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Log inWinthrop to Iraq: family, soldier stay together step by step
Winthrop to Iraq: family, soldier stay together step by step
by Outspoken on Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:19 am
From Winthrop to Iraq, family and soldier stay together step by step
BY BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal
WINTHROP -- The Phillips family travels together half a world apart toward a goal of 357 miles. Paula and Carol Phillips traipse the Carleton and Case roads of East Winthrop, and expect to top 100 miles this week.
Halfway around the world, Paula Phillips' son, Spc. Seth Phillips, runs the hills of Tallil, Iraq, and has racked up 200 miles. He is a combat flight medic with the Maine Army National Guard, 1/126th Aviation Regiment out of Bangor.
The goal is the distance between Kuwait and Baghdad.
The two Phillips women, who are sisters-in-law, started walking for health reasons a week or so before hearing about the exercise program under way in Iraq.
"I asked her if she wanted to join me on a trek to Baghdad here in Maine," Paula Phillips said. They joined forces and agreed to walk together between 12 and 16 miles a week.
"This is one way that I can show my son that I'm supporting him," Paula Phillips said. "If he can do it in 135-degree heat, I can do it here in Maine in 93-degree heat."
Seth Phillips -- at 19, the youngest soldier in his unit -- was ecstatic to hear they were joining him even though they are 6,000 miles away.
"For me it feels like I am going on a hike with my mom and my dog and my aunt," Seth Phillips said in an e-mail this week. "It's just that I am on the other side of the mountain and at the end of the long journey we will meet at the top and share our accomplishments.
"I think the whole run to Baghdad is a way for families to connect even though we are so far apart because we are all getting the sense of accomplishing something together as family and friends. It also gives us something to talk about and it promotes a healthy environment for our families to live in."
He said the run to Baghdad was initiated as a way to keep physically fit. "The idea has worked magnificently as the number of soldiers doing consistent exercise over here is 100 percent," Seth Phillips said.
The unit is known as the Black Bear Medevacs, and the Phillips women proudly wear T-shirts from the unit.
Carol Phillips works as a cardiac nurse in Waterville; Paula Phillips works with autistic children at Laura E. Richards School in Gardiner. They try to walk after work.
Paula Phillips said her three sisters, who live in Massachusetts and Vermont, are also going the distance, but they are combining their miles.
Seth Phillips was most recently in Maine in February at his father's funeral. Now, he carries the flag that draped his father's coffin.
"Knowing my husband, he would be very proud to have the flag over there," Paula Phillips said. "It will fly with my son. Every time he goes on a rescue mission, that flag will be in my son's helicopter."
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/5142211.html
Staff photo by Joe Phelan
BY BETTY ADAMS
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal
WINTHROP -- The Phillips family travels together half a world apart toward a goal of 357 miles. Paula and Carol Phillips traipse the Carleton and Case roads of East Winthrop, and expect to top 100 miles this week.
Halfway around the world, Paula Phillips' son, Spc. Seth Phillips, runs the hills of Tallil, Iraq, and has racked up 200 miles. He is a combat flight medic with the Maine Army National Guard, 1/126th Aviation Regiment out of Bangor.
The goal is the distance between Kuwait and Baghdad.
The two Phillips women, who are sisters-in-law, started walking for health reasons a week or so before hearing about the exercise program under way in Iraq.
"I asked her if she wanted to join me on a trek to Baghdad here in Maine," Paula Phillips said. They joined forces and agreed to walk together between 12 and 16 miles a week.
"This is one way that I can show my son that I'm supporting him," Paula Phillips said. "If he can do it in 135-degree heat, I can do it here in Maine in 93-degree heat."
Seth Phillips -- at 19, the youngest soldier in his unit -- was ecstatic to hear they were joining him even though they are 6,000 miles away.
"For me it feels like I am going on a hike with my mom and my dog and my aunt," Seth Phillips said in an e-mail this week. "It's just that I am on the other side of the mountain and at the end of the long journey we will meet at the top and share our accomplishments.
"I think the whole run to Baghdad is a way for families to connect even though we are so far apart because we are all getting the sense of accomplishing something together as family and friends. It also gives us something to talk about and it promotes a healthy environment for our families to live in."
He said the run to Baghdad was initiated as a way to keep physically fit. "The idea has worked magnificently as the number of soldiers doing consistent exercise over here is 100 percent," Seth Phillips said.
The unit is known as the Black Bear Medevacs, and the Phillips women proudly wear T-shirts from the unit.
Carol Phillips works as a cardiac nurse in Waterville; Paula Phillips works with autistic children at Laura E. Richards School in Gardiner. They try to walk after work.
Paula Phillips said her three sisters, who live in Massachusetts and Vermont, are also going the distance, but they are combining their miles.
Seth Phillips was most recently in Maine in February at his father's funeral. Now, he carries the flag that draped his father's coffin.
"Knowing my husband, he would be very proud to have the flag over there," Paula Phillips said. "It will fly with my son. Every time he goes on a rescue mission, that flag will be in my son's helicopter."
http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/5142211.html
Staff photo by Joe Phelan
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."
Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
