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Effort helps families in wake of war

Operation Helping Hand provides necessities to the families of wounded service people treated in Tampa.

By TIM GRANT
Published January 11, 2005

TAMPA - For the first time since he was wounded in Iraq eight months ago, Peter Herrick felt a sensation in his left hand.

A fierce battle near Baghdad on May 2 had cost him his left leg and left him paralyzed. Now staying at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center in Tampa, Herrick called out for his wife in a voice barely above a whisper.

"Come touch my hand."

Diana Herrick rushed to his side. She might have missed this crucial moment had it not been for a local charity that is helping the families of wounded service people. Operation Helping Hand gives the families home-cooked meals, pocket money, restaurant dinners, movie tickets and flowers while their loved ones receive medical treatment at Haley.

"It takes a massive burden off my family," said Herrick, a petty officer whose medical bills are covered by the Navy. "We can focus on the physical issues and not the other burdens."

Many of the soldiers, sailors and Marines being wounded on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan are of lower rank. When they are brought to Tampa's VA hospital, their families often follow but have little money to support themselves.

That's why the Tampa chapter of the Military Officers Association of America started Operation Helping Hand.

"When they need help with money, transportation, food costs, phone cards or any other personal needs, they go to the chaplain at the VA," said Bob Silah, president of MOAA's Tampa chapter. "The chaplain screens it, he comes to me with a request and once he validates it, we pretty much rubber-stamp it."

When a severely wounded 21-year-old Marine had to be taken off life support last year, Helping Hand flew 12 of his relatives here from South Carolina so they could be at his bedside when he died.

The charity has allowed Carrie Moore to stay in Tampa with her 20-year-old son, Eric Jordan. Jordan, an Army private from north Georgia, was paralyzed while fighting in Iraq.

"I've run out of money," Moore said. "If it wasn't for Helping Hand I wouldn't have anything at this moment."

* * *

Pentagon officials say 10,252 service people have been wounded in action in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Injured American fighters are taken from the battlefield to a major trauma center in Baghdad. From there, they go to Germany. Once they're stable, the wounded are brought to the United States and are treated at either Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington or Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

If their hometown is anywhere along the southern East Coast, they are eventually brought to Tampa's VA hospital, where they spend an average of five months in treatment before being discharged from the military.

Currently, 10 wounded men are being treated at Haley. Three are Army soldiers, four are Marines and three are Navy enlisted men. More are on the way.

* * *

Peter Herrick, 37, and a fellow sailor, Jeffery Blackmon, 43, were assigned to a Navy construction crew to help rebuild Iraq. Now the VA is rebuilding both men after they were wounded.

Blackmon suffered brain damage in the same mortar attack that paralyzed Herrick.

Blackmon, who has been married 22 years and has three sons, ages 17, 12 and 10, joined the Navy Reserves in August 2003. He had been a welder at a paper mill in Kingsland, Ga., but it closed.

"In eight months, he hasn't talked," said Jeanette Blackmon, his wife. "It's kind of hard sometimes having a conversation by myself. Every day I'm in hopes that today is the day we'll be talking. Each day I wait. I haven't given up."

David Lefavor is the chaplain who looks after the men and their families at the VA hospital.

"I also have a son in the Army," Lefavor said. "He's had two tours in Iraq and is getting ready to go back for a third tour. I see my son's face in a lot of these kids."

During his stay here, Peter Herrick has emerged as a leader among the wounded.

Herrick says he would go back to Iraq and fight more if he could.

"I believe in the cause," he says. "What we are doing is defending freedom by spreading freedom. We are helping people whose concept of freedom never existed. We're helping them to understand it."

[Last modified January 11, 2005, 01:10:20]