When Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Ryan W. Miller spoke to his mother, he didn't talk about wild animals roaming the jungle or safaris on the expansive savannah. Rather, he told his mother about people living in a garbage containers as he explained poverty in Africa.

Miller, 24, is one of more than 1,800 U.S. service members, civilians, coalition forces and partner nations taking part in the Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa.

He described the living situation as unimaginable, Laurie Miller said.

"He said, 'It's not good, Mom. But don't worry about me. I'm fine," Laurie told The Times. But, of course, she still worries.

"I think there's a lot more going on over there than we know about," she said.

Ryan is working in the Horn of Africa, which includes a large portion of northeast Africa consisting of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The task force is there to prevent conflict, promote regional stability and protect coalition interests in an attempt to prevail against extremism, a representative said.

Ryan, a base security specialist, has been deployed to this remote location for two months.

"I make sure that no one is able to gain access to the base and harm the personnel here," Ryan told the Army & Air Force Hometown News.

Living in tents, working in temperatures that reach 120 degrees or more for days on end, constant blowing dust and power outages are just a few of the many hardships Ryan and his fellow workers must endure.

"Our mission here is very important. We are here to win the hearts and minds of the local people. We are letting the terrorists know that they will not be able to control us or the way we live," explained the 2002 Ottawa Township High School graduate. "My goal is to help not only the adults, but the children also. Giving the children clothes, food and water really brightens their day. Things that we take for granted are truly a luxury for them."

Even after working many hours every day, Miller and the other military members spend some of their off-duty hours helping those in need. They donate supplies to an orphanage, help fix their facility or play a game of basketball with youngsters. They also take part in conversational English classes, which helps the native residents develop their use of the English language.

Volunteers also provide medical and veterinary information to the Djiboutians, helping them improve their quality of life by teaching them how to prevent the spread of malaria and cholera, diseases which are very prevalent.

"The Horn of Africa is a very hot place with major poverty," said Miller. "The poor people at home in the United States at least have running water, electricity and food. The poor people here don't have anything. Some of the people look like they haven't eaten in days. It really opens your eyes and makes you say 'Thank God I live in America.'"

In Africa, villagers travel with their camels and goats from Ethiopia to Somalia in the desert, by foot in the scorching heat, for hundreds of miles along camel trails that are thousands of years old, to look for drinking water. When they do find water, it most is likely contaminated and shared by animals and humans alike. After a long day of travel, they bed down amongst the palm trees in the oasis.

The military members are on a mission to give the people the education and tools needed to enable them to have a better way of life, a representative said. Activities range from drilling wells to providing clean drinking water to hosting women's health awareness days.

"I have learned that no matter how bad things may be, it can never compare to the way that the people here live," Miller said. "They are starving, have no shelter, surrounded by diseases abound and are jobless. If we weren't here, the Djiboutian people would be a lot worse than they are now."

Miller's family only hears from him occasionally; sometimes three weeks pass before he calls. When he gets the opportunity to use the phone, he calls Laurie or his grandmother, who helped raise him.

Ryan had an interest in the military since high school and joined to serve his country and to further his education through the Marines, Laurie said.

He attended Illinois Valley Community College for about a year before entering basic training in San Diego.

Ryan graduated from basic training in August 2004. He spent six months at a combat center in Twentynine Palms, Calif., and three months at a Marine Corps base in Camp Lejeune, N.C. He returned home for six months before deployment.

He may return home in mid-November. Laurie said he plans to finish his degree at IVCC and hopes to return to his job at James Hardie, where he was employed as an electrical engineer after basic training.