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  • From: "Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>
  • To: "Homestead mailing list" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] the __it didn't but Grandma will ...
  • Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 18:34:43 -0800

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apfeature_story.asp?category=1120&slug=Grandmother%20Deployed<http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apfeature_story.asp?category=1120&slug=Grandmother%20Deployed>



Wednesday, November 24, 2004 ยท Last updated 10:54 a.m. PT

Great-grandmother being deployed to Iraq

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAWTON, Okla. -- A 72-year-old great-grandmother is preparing for deployment
to the war zone in Iraq and will become one of the oldest Department of
Defense civilian workers in the war zone.

"I volunteered," said Lena Haddix of Lawton, who has five children, eight
grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. "I wanted to do something for
the country, because I was always left behind taking care of the children."

Haddix was a military wife from 1950 until 1979, and has worked at the Fort
Sill Post Exchange, or PX, since 1977.

"I've been a supervisor of every department out there," Haddix said. "I guess
I'm the flunkey."

The PX is more than just a store for soldiers, she said. It's also a boost to
morale, giving soldiers stationed overseas a link to the United States and
Haddix said that's why she wants to go to Iraq.

"I just see so many of the boys. They're like little kids. They keep telling
me, 'I'm going over,' or 'I've just come back,'" she said.

"I would just like to go over and be with them."

And Haddix said others have tried to talk her out of her decision, to no
avail.

"I'd already made up my mind I wanted to go. I just wanted to do something
for myself and other people instead of working and coming home.

"I'm sure there'll be times that I'll be scared, but I'm not now."

Haddix is now going through much of the same process soldiers go through
before deployment, including shots and a thorough medical checkup to make
sure she's physically able to do a tour of at least six months.

She will be sent to Fort Bliss, Texas, for one week of training, then be sent
to Germany where she will receive her orders on where in Iraq she will be
stationed.



  • [Homestead] the __it didn't but Grandma will ..., Toni Hawryluk, 11/24/2004

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