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["Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>]

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 · 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.