[Shadow_Group] Fw: Great-Grandmother Being Deployed to Iraq

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

kentucky.com

AP Wire

Posted on Wed, Nov. 24, 2004 
  
 
 


Great-Grandmother Being Deployed to Iraq

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 flunky."

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.

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