30-Year PX Veteran Braving Baghdad 'for Our Troops' (73-year-old great-grandmother)

Washington Post ^ | 7/3/05 | Stephen Barr

[lowbridge]

About the time you're celebrating the Fourth of July, Lena Haddix will be en route to Iraq. She's a 73-year-old great-grandmother who recently finished a six-month deployment to Kuwait and then signed up for a six-month deployment to Baghdad.

Haddix is a store manager for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service and volunteered to work overseas because she wants to support the youngsters in the military.

"I'm doing it for our troops," Haddix said in a telephone interview from her home in Lawton, Okla.

"I was a little late getting started because I raised a family first. But now I can do something for the troops. . . . If you could just see the expression on their faces when I talk to them. Anything you can do for them, they appreciate it more than they do here in the States."

Haddix works for the retail arm of the Defense Department and is part of a network of volunteers who go overseas to bring movies, music, sodas and goodies to the troops. Post exchange personnel operate out of trucks and tents and, when conditions permit, set up PXs in buildings.

On most days, the exchange service has about 450 civilians operating 54 stores, 65 phone centers and more than 100 fast-food eateries throughout Afghanistan, Iraq, Qatar, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kuwait.

About two-thirds of the revenue generated by exchanges goes to fund military morale, welfare and recreation programs.

Haddix has been with the exchange service for 30 years, working in Virginia, Texas, Ohio, California, the Panama Canal Zone and Oklahoma. Her home base is Fort Sill, near Lawton.

[Allegra]

Hey, nice site! If I do see her, I'll give her that address. Are you going to feature her?

Dig it!

[Coop]

Absolutely. Her tribute page is already written up, just needs to be formatted and linked. Maybe as early as this evening. Thanks for the nice words! And stay safe!