makes this different from other military facilities is that the Warrior Zone is an adult-only facility. 18 and above, period, with the exception of a 17-year-old active duty or reservist."

The focus of the Warrior Zone is the single service members.

"Everybody else within the military community has a place to go," Miracle said. "Your families have their quarters; they have Child Development Centers, youth centers. Where does that single service member go? The only place they had to go back was to the barracks."

Miracle said he has seen every rank and service use his facility, from 18-year-old Soldiers to Air Force chiefs. It has taken a lot of work to get where they are today.
"I've been here since June 2006; it was opened with a $25,000 budget," he said. "We begged and borrowed from every other agency within the community to get basic furniture out of the hotels and lodging. Some new equipment was bought, like the pool tables."

Since then, everything's been completely re-done, he said.

"Probably six months after me taking control of the facility, there was a chunk of end-of-year money available," the program manager said. "They gave it to me, and that afforded me the opportunity to reconfigure the entire lower level of the building."

He put the money to use filling the Warrior Zone with equipment. The place has three TV rooms and a nine-seat mini theater with an 80-inch TV. All the TV rooms have high-definition TV, cable and surround sound. The Warrior Zone also has a game room with 15 TVs and two projectors; each wired so that an Xbox, a PlayStation3 or a Wii can be plugged into it. There's also a pool room with ping-pong and foosball, air hockey, darts, and three pool tables.

All of which is absolutely free, he said.

"The only thing that would cost you anything is a small snack bar that we run out of the issue cage," Miracle said. "And I run a CD repair service. Video games can be $60 a game, versus $2 if I can repair it. If I can't fix it, it's not fixable. The benefit is definitely there."

With all the free equipment and entertainment provided, Miracle said the budget cuts are still being felt.

"We've absolutely been affected by the budget cuts," he said. "We've had to make some schedule changes. There will be a reduction in hours of operation. The way I've designed it is minimal impact to my customers."

Miracle said as cuts go deeper, his employees would be affected before his customers are. If budget cuts go much deeper, there could be mission impact.

"We run thousands of copies a month for both personal needs and mission support," he said. "I'm hoping that we will continue to provide free printing and free copying. Most of that is mission support, especially on the Soldier side. They use my cyber zone, which has 32 computers, two webcams, two printers and two scanners. They use that for all of their pre-deployment, post-deployment and annual trainings, they print the certificates verifying that they did it. All of that comes out of my cyber zone."

The Warrior Zone program manager said without his facility for troops to take online training and print certificates, many wouldn't be able to get it done.

"We're embedded in the mission support side as much as we're focused on leisure," he said. "We do a huge amount of mission support; if we didn't do it, it just wouldn't get done. That would have a major impact on readiness; we're a force multiplier, we keep the mission running. I facilitate and accommodate customer needs for the mission."
The budget cuts are making many programs go away, but Miracle doesn't see that happening to the Warrior Zone.

"I can see a lot of things going away," he said. "I can't see this program going away any time soon. It's such a unique facility; it was the first in the Army, and it's the first in the Air Force. Because of the importance of what we do, for the mission and for leisure, I don't think the Army or the Air Force can afford to close this facility. I don't mean that in a financial matter, I mean that in a mission support element. We're too high-visibility; too many people love this facility."

This fiscal year so far, Miracle said he's already had more than 45,500 customers; approximately 8,000 people a month.

"That's a lot of people," he said. "That's only what I'm physically catching, that's a Soldier or an Airman coming to the issue cage to utilize whatever free assets we have here. If you take the one Soldier or Airman that signs in and then heads down to play pool with a few buddies, that's people I'm not even counting.

"I understand financial crises, and this place doesn't run for free. The operating budget here is probably $300,000 a year. But if you divide it by the number of patrons, the math is pretty good. We do a lot for the money and labor that's invested into this, though we've made some serious cuts."

Miracle has to make tough decisions as budget cuts continue. He doesn't do all of it alone; he works side-by-side with the Better Opportunities for Single Service members program.

"I'm also involved in the day-to-day missions of the BOSS program," he said. "That program is part of this as well."

It makes sense to work with the BOSS program president, he said.

"It's a think tank," he said. "Sgt. [Tim] Kacillas (the BOSS president) can come up with an idea, I can take that idea and I go to other facilities that have all other equipment like snowmachines, and I can tap into that and incorporate that into the BOSS program. If we already have the equipment, there's no reason to make the Soldier or Airman pay high-end dollars off base for what I can do at no cost."

Because programs like Joint Base Against Drunk Driving fall under the BOSS program, Miracle provides support for that as well.

"We have a room that's designated for the JBADD volunteers," he said. "The idea behind that is that if I'm going to have volunteers come in, I'm going to support them. If you come in and volunteer, I don't want you sitting there looking at a phone twiddling your thumbs waiting for a call."

To make things better, the room is equipped with a TV, leather furniture, Xboxes, PS3s, games and movies for volunteers to utilize while waiting for a call.

"We've even had card tables in there and board games, so if there're multiple volunteers in there you're passing the time," he said. "It's fun, everybody gets to interact; you've got Airmen and Soldiers talking. Even the volunteers can have fun. We've had all ranks volunteering from privates upward, and that's great because without command buy-in, this project wouldn't succeed."

For all the money-saving entertainment he gives troops and support his facility provides the mission, Miracle said he loves his job.

"I have the greatest job on the face of the Earth," he said. "I'm retired military, so I know where these guys are coming from. I've lived in the barracks. I like to refer to myself as the anti-barracks-rat. My job is to get you out of the barracks and into a fun, safe environment at no cost.

"I know young Soldiers and young Airmen don't make a lot of money, I would rather see that money go into something smart than into a gaming system or a movie. As long as they fund me and I'm able to do what I do, we're going to have a major impact on the young Soldiers and Airmen.

"I love what I do. There're some amazing people within the military forces, people that could be doing a whole lot better and making a whole lot more money on the outside, so I take my hat off to them for doing what they do on a daily basis," Miracle said.
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