Reservist is both teacher, student in Afghan war zone

So as he grew up in Saugus, Bobby Vongphakdy made it his goal to learn, and to keep on learning.

In return for the privilege of learning, he found ways to serve his adopted country - and to offer lessons to others.

At age 33, and already in his 14th year of service with the Air Force, Master Sergeant Vongphakdy is on a yearlong tour of active duty at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan at a critical moment for the American mission there. As Afghans voted last month in a presidential election that many see as a test for the fledgling democratic government, Taliban rebels have stepped up their attacks, pushing US military casualties to the highest monthly levels since the US invasion in October 2001.

Vongphakdy is one of about 200 reserv ists from Westover Air Force Base in Chicopee - the nation’s largest reserve air base - who are currently serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he is one of the roughly 19,000 Massachusetts men and women who have served in the war zones since Sept. 11, 2001, putting their careers on hold and leaving families to face the stresses of a loved one’s yearlong absence.

Vongphakdy leads a civil engineering team on the base - and he is teaching engineering skills to Afghans who work with him. Most evenings, on his own time, he volunteers as a conversational English teacher.

He’s still learning, too: He has taken up tae kwon do, and each night he studies and practices it with the discipline that his father and his wife say has always defined him.

But even with those packed days, he said by telephone from the base, he never stops worrying about the family waiting for him back home.

When Vongphakdy graduated from Saugus High School at 17, his dream was to be the first in the family to go to college. But his parents didn’t have the money, so he enlisted in the Air Force as a way to pay for his education.

After completing four years of active duty in 1999, he used the GI Bill to enroll at Mount Ida College in Newton. After two years there, he transferred to Northeastern University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering in 2005.

Just one degree didn’t satisfy him. While still holding a full-time job, he went to Boston University, where he has nearly completed a second bachelor’s in biomedical laboratory and clinical science. And he has his eye on a master’s degree next.

He met his wife, Ana, who is studying for the same degree, at BU. They married in April 2008, and have a 1-year-old daughter, Kayla.

Ana says she and Kayla have faced hardships in Bobby’s absence. She had to postpone her studies and returned to work at Biogen in Cambridge, and is juggling her job and day care while Bobby serves overseas. And she’s aware that the situation is tense in Afghanistan.

“That’s the toughest part for me, worrying about what’s going to happen,’’ said Ana, 28, who grew up in Everett and now lives in the couple’s apartment in Lynn. “It’s hard sometimes because of the job and all the things I have to handle on my own. The traffic is difficult, I have to drop off the baby, and pick her up in the afternoon. Then I have to come home and do everything, the house, the cooking, the baby, all on my own.’’

But they are able to speak every day via Skype, the free Internet telephone service. “He calls me at work, during my lunchtime. My nights are his mornings.’’

She is constantly surprised at his determination to keep studying. “He is always trying to learn new things, and improve all the time,’’ she said. “He always tries to help people, too. That’s also why he’s in the military. He’s even trying to learn their language.’’

Vongphakdy’s grandfather was an officer in the Lao Royal Army during the Vietnam War, and helped the Americans find Viet Cong locations in Laos.

Vongphakdy enlisted in the Air Force for eight years, including four years in the Reserve after active duty, but he stayed on, serving one weekend a month and 15 days of annual training a year that has brought him within two steps of chief master sergeant, the highest noncommissioned officer rank. He is allowed to stay in for 33 years in all. “I’ll probably spend the next 19 years in the Reserve,’’ he said.

At Bagram, the main US base in Afghanistan, Vongphakdy said he works with a civil engineering unit that supports a Provincial Reconstruction Team. His unit’s responsibilities include teaching local Afghans some of the basic civil engineering skills that he learned in school and on the job as the senior computer-aided design operator and mechanical-electrical-plumbing coordinator for City Lights Electrical Co. of Canton. (His firm won a state veterans award in February for its strong support for military reserve troops. In addition to Vongphakdy, another employee, Sergeant Andre Grant of Canton, is also on active duty.)

Vongphakdy said about 10 of the Afghans he has trained have gone on to jobs with contracting firms. “We were always taught that if we’re going to win this war, it’s going to be by concrete and asphalt, and teaching them what we know and getting them on their feet and teaching them a trade,’’ he said. “That way it’ll be easier for them to support their families.’’

In his spare time, he is teaching English to South Korean police officers stationed at the base as part of the international force there.

Vongphakdy understands what it takes to face a new language and culture. He is proud that his father, Bounpheng, worked day and night to rise from being a janitor to co-owning a successful Japanese restaurant, Misono, in Peabody. He said his father still works six days a week, 12 hours a day. His parents are separated; his mother also works long hours in North Carolina.

Vongphakdy also has an 8-year-old son from a prior relationship who lives with his mother in Wakefield.

His father said Bobby was at times hard to control in high school, but once he joined the Air Force he settled down quickly. “After that he was very organized,’’ his father said.

“My whole family has been very supportive,’’ Vongphakdy said in a Skype call from Bagram. “Ana is having a hard time dealing with it, it’s her first time. It’s very difficult. We just got married last April, and I left for training in January. I left with snow on the ground and I’ll get home when there’s snow on the ground.’’

But Ana said her husband sets a good example: “He’s a very responsible man, a very loving father, a caring husband, and a loving husband. He’s a nice guy. Everybody likes him. He talks to everybody.’’

James F. Smith can be reached at jsmith@globe.com.