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Guardsmen get treated to Louisiana hospitality

It started as a chance encounter at a Raceland convenience store, where
a Tennessee National Guardsman went to buy canned ham and a loaf of
bread.

A woman there noticed the soldier’s pending purchase and told him that
that kind of meal in south Louisiana wouldn’t do. And on the spot she
made a couple of phone calls, said 2nd Lt. Steve Haley, a Tennessee
Guardsman.

“Within two hours, they had enough to feed 200-plus” soldiers and
airmen, Haley, of Murfreesboro, Tenn.

The generosity the Tennessee troops are receiving in Lafourche and
Grand Isle is widespread, the soldiers said, and residents there are even doing laundry for the visiting Guardsmen who arrived in the state Sept.1 to help the region repair damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.

Saturday afternoon, several Tennessee troops gathered at the Naval Air
Station-Joint Reserve Base in Belle Chasse, where in the back seat of a
Humvee sat a large pot of red beans, thick with sausage slivers, and a
pan of rice. Haley said the meal was a gift from a Lafourche Parish
woman, Haley said.

Holley said people in towns in the parish have laid out tables full of
food and deserts for the troops. “They’ve been eating gumbo,
jambalaya,” he said. “Good food.”

And the people aren’t stingy, Haley said. “’No’ is not an option, and
‘just a little bit’ is not an option, either,” he said.

The soldiers and airmen are part of Task Force Tennessee, which is
assigned to Lafourche Parish and Grand Isle recovery efforts. About 360
Tennessee Guardsmen are in the area, and another 109 were on the way
Saturday, said Col. Garry Hicks, the task force’s commanding officer.

“We have had nothing but -- considering the circumstances -- a most
rewarding experience,” Hicks said. “These people down there put their arms around our people. I have to say those people in Lafourche are a great group of folks.”

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