From Deployments to Departures to Deadlines: How a Service Member and His Family Have Leveraged the USO

By Danielle DeSimone

No matter where his service has taken him – from stateside missions to overseas deployments – there has been at least one thing that Ohio Air National Guard Maj. Daniel Lutz has been able to count on: the USO.

The USO is committed to providing support to the people who serve, and their military families, throughout their time in uniform. In big ways and small, our programs, events and resources are designed to help ease the stressors of daily life in the military and ensure that the military community knows that their sacrifices are not forgotten.

Here is how Daniel and his family have benefitted from the USO, both at home and abroad.

How the USO Supported Daniel Through Deployment

Daniel did not always intend to join the military. Born and raised in Ohio, when he graduated from high school in 2001, Daniel explained that at the time, he was not that ambitious in his post-graduation goals, and he was not quite sure how he was going to pay for college. He had few family connections to the military, and, in fact, he described himself as “way more alternative with my long hair, playing guitar.”

But then, Daniel witnessed the terrorist attacks of September 11th.

“9/11 kind of changed my perspective on the military,” he said. “I thought to myself, ‘I would defend my home, I would defend my state.’ And then I thought – what’s the difference in defending your borders if you had to do that from abroad and keeping your nation and your home safe?”

So, Daniel joined the Air National Guard in Columbus, Ohio. As a member of the 121st Air Refueling Wing, Daniel spent his first 12 years of service maintaining the KC-135 Stratotanker while also working on his college degree.

“My decision to join the Guard was wholly influenced by the events of 9/11 and it has taken my family on a 23-year adventure,” Daniel said. “It has definitely altered the trajectory of our life course.”

While enlisted, Daniel undertook multiple Temporary Duty (TDY) assignments and was also deployed to Qatar. His wife was pregnant with their youngest child at the time. In 2013, Daniel was commissioned as an officer and four years later he was deployed again, this time to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

When recalling the time he has spent away from his family while on deployment, Daniel joked that “those were the years of the phone bank centers.” It was difficult to maintain constant contact with his loved ones back home due to limited technology, phone and internet access, and of course some deployments were more difficult than others. Daniel recalls during his deployment to the UAE, his youngest daughter would call him on the phone crying, asking “When are you coming home? When is this over?”

Eventually, however, the family would fall into a comfortable routine and learn to adjust to military family life during deployment – and Daniel credits a lot of this resilience to his wife.

“My wife – she’s a powerhouse.”

But even when forced to be apart during times such as the holidays, Daniel and his family tried their best to stay in touch and keep traditions alive. For example, while deployed to the UAE, his children were extremely concerned that Santa Claus wouldn’t be able to find Daniel overseas. Daniel made sure to decorate the Christmas tree in his office and sent his children photos of “Santa’s footsteps” around the tree, assuring them that Santa had found his way to the Middle East to find their dad.

These deployments to the Middle East were some of the first instances Daniel encountered the USO outside of the airport USO Centers he was so familiar with. In addition to these airport lounges that help ease the stress of travel for service members and military families alike, the USO has a total of 250+ USO Centers around the globe, located on military bases and ships, where the military community can turn to for support.

“I frequented the USO Center on Al Dhafra Air Base, in the UAE, on a pretty regular basis during that deployment because it was a good little hangout and meet up spot,” Daniel recalled.

But the USO’s support became especially crucial for Daniel not while overseas, but when carrying out stateside missions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Throughout the first two years of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ohio National Guard and other Ohio state defense members carried out hundreds of humanitarian missions, with more than 6,000 Guard members deployed between 2020-2022. Like the tens of thousands of other Guard members activated across the nation, these service members rallied in support of their communities in a myriad of ways. Whether it was serving as medical professionals in field hospitals, delivering crucial medical supplies or groceries to those in need, staffing COVID-19 testing sites, or even distributing COVID-19 vaccines, members of the U.S. military across the nation stepped up to help protect their fellow citizens against the disease.

Daniel was one of those service members. He was activated and served as the only U.S. Air Force logistics personnel assigned to a joint task force in Ohio that was made up mostly of U.S. Army soldiers and responsible for pandemic response efforts. Daniel would eventually be joined by other Air Force logistics personnel as operations continued to increase, but in those first few weeks, he was on his own.

Their missions varied, but members of this joint task force were primarily responsible for providing support to assisted living and nursing facilities for the elderly. As both staff and residents fell ill, there were not enough people to care for these elderly members of the community. In response, the Ohio National Guard and Air National Guard deployed service members to help.

These military medical professionals administered medications, assessed conditions and vital signs of the residents, cleaned the facilities, assisted with laundry, delivered meals and generally facilitated crucial care for these nursing home residents. And Daniel coordinated it all.

“We were doing these nursing home missions where we’d send out a team of seven and they’d work these long hours and for four days they’d be at nursing homes that were lacking critical staff and were just in bad conditions,” he explained.

However, these missions could take a toll on these service members who were working under the risk of contracting COVID-19 themselves, all while leaving their loved ones behind to carry out their mission. Daniel recalled how seeing the elderly in poor conditions was sometimes difficult for the service members attempting to support them, and aside from the emotional strain, their schedules were also challenging. If they weren’t at nursing homes, then they were at vaccine testing sites, pulling long shifts.

“It was like a 5:00 a.m. start and they’d come and get their supplies, and then they would drive three hours out,” Daniel said. “And then they’d do an eight-hour vaccine test day and then drive back at five o'clock in the afternoon, six, seven o'clock at night. Just horrendously long, 14-hour days.”

Assigned to organize the logistics of these missions, Daniel recognized that members of his joint task force needed a morale boost after these grueling days out in the field. And so, when the USO reached out to see if his unit needed any support, he immediately began working with USO staff. One particular USO employee named Sue Ann worked very closely with Daniel, consistently delivering every time his unit needed something.

“We worked together almost on a daily basis, with her finding ways to bless big and bless small,” Daniel said. “Sometimes it was just a team of five and hot meal, and other times it was 600 people in Camp Perry.”

Daniel began regularly coordinating with USO staff to deliver everything from hot meals to entire semi-trucks of power drinks and snacks to service members working around the clock on pandemic relief efforts.

“I was working with the USO for more than a year – and I had a great time doing it.”

During one particular activation, their unit had been called up with very little notice, so on their first night, they had not yet finalized the logistics of arranging hot meals. The unit was going to have to eat MREs – until Daniel once again called the USO.

“As soon as I called, that was it. She ran with it. The USO fed 600 people that night with barbecue.”

When considering the immense challenges and risks of serving during the COVID-19 pandemic, a hot meal might seem like simple gesture. But when far from home, exhausted after a long day’s work in stressful conditions and facing the prospect of heating your dinner up out of an MRE bag, having a hot meal can have a profoundly positive impact on service members. Aside from the meal itself, these moments were a reminder to hardworking Guard members that the sacrifices they were making on behalf of their Ohio communities was not forgotten.

“That kind of stuff made a huge difference, for sure,” Daniel said.

How the USO Supports Daniel and His Family in Germany

Daniel is currently stationed on Ramstein Air Base, Germany, as part of a years-long tour. Although this is technically an unaccompanied tour, his wife and children – who are still in Ohio – fly over to Germany to visit him for limited periods of time. Daniel and his wife have three children: their oldest son is aged 18; then a 17-year-old daughter, a 15-year-old daughter and his wife is currently pregnant with their fourth child. Because their children are homeschooled, the Lutz family has the flexibility to move between the U.S. and Germany, and his wife and children have fully embraced the adventure of military life.

“It’s a back-and-forth game for them, which is another huge use that we’ve used the USO for,” Daniel said, explaining that each time his family flies to visit him, they utilize the USO Delaware Center at Dover Air Force Base.

In addition to providing the standard resources of other USO Airport Centers, USO Delaware also provides crucial support for Families of the Fallen, as well as the honor guards assigned to facilitate fallen service members’ final journeys home.

For Daniel’s family, this USO Center provides a comfortable place to land after hours of driving in a car to reach the airport, before the next leg of their journey across the Atlantic Ocean.

“My wife and kids, they love every minute of it,” Daniel said. “They were like, ‘this is the best thing ever.’”

His family is especially appreciative of the comfortable chairs and food provided at the airport Center, as these features make the strain of traveling back and forth between the United States and Germany much easier on them. His children also enjoy utilizing the phone booths at the Center, which they can use to call him directly in Germany.

“It’s a bit of an oasis, right?” Daniel said, when describing the USO Delaware Center. “It’s an oasis for service members, I think, in what is otherwise normally a very busy place of business.”

Daniel has been able to utilize the “oasis” of a USO Center himself while in Germany. With a full house of children, it can be difficult for Daniel to find a quiet place and time to study for his master’s degree, which he is currently studying for. That was, until he discovered the USO Ramstein Center.

For Daniel, this USO Center was the perfect place to study after completing his military duties for the day – all the comforts of home, with none of the distractions. So, for the past year, Daniel stops at the USO Center after work or on the weekend for a few hours to study for his degree, utilizing the Center’s comfortable seating, free Wi-Fi and snacks to help him get his work done.

“I thought, ‘Oh man, this is such a cool little place,’ because it feels very living room-ish,” Daniel said. “I feel like every time I’ve used a USO Center, it’s a place of quiet and peace, and a place to kind of chill.”

And having a “chill” place to regroup after a long day of military duties can be crucial with a busy home full of kids who have fully embraced Germany and military life by participating in extracurricular sports and activities through the DODEA school on base, or immersing themselves in the community.

“When they first came over here to Germany, they said ‘for so long, you got on an airplane and went somewhere, did a job and then came back,’” Daniel recalled his children telling him. “And that’s all we really knew outside of what you told us and maybe some pictures you sent back.’”

However, now, as they get to briefly live alongside their father at his duty station in Germany, his children are able to see and appreciate the work he does in the Air National Guard, describing it as a chance to “peek behind the veil.”

“They’ve always been around it, but then coming over here and being in a military community I think really opened their eyes,” Daniel explained.

In fact, his children have been so moved by what they’ve experienced as part of the Ramstein military community, that it has altered one of his children’s life paths.

Daniel’s oldest son Noah, after spending time in Germany, has also decided to enlist and join the Ohio Air National Guard, just like his father.

Daniel recalled that Noah, when in the running for a Military Youth of the Year recognition, shared in his speech that what stood out to him the most about his experience as a military kid was the selflessness of community in military members who are stationed overseas.

“All of the sudden you’re away from home, you’re away from friends, you’re away from all the things that you know, and there’s a foreign language, a foreign currency, and it’s a whole different way of living,” Daniel explained. “And so, what my son saw is this selflessness in everybody around him. I feel like you gravitate a little bit more towards your military community when you see that.”

As Noah began making plans for college, he realized that joining the Air National Guard like his father was something that he wanted to do.

“Noah watched this military community of selflessness and just this focus on something that was bigger than themselves,” Daniel said. “He told us – ‘this is what I want to be a part of. This is a cool community that seems to always take care of each other.’ And then our middle daughter is going to be a senior next year, and she’s already eyeballing a career as a flight medic with the National Guard as well.”

Noah will be joining the same unit as his father is currently serving in, quite literally following in his dad’s footsteps. It is a testament to the people who serve and their commitment to giving back to others that when Daniel’s son realized he wanted to be a part of a community focused on selflessness, he was inspired to join the military.

The USO is also committed to giving back to American military communities worldwide. Whether it is something as simple as a hot meal during a mission, like what Daniel experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, or providing a safe space for military families traveling across the ocean, the USO will always be there to help service members like Daniel and his family.

“The USO has been super good to us, and we as a family have appreciated everything they’ve done.”