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Saturday, September 24, 2005
Guardsmen help fellow soldiers from Louisiana
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Taji, Iraq — When Capt. Kevin Hamm heard Army National Guard soldiers from Louisiana talk about seeing their houses under water after Hurricane Katrina, he felt compelled to help.
The Louisiana soldiers had spent a stressful year in Iraq and were returning home, not to a heroes’ welcome, but to a tragedy of enormous proportions.
Hamm, Staff Sgt. Amos Edwards and Spc. Ryan Copeland of the 48th Brigade Combat Team’s 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery Regiment began taking up a collection that would help fellow field artillerymen from New Orleans.
“The command sergeant major of 1-141 Field Artillery Regiment told us that three of his soldiers had seen their houses underwater on TV in the news coverage of Katrina aftermath,� Hamm said. “Later we were told that about one hundred soldiers have been affected by the hurricane.�
Hamm, a pharmaceutical sales manager from Middleburg, Fla., said the 118th soldiers raised roughly $2,600 that will be sent to a charitable fund to help needy soldiers.
The Louisianans’ plight tugged at the heartstrings of Georgians at Camp Striker, too. At first, 48th brigade soldiers thought about sending non-perishable food items they had received from families and friends, but that proved to be logistically difficult.
Instead, Georgia’s citizen soldiers raised $1,600 to send to the American Red Cross.
“It’s a drop in the bucket, I know,� Command Sgt. Major James Nelson. “But we couldn’t do anything else from here.�
The week that Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, several units from the Louisiana Guard’s 256th Brigade Combat Team were stationed at Camp Striker on their way home. Georgia soldiers watched the devastation with them on television sets in the dining hall and recreation facilities.
Many said they wished they could be back home to help with hurricane relief effort, as they did after a series of hurricanes that hit Florida last year.
“What brought it home for us was the 256th coming through here,� Nelson said, adding that raising money “was the humanitarian thing to do.�
