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welcome them home. These greeters also offer returning servicemembers, or “hungry heroes,” hamburgers and soft drinks from McDonald’s, shake their hands, and thank them for the sacrifices they make as a result of their service to the country. The Hungry Heroes program was
established in 2003 with the assis- tance of a local McDonald’s restaurant owner. In 2004, Pikes Peak Chapter member and former Army Capt. Al Batey agreed to take over the program, which he now cochairs with Lt. Col. Allen Mathews, USAF-Ret. Batey also brought the program under the umbrella of Home Front Cares, a local nonprofit organization founded by two Pikes Peak Chapter members, that assists the family members of U.S. vet- erans and deployed servicemembers. “Right now, we’re greeting soldiers
who are returning from their third or fourth deployment,” says Batey. “And some of them remember us from their last homecoming.” Batey says Hungry He-
roes does more than just welcome home returning servicemembers. The program also has provid- ed the community with an outlet to demonstrate its support for today’s ser- vicemembers. Now, when servicemembers return home from a deployment, they aren’t just greeted by a group of chapter members; church groups, members of the Knights of Columbus, and other civic organizations also gather at the airport to greet them.
Meeting and greeting
Members of the North DFW (Texas) Military Officers
Association and Greater Dallas Chapter gather at the Dallas- Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport once a month to welcome home U.S. servicemembers who are returning from deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan. The airport is a hub for inbound flights filled with servicemembers who are heading home for two weeks of R & R. Once servicemembers finish
passing through U.S. Customs and Border Protection, they’re met by well-wishers who are wav- ing American flags and holding welcome-home signs. Others greet the servicemembers with hugs and handshakes as patriotic music plays in the background. “The whole Dallas-Fort Worth
community has gathered behind this welcome-home effort … and it has support from everyone from the Girl Scouts [of America] to MOAA,” says Lt. Cmdr. Glenn Wamble, USNR-Ret., member of the Greater Dallas Chapter. Members of the
Chapter members hung a large wel- come-home banner in the bag- gage area of the ter- minal.
Hampton Roads (Va.) Chapter also greet returning military per- sonnel at the air ter- minal at Naval Station Norfolk, Va. Calculat- ing when military air- craft will arrive can be challenging, however, because flight plans can — and often do — change suddenly. “We try to welcome
them home in person whenever we can,”
says Hampton Roads Chapter board member Col. James A. Smith, USA- Ret. “Arrivals get delayed though, which makes it difficult because a lot of these flights come in between
11 p.m. and 5 a.m. But we wanted to let [these returning servicemem- bers] know we care.” To accomplish that goal, chap-
ter members were granted special permission to hang a large, color- ful welcome-home banner, which was donated by Smith and his wife, Sylvia, in the baggage area of the terminal. Chapter members plan to donate a send-off banner thanking deploying military personnel for their service and sacrifice.
Sending them off the right way
Chapter members don’t just greet returning servicemembers; they also help send them off. When 2nd Lt. Scott Finks, USA, left for a deployment to Iraq in December 2009, several members of the Chattanooga (Tenn.) Chapter attended his unit’s send-off ceremony. It wasn’t the first time Finks received support from the chapter. While attending the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, he received an ROTC scholarship from the chapter. In Arizona, members of the Tuc-
son Chapter and Jane Pall and her husband, Maj. Vern Pall, USAF-Ret., president of the Arizona Council of Chapters, recently began support- ing Operation Exodus, an annual program sponsored by the Tucson Veterans Affairs Committee. Dur- ing Operation Exodus, volunteers gather at Tucson International Airport to assist hundreds of ser- vicemembers from Fort Huachuca, Ariz., who are heading home for Christmas before deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan. The Palls say the chapter plans to provide both mon- etary support and volunteers for the program in 2010.
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