Appreciation Day

Held In Their Honor

By BILL JONES

Staff Writer

Four veterans of the conflict in Iraq spoke Saturday of their experiences during a "Veterans Appreciation Day" program at the gymnasium next to the Nathanael Greene Museum.

Sponsored by the museum and the Greene County Democratic Women's Club, the program was held in the gymnasium of the former Andrew Johnson School, which also houses the museum. The program was attended by about 100 people.

The program's featured speakers were:

* 1st Lt. Maurice J. Griffin, a Louisiana native who has commanded the Greeneville-based 733 Engineer Company (formerly Company C of the 844th Engineer Battalion) of the U.S. Army Reserve for the last year and is a veteran of 18 months of service in Iraq;

* Staff Sgt. James White, a Greene County resident who has twice served in Iraq with the Tennessee National Guard's 730th Quartermaster Company;

* former Sgt. Stephanie Bowers, of Greeneville, who served in Iraq with the Tennessee Army National Guard's 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment in 2004-05 as a combat medic; and

* retired Sgt. 1st Class Darwin Jones, of Mosheim, a Vietnam War veteran who also served in Iraq in 2004-05 with the Tennessee Army National Guard's 278th Regimental Combat Team.

The program began with a welcome from Earl W. Fletcher, director of the Nathanael Greene Museum, who also introduced the Rev. Don Alexander, a retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander who served as a chaplain.

An invocation by Rev. James Mays followed. The Greene County Honor Guard escorted the speakers into the gymnasium and posted the U.S. flag.

After the pledge to the flag was recited, the Rev. Casey Nicholson sang the national anthem.

Rev. Alexander told the audience, "We are here to learn and we are here to recognize these four persons who have come back from Iraq and who have something to teach us," Rev. Alexander said.

Later in the program, all military veterans in attendance were asked to stand and be recognized for their service to the country.

Lt. Griffin Speaks

Lt. Griffin, wearing the current camouflage duty uniform, began his remarks with a quotation from the late Gen. Douglas MacArthur about the importance of public opinion in conducting warfare.

Lt. Griffin said he had spent a total of 18 months in Iraq, noting that he had been there at the outset of the war. "There was a lot of support for the war in the beginning," he said. "But you know that public support (for the war) has been waning."

Lt. Griffin said he had been upset while serving in Iraq by politicians who initially voted to go to war, but later "voted against funding troops in the field."

He said he had personally witnessed soldiers collapse in the heat because of a shortage of ice brought on by a delay in funding. But he said funds quickly "opened up" when support was restored.

"In my personal opinion, there is not a military solution over there," he said. "It is a political solution."

He noted that all branches of the U.S. military had "done everything that had been asked" of them in Iraq.

He also urged the audience to conduct their on Internet searches about the current numbers of attacks on U.S. forces in recent months in Iraq.

"When you click on a map, you will see that all attacks in the last year have been in one area," he said. "It's not throughout the entire country. They're concentrated in the Sunni Triangle."

He urged the audience to continue to "seek the truth" about conditions in Iraq.

"The conditions over there are improving," he said.

Lt. Griffin also said he thinks the focus of media attention is swinging from Iraq to Afghanistan as conditions improve in Iraq.

Staff Sgt. White

Staff Sgt. James White thanked all of of the U.S. military veterans of past wars who were present. "Without them, there is no way any of us would be here now," he said.

White, an associate pastor of a church in western North Carolina, said. "The one thing that is absolutely true is that the only way anyone ever makes it through a war is because of the folks back home and the good Lord above." He noted that while undergoing basic military training he had been given a copy of the New Testament that he has carried with him at all times since.

As he spoke, he pulled the New Testament from a pocket of the green U.S. Army dress uniform that he was wearing and showed it to the audience. "It has given me more comfort and more hope than anything else ever could," he said.

White told the audience that he believes American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan has improved the lives of millions of their residents.

"There are millions in Iraq and Afghanistan who now have freedoms like ours," he said.

He noted that women in those countries can now attend school and the populations can vote. "Those are American values," he said. "They have been submitted to us by the word of the Lord.

White recalled that during his first tour of duty in Iraq in 2003, he was trying to sleep atop a 5,000-gallon fuel tanker as artillery rounds were exploding across the Euphrates River, which his unit was preparing to cross the next day.

He said he knew he needed to sleep in order to be at his best the next day and asked the Lord to give him "peace." "I got the best night's sleep of the entire campaign," he said.

"Americans have made this world a better place," he said. "The American spirit is now being translated to the Iraqi spirit."

White, who returned in the spring from his second tour of duty in Iraq, said deaths of American service personnel are down dramatically.

He noted that hundreds of schools and hospitals have been built in Iraq. "America is doing a whole lot more good than bad," he said. "I thank God for America."

Sgt. Bowers Speaks

Former U.S. Army National Guard Sgt. Stephanie Bowers also lauded the "American spirit" in her remarks.

She said that spirit had been kindled for her in 1990 when, as a child, her parents awakened her at 4 a.m. to take part in the local farewell for Company C of the U.S. Army Reserve's 844th Engineer Company, which was leaving town to take part in Operation Desert Storm.

She said at the time, however, she would have never thought that 16 years later she would be off to war in Iraq herself.

"It's amazing how the American spirit continues to grow," she said.

While serving as a medic with the Tennessee National Guard's 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq, she said, she had the "honor" of serving with a number of Vietnam veterans who were serving again.

She noted that she sometimes now finds it difficult to believe that she had been in Iraq. "Iraq to me is like a distant memory," she said. "I've been there, done that and now I'm here."

She noted that she now works as a counselor in the psychiatric unit at the James H. Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Johnson City. "Every day I see these young men and women coming back from Iraq," she said. "Their entire lives have changed."

She noted that while more than 30,000 service personnel from East and Middle Tennessee have served in Iraq, only 1,700 are currently registered for the free medical care that is available to them at the VA hospital.

"They need to know that there are places that can help them when they come home," she said.

Sgt. Bowers then showed the audience an audio-visual presentation of photos that she and fellow soldiers took while she was serving in Iraq. Many focused on the faces of children and women.

After the program, Bowers said she had served as a medic assigned to several different 278th ACR units in Iraq, including the one in which (now retired) Sgt. 1st Class Darwin Jones served. "We went on several missions together," she said.

Sgt. 1st Class Jones

The last speaker of the day was Sgt. 1st Class Darwin Jones, who told the audience that his service in Iraq with the National Guard had been a "Godsend" that helped him overcome bitterness that had remained after his earlier service in Vietnam.

Jones reminded the audience that the 278th ACR had gone to Iraq as a combat unit.

He recalled that, as the commander of an M-1 tank, he, and his crew, had performed four-hour "route clearing" operations often as frequently as twice a day in preparation for passage of convoys.

Jones said he also remember that the second night his unit reached the post in Iraq where it was to spend most of the next year, he and 16 of his soldiers were asked to accompany the North Carolina National Guard unit that they were replacing on a "soft-knock and search" operation in a nearby village.

He noted that his unit had yet seen the village during daylight hours and went on the mission with the knowledge that the North Carolina unit had lost two soldiers in the same village only a short time earlier. Fortunately, he said, his unit suffered no losses in its initial baptism of fire.

Later, he said, he was impressed by the will of the Iraqi population in his unit's area of operations to vote in two elections that were held during their tour of duty.

"From the first of December through the first of April, I went out at least once, if not twice, a day," he said. "On an average day in the tank, we would run over 60 miles. Occasionally, we would run over 100 miles."

During the first election, he said, the crew of his tank spotted a roadside bomb (which the military calls an improvised explosive device or IED). "It had a timer on it that looked like a washing machine timer," he said. "We used our machine-gun to shoot the timer off and called for Explosive Ordinance Disposal to deactivate it."

But while the IED was still active, between 100 and 150 Iraqis walked past the deadly device en route to vote, he said. "It was amazing that they were able to be out there and take those chances," he said.

Jones said he also wished to thank everyone in Greene County who had sent items to his unit to distribute to Iraqi children. "Every time I thought I had given everything out, I would get 10 or 12 boxes more," he said. "It was amazing how many things the American people sent."

Near the close of the program Rev. Alexander told the audience it was a "real pleasure" to call the names of Saturday's speakers.

"They are a cross-section of America," he said. These are our children. These are the people who have served for us. Griffin. White. Bowers. Jones. They are Americans."

That comment drew a standing ovation and loud applause.