Store employees gather items for troops
Employees of the Medford J.C. Penney store are rallying to send a box of supplies to soldiers in Iraq by the end of the month at the request of a store manager-turned-chaplain assistant. Sgt. Jean Turner, a full-time store manager on deployment with the Oregon National Guard, e-mailed fellow employees asking for basic supplies because of a shortage at the Base Exchange where the Eagle Point resident is stationed in Tallil, Iraq. READ MORE from Mail Tribune

Baltimore priest helps school children in Iraq
A Baltimore military chaplain serving in Iraq is helping put scarce school supplies into the hands of Iraqi students. Father Tyson Wood, a U.S. Army major, is one of many Americans involved in “Operation Back to School” at Camp Taji, Iraq – a humanitarian effort to collect enough notebooks, pencils, paper, rulers and other supplies to make 10,000 school kits for Iraqi children. READ MORE from The Catholic Review

Local families learn to help returning troops adjust
Never stop at red lights or drive slowly when you’re in a war zone. If another vehicle gets too close, ram it. “It’s one of the survival skills over there,” Army Chaplain Bill Cardin said. Returning soldiers have to relearn civilian driving along with everything else — especially relationships, Cardin said. Sunday at the Kelso Red Lion, Cardin and other counselors held reintegration counseling seminars for members of Bravo Battery, based out of the Longview National Guard Armory, which returned from its second tour of Iraq in August. Cardin said the Army started the seminars after realizing “that deployments have some impact on soldiers and famil

Soldiers learning to adjust to life after returning from Iraq
FAIRBANKS — It’s a cool Wednesday morning in September in Fairbanks, the type of fall morning on which you might see soldiers at nearby Fort Wainwright out for a run. But instead of training their bodies, 19 soldiers from Task Force 49’s 6th Squadron, 17th Cavalry and their wives are at the Alpine Lodge, training for better marriages. For the past three days, Lt. Col Jack Woodford, chaplain for Task Force 49, has been going over tips for a successful marriage at the Strong Bonds Training for Couples retreat. In the closing hour of the session, he reminds the couples, none of whom are in uniform, to “sharpen the saw,” to work every day to improve their marriage, an

Chaplain Assistant Called Into Service
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Spc. Michael Raymond, assigned to the 19th Engineer Battalion, has a calling, he returned to the Army to help Soldiers. After a 12-year hiatus following his first enlistment from 1990 to 1994, Raymond re-entered the Army September 2007 with the chaplain assistant military occupation specialty. He is currently on a 12-month deployment to Kandahar, Afghanistan. “I felt called back to the service,” said Raymond. “Soldiers are married with families and are completing multiple deployments; specifically I really wanted to help Soldiers with the problems that come from those two areas.”