Posted on 05/27/2005 2:04:43 AM PDT by DollyCali
appreciate you being with us today. Anyone who has never been to Tex's daily thread, it is loaded with current news from the front and a lot of other pertinent material. Lots of pix, which I love.. here is link to TODAYS THREAD
Wow,that was some military career...spanning three big wars. Is your dad still living? Thanks for use of the War thread ping list..some "old friends" have stopped by.
Thanks for stopping by Texagirl4W. This holiday is a very special one for you I am sure. How long has he been gone?
Thanks for the links AFPhys..I owe you email..appreicate yours. Taking a shrt break now. Family will be flying out Tuesday..going to be quick stops here the next few days.
Billie.. will respond to yours also.. thanks for the tips. Didn't know I could do that. geeeze.. is there a light at the end of the HTML tunnel?
A thankful welcome from those who served
By Ralph Lauer
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
D/FW AIRPORT - First thing every morning, Herman Amidon makes a call, then another, and another. He checks the arrival time for the Army's R&R, or rest and recuperation, flight, then calls members of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5074 in Roanoke to arrange rides to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.
A post member follows the routine every day of every week, regardless of weather or holidays or any other interruption.
A remote area of D/FW's Terminal B is where about 60,000 U.S. service members have stepped onto American soil for the first time since being deployed overseas.
Since July 5, every one of those returning troops has seen the thankful face of a member of VFW Post 5074.
VFW member Roger Kammerer started the program after reading about the Army's rest and recuperation program in the Keller Citizen. He thought it would be uplifting for the troops to be greeted by former military personnel.
The flights leave Kuwait daily and bring soldiers, plus a few Marines and Air Force personnel, back to the United States for leave.
Each mission begins at D/FW, when a charter flight under contract to the Army takes soldiers to Atlanta and then on to Kuwait, with a refueling stop in Europe. The flight returns the next day with a group of soldiers beginning its 15-day leave.
The post members have vowed that they will greet every arriving soldier until they are all home.
"We know what they are going through," said retired Air Force Col. Helen Ross, the only female member of the 140-person post. "I thoroughly enjoy going out there. It makes my day."
The flights arrive at Gate 39 in Terminal B. Anyone who would like to join the airport greeters can check the arrival time each day at (972) 574-0392.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY RALPH LAUER | STAR-TELEGRAM
Above, troops arriving on a rest and recuperation flight from Kuwait receive welcomes from retired Air Force Col. Helen Ross and Roger Kammerer, right, members of VFW Post 5074 in Roanoke. Since July 5, the group has been dedicated to greeting each soldier who passes through Gate 39 in Terminal B at D/FW Airport.
Helen Ross tries to give a hug to every soldier who passes through the terminal.
Ross salutes a soldier. Ross spent 24 years as a navigator on SAC B-36s and B-52s.
Jessica Cawvey and her daughter, Sierra, in a photo taken at Cawvey’s graduation from boot camp at Fort Jackson, S.C., in May 2002. Jessica’s father, Kevin Cawvey, said, “She tried as best as she could to hide from us the fact that she was scared all of the time (in Iraq).” (FAMILY PHOTO )
By Mary Delach Leonard Of the Post-Dispatch 05/29/2005 CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - For 6-year-old Sierra Cawvey, there have been many memorial days since her mom, Sgt. Jessica Cawvey of the Illinois Army National Guard, was killed in Iraq last October.
On this occasion - an Arbor Day tribute on a brisk April morning - Sierra stood beneath a young purple ash tree freshly planted in a memorial grove at Parkland College in honor of her mother, a dean's list student who earned an associate degree in business administration in 2003.
Sierra's grandparents, Kevin and Sandy Cawvey, both 44, watched proudly as her fellow first-graders from the Judah Christian School in Champaign crowded tightly around her in their matching purple T-shirts. All eyes were on Sierra, and although she stumbled a bit over the bigger words, she seemed to have little trouble reading a card promising that from this small start would grow a beautiful tree 50 to 60 feet tall, turning reddish purple in the fall.
The Arbor Day ceremony was an exciting event for Sierra, a blond and bright-eyed whirlwind of energy who had sat as quietly as she could manage while speakers acknowledged her mother's sacrifice. Among the other honorees that day was Parkland graduate Sgt. Shawna Morrison, who had died in Iraq in September.
"These young women believed in freedom and sacrificed themselves for their beliefs," said college president Zelema Harris.
Both soldiers belonged to the 1544th Transportation Company based in Paris, Ill., a unit that served nearly a year in Iraq and suffered the most casualties of any Guard unit of its size - 5 killed in action and 39 injuries, 32 of those caused by enemy action, said Lt. Col. Tim Franklin, a public affairs officer for the Illinois Guard. The company deployed from Paris on Dec. 7, 2003, with 148 soldiers, 34 of them women.
Morrison, 26, of Paris, was the first woman to die in service with the 1544th. Cawvey, 21, was the first military mother from Illinois to be killed in Iraq.
Among the family and friends who attended the tree dedication were two of Jessica Cawvey's Army buddies - Spc. Jodie Rund and Spc. Jolene Wright- who had bunked with her at their base outside Baghdad.
When the 1544th returned in February, the Cawveys took Sierra to the homecoming celebration in Paris, about an hour-and-a-half drive from their home in Mahomet, about 10 miles from Champaign. Along Main Street in Paris, the names of unit members still hang from lampposts, with black ribbons signifying the five who died in Iraq, including Jessica Cawvey.
"I was very happy for that unit to come back," said Sandy Cawvey. "Just the fact that they are safe. We didn't want anyone else to be dying."
They plan to attend an awards ceremony for the 1544th on June 11, even though she expects that it will be "another crying day."
There have been many such days for the Cawveys since their daughter died in a roadside explosion on Oct. 6 in Fallujah.
But on this day, Sandy and Kevin Cawvey said they tried - and nearly succeeded - to hold back their tears. Because Sierra doesn't like it when they cry.
Of the 1,644 U.S. troops who have died in Iraq, 35 were servicewomen. Three of those were from Illinois, none from Missouri. Nearly 300 servicewomen have been wounded.
Although Pentagon policy bars women from being assigned to direct ground combat units - infantry, armor, artillery and special forces - an estimated 10 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq are women, many assigned to support duties like those of the 1544th Transportation Company.
Because of the nature of the insurgency, where enemy forces are as likely to attack supply convoys as infantry, a proportionately larger number of U.S. servicewomen have fallen victim to hostile fire in Iraq than in any previous conflict.
That sparked a recent debate in the House Armed Services Committee and a move, led by chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., to limit the role of women in combat zones. But under pressure from the Pentagon and a bipartisan group of legislators, the plan was dropped in favor of a measure that continues to let the Pentagon decide staffing, as long as Congress is told in advance. Women make up 15 percent of the U.S. Armed Forces.
Kevin Cawvey says he thinks he knows what his daughter would say about the issue: She would want to be able to do her job.
"I, of course, would have liked to see her in a safer job, but I would have supported her in what she wanted to do," he said.
The insurgency was heating up when the 1544th reached Iraq in March 2004. Shortly after arriving, the unit suffered its first casualty, Sgt. Ivory Phipps of Chicago, who was killed by mortar fire. Spc. Jeremy Ridlen of Maroa died in May.
By June, when Jessica came home on leave, the Cawveys had noticed a change in their daughter, who had spent four months driving convoys in Iraq.
Then-Spc. Cawvey (she was promoted posthumously to sergeant) had already survived a close call in which she was thrown from her truck after the driver became impaired, Kevin Cawvey said.
"She sprained both her ankles, and once she hit the ditch they came under enemy fire," he said. "When she came home on leave her ankles were still swollen."
Her parents said she had matured while in Iraq, but they noticed something else, too.
"She tried as best as she could to hide from us the fact that she was scared all of the time over there," said her father, although she confided her fears to her older brother, Kevin, 23. The Cawveys also have a younger son, Josh, 18, who just graduated from high school.
"She was jumping at loud sounds, like fireworks," said her father. "A car backfired once, and she flinched."
"She went to the ground," added Sandy Cawvey.
"But they weren't trying to put her in harm's way," she said. "It's just if you're there, you're in harm's way."
Doing her duty
Those who knew her agree that Jessica Lynn Cawvey was energetic and fun.
"I always thought she was brilliant because it never looked like she did any homework and she always got straight A's," said her mother.
She was a "daddy's girl" who for a time referred to Kevin Cawvey as "Daddy better."
"Meaning 'Daddy better than Mom,'" said Sandy Cawvey. "She just so adored him."
After Jessica was killed, Sandy Cawvey found an unopened letter in Jessica's belongings, written in September after Sgt. Morrison and Spc. Charles Lamb of Martinsville were killed in a mortar attack on their base, Logistical Base Seitz, located west of Baghdad.
"She told us we were the best family ever, and that I was the best mom ever. And that we showed so much love and support and that she really appreciated that. It was a nice thing to get after she died."
The Cawveys have helped rear Sierra since her birth; her father is not in the picture, said Kevin Cawvey.
"Jessica was always a very good mother," said Sandy Cawvey. "She had a goal. She said, 'I'm going to finish school. I'm going to make good money. I'm going to support my daughter.'"
When her unit was deployed, Jessica had just transferred to Illinois State University in Normal; she planned to become a certified public accountant.
Because Jessica was just 17 and had a child when she enlisted in May 2001, the Cawveys had to give their permission.
"We thought, why not? She's being responsible. She was going to school full time and she also had a job," said Sandy Cawvey. "I just thought it was good for her to get a little extra money, and it would help her through college. Nobody ever thought that she would go to Iraq and die."
So in the summer before Sept. 11, Jessica joined the Guard, along with her friend, Jodie Rund, who Jessica met while attending Parkland.
"I don't think she would have enlisted if she knew she would get called to war," said Sandy Cawvey. "But when she got activated, she felt it was her duty. She signed up for it, and it was her responsibility. She didn't try to get out of it."
Rund, 26, who is resuming her education at the University of Illinois, laughed when asked why she and Jessica enlisted. "For the college money - and to get in shape," Rund said.
But after the terrorist attacks, they both became more patriotic and gung-ho about their role in the military, and if their unit was going to Iraq, they wanted to go, too, she said.
"We were excited to go - we'd never been anywhere. And this was something we could do that was fulfilling," Rund said. "You are actually doing something. You were helping people. For Jess and me, this was huge. We could be heroes."
In harm's way
At the homecoming celebration for the 1544th in February, the commanding officer proudly told the throngs of well-wishers that his company had completed more than 1,200 missions and driven more than a half-million miles during deployment in Iraq.
Jessica Cawvey did her share, performing such diverse duties as radio operator, driver and gunner, according to her platoon leader, 1st Lt. Jennifer Fallert.
"Spc. Cawvey had a knack for finding unique ways to stay positive, such as posing for funny pictures with her close friends and platoon members," Fallert wrote in an e-mail interview.
Rund and Wright, who shared quarters with Cawvey, say she was always in good spirits and making light of bad situations.
"I have never known anyone like her," said Rund. "Jessica was hilarious - the funniest person I ever met in my life."
Since returning home, Rund and her husband, Thaddeus, who live in Champaign, sometimes volunteer at Sierra's grade school.
Wright, 22, who also lives in Champaign, remembers Jessica playing recordings of Sierra for her bunkmates and giving them drawings her 6-year-old had made for them.
Sometimes, Sierra would read books like "Clifford" to her mom over the phone.
The friends found ways to pass the time when they weren't on the road, said Wright. They played volleyball, calling their team the "Pink Chicas" and wearing makeshift uniforms they had designed.
"We lost every game, but our outfits were really cute," Wright said.
Sometimes, she and Jessica would play music and weave beaded bracelets and necklaces; Jessica sent one home to Sierra. And when care packages arrived, they'd eat because you never knew when the next one would arrive - Easy Mac and popcorn were their favorites.
Spc. Jessica Cawvey was killed when a large explosive device placed inside a vehicle by the side of the road was detonated as her convoy passed, according to Fallert. Cawvey had volunteered to go as an assistant driver and communications operator because another friend was going on her first mission, and she wanted to lend her support.
"It was devastating when we found out," Wright said. "It wasn't real to me until they held the memorial service."
Rund said that she went online to read what people were saying about her friend on Web sites.
"There was this radical group that was writing about this mother who was 21 and who didn't know what she was getting into," Rund said. "Because she was 21, female and single they decided the military had taken advantage of her, had lied to her. It wasn't any of those things. Jessica loved her daughter, but she had goals, too, and she wanted her daughter to have a better life, and the veterans benefits would help. Jessica wanted to help out."
The Cawveys keep the medals and ribbons their daughter earned during her military career in a special wooden box. Sierra recognizes many of the ribbons, and as she showed them to a visitor, she called them by name: "Good Conduct . . . Purple Heart . . . Bronze Star . . ."
"Why did she get that one?" asked her grandma, pausing. "Because she died."
"I still cry every day"
Among the pictures the Cawveys attached to posters for their daughter's funeral service are happy scenes from her childhood and teen years: Jessica all dressed up. A school dance. Getting ready for work at Dairy Queen.
There are also photos of Army life and an entire poster devoted to mother and daughter. A photo of Jessica holding a snake when the circus came to town delights Sierra.
"She was really tall, and she was tan," said Sierra when asked about her mom. "She was always fun to play with."
But the most powerful image was taken at Willard Airport in Champaign on July 7, the last day of Jessica's two-week leave that got her home in time for Sierra's birthday, on the Fourth of July.
Dressed in desert tan camouflage, Jessica had bent down to give her daughter a kiss before heading back to Iraq. Sierra was wrapped in a bright blue print blanket that Jessica had made for her birthday. Sierra still sleeps with that blanket and with a pillow her mom used in Iraq.
"This was the last time she ever saw her," said Sandy Cawvey. "It was her last kiss goodbye."
The night before, say the Cawveys, Sierra had pestered her mom to pinkie swear that she would come back home. Jessica was hesitant; they believe she knew she might not return.
Sandy Cawvey, who wears a silver cross that contains some of Jessica's ashes, says she never thought her daughter would die in Iraq.
"We just really thought that God was going to take care of her. She'd had so many close calls, our faith just got stronger."
When the knock came at 6 a.m., Kevin, who works for Aramark uniforms, had already left for work. Sandy, who works as a registered nurse at Provena Covenant Medical Center in Urbana, was still in her pajamas, and Sierra had come into her bedroom to watch cartoons.
"And then I saw them, and I knew," she said.
She paged Kevin, and Sierra hid in the kitchen.
"I didn't cry, but she did," said Sierra, pointing to her grandma.
"I'm just like a water fountain," Sandy Cawvey told her. "I still cry every day, but my doctor said it's normal. I just don't cry around you. I cry when I go to work and I cry when I come home because those are the only two times I'm by myself all day."
The Cawveys say they are grateful for the outpouring of support they received from their community and even from strangers after their daughter died. An organization based in Chicago paid for Sierra's tuition so she could attend the Judah Christian School; a fourth-grade class from Urbana raised donations for her trust fund, at Main Street Bank and Trust in Champaign.
As war continues in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Cawveys say it is important that Americans remember their troops.
"'Support Our Troops' means keeping in mind that they're still there," said Kevin Cawvey. "And they're there for this country, whether you believe in why the president sent them there or not."
At right, Capt. George Walruff of San Antonio shows Ross a picture of his family.
By the time the VFW group leaves the terminal, the returning soldiers have moved on, bound for home.
SEMPER FI VFW Post 5074. You are a great group of American Vets.
He's been gone for 19 years. He was the love of my life. But, I found out then that the world doesn't stop for my loss. Life is part of death and I had to carry on. I have good memories.
Hope everyone has a very happy, blessed holiday.
And Tex that article on Spc. Cawvey needed a kleenix alert.. what a varied amount of stories from all over to make us give pause and realize the this holiday is not about BBQ's and a day off to do yard work.
GOt an Email from April (think they are still trying to figure out how to post
I'm watching Sergeant York on TCM right now. Gary Cooper is good for what ails you, suffice it to say. :-)
DJ SUNSHINE!
Everyone sing a long!
(Click the flag as well)
THE STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER
Lyrics and Music by John Philip Sousa
Lyrics altered and appended by David Wright for ACOUSTIX
Unfurl the banner and raise it to the sky!
Let Eagle cry from mountain high the never ending watch word of our nation.
Now behold this gem of old, the wonder of the Western sky.
The emblem of the brave and true, the flag of our liberty, flag of our destiny.
Red and white and starry blue stream out of the banner so high.
Every heart will sing a part as all across the land we raise our voices.
Far and near, for all to hear, the echo of a chorus grand!
Every heart will swell with pride to sing of our liberty, sing of our destiny.
As with joy we now extol the flag waving over the land.
Let us all hail the flag in one accord, let us cheer it with fervid elation.
It's the flag of the martyrs gone before, it's the flag of flags, the banner of our nation.
It's a beacon for all who share our dream of a new day without domination.
It's the hope of the peoples now oppressed and a symbol of their own emancipation.
Hooray for the flag of the free! May it wave as our standard forever.
The gem of the land and the sea, ever hoist it proud and high.
All nations remember the day when our fathers with mighty endeavor
proclaimed as they marched to the fray that by their might and by their right, it waves forever.
Every time the people hear the bell of freedom calling, (calling) one and all.
Every living patriotic citizen will answer, (answer) freedom's call.
Everywhere the bold and gallant souls come forth to bear the cross of duty.
Rising up as one to fight and die behind the flag of freedom's beauty.
Patriotic hearts will falter never, following the stars and stripes forever.
Marching to the quest, to east or west, they quell distress, the freed oppressed cry out.
Hooray for the flag of the free! May it wave as our standard forever.
The gem of the land and the sea, ever hoist it proud and high.
All nations remember the day when our fathers with might endeavor proclaimed as they marched to the fray,
"Defended by our might, ever standing for the right, it waves forever!"
Hail to the banner that waves the stars and stripes,
we give our lives for Stars and Stripes!
Sidenote: Enjoy the music!!
DJ SUNSHINE!
Everyone sing a long!
(Click the flag as well)
Roxie Dean - Soldier's Wife
Breaking News from a desert town
Smoke and rubble on the ground
The names we do not know right now
And it cuts me like a knife
With a tearful goodbye kiss
I sent him off to this
But I've gotta stay strong for our kids
I'm a soldier's wife
I run the house
I sleep alone
I live for e-mails
And the phone calls home
I tell my children he will be all right
And I hope it's not a lie
I'm a soldier's wife
We do the things we used to do
Go to church, go to school
But you could drive a truck right through
The hole that's in our lives
My little boy shoots me a grin
And says he wants to be like him
And I feel my heart start caving in
I'm a soldier's wife
Sometimes I'm angry
Sometimes confused
I live and die by
The evening news
But I tell my babies he will be all right
And I hope it's not a lie
I'm a soldier's wife
I pray for strength
I pray for peace
I pray that he comes home to me
And if you would please pray for me
I'm a soldier's wife.
Sidenote: Enjoy the music!!
Kleenex Alert!!
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