Group Comes Through for Soldiers, Families
Melissa House
Bayonet staff
October 30, 2005
When her best friend's husband was evacuated to Brooke Army Medical Center, Dawn McMaster
went to work finding help. When the Soldier came off his breathing tube, he asked for his parents,
who could ill afford more than $2,000 for plane tickets. McMaster got help - in spades - from an
organization called Operation First Response, founded by two women from different areas of the
country who were brought together by their desire to do something to help Soldiers and their families.
"It was amazing," McMaster said. "Not only did they get tickets from New York to San Antonio,
Texas, but provided his family and the other families with money to help with expenses. And they're
still doing more."
Peggy Baker, OFR's president and co-founder, had been on the board of directors with another
charitable organization. She visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., with
a friend whose son had lost a leg and realized there were wounded Soldiers with needs American
citizens could fulfill. So she left one organization in order to found another, and recently, OFR received
its official nonprofit status.
"It has changed our lives forever," Baker said. "We get involved at such a critical time in the Soldiers' lives
and we've worked with some of them for more than two years. We went to find a way to help and it has
turned into so much more than we ever could have seen."
Since its inception in 2003, OFR has sent more than 1,000 black backpacks filled with T-shirts, undergarments,
toiletries and a handmade lap quilt overseas to Landstuhl Army Medical Center in Germany. Wounded Soldiers
often arrive there with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, she said. OFR volunteer Carolyn Crossley,
a nurse and Army spouse, hands the backpacks out overseas. "The backpacks get information out to the guys
really quickly," she said. "So, if they have issues, they can contact us. Carolyn has the hardest job - she's faced
with the trauma there."
But beside the backpacks, OFR has been able to provide 300 families of wounded Soldiers with things like plane
tickets, cash, food and clothing, depending on their needs, she said. The OFR volunteers are "on call" from their
homes in Virginia and South Carolina all day, every day. "We stay in contact with the Soldiers and their families,
even the ones who go home, retire or return to their units overseas," Baker said. "You become very personally
attached to them at a time when it's so emotional. You're adding one more to your Christmas list."
And with McMaster's phone call, OFR added a few more families to the list. The group relies on donated frequent
flier miles in order to provide family members with airline tickets. "We desperately need frequent flier miles,"
Baker said. "Having to purchase the tickets really drains the funds ." Sometimes, she said, the funds run out, so
they contact other agencies to get help. The Coalition to Salute America's Heroes is stepping in to help pay some bills.
"What a relief," Baker said. "We want (the Soldiers) to be able to concentrate on getting better and we're thrilled to be
able to help take some burdens off the families." "This is our way of letting the Soldiers know that America supports
them and cares," she said. "It's an honor to be able to do this."
OFR's vice president and co-founder Liz Fuentes answered the phone at 10:30 p.m. when McMaster called her
home in Cheraw, S.C., a small town of around 5,000. "She was searching the Internet for help and by some miracle,
she found us," Fuentes said. But according to McMaster, the miracle is in what OFR is doing to help her friend's
family and the families of other Fort Benning Soldiers. "When an organization helps like that and in such a big way
it's wonderful," McMaster said. "It just kills me to see how much they care. These people are angels. "And what
really stuck in her mind was something Fuentes told her about why she became involved.
"She doesn't even have someone in the military," McMaster said.
In fact, Fuentes only connection to the military is the fact that her cousin's husband served in the Army for a few years.
She got started, she said, watching the war on TV. "I have two daughters, 22 and 24, and they're safely in college,"
she said. "I kept seeing these sons and daughters going off to war." She started sending packages and got more involved,
to the point where she met Baker and decided she, too, wanted to focus of the wounded Soldiers. "We feel fortunate we
get support from the American public to be able to do what we do, she said. "We're honored any time someone calls us
for assistance because they feel we can help."
Fuentes was on the phone with a wife on Wednesday hearing the latest news from BAMC. "If it's good news, it's
overwhelming. If it's bad news, it's really overwhelming," she said. And something one of the wives she helped said
something to her that stuck in her mind and made her want to work even harder. "This wife of an injured Soldier -
in the middle of a tough time - said 'Don't worry about (us), Just make sure you take care of the other Soldiers.
We know we can make it through,'" Fuentes said. "To see (her husband) burned - to see his battle buddies burned
and to still be so stalwart - amazes me. But it would be nice if we got put out of business," she said.
Melissa House
Bayonet staff
October 30, 2005
When her best friend's husband was evacuated to Brooke Army Medical Center, Dawn McMaster
went to work finding help. When the Soldier came off his breathing tube, he asked for his parents,
who could ill afford more than $2,000 for plane tickets. McMaster got help - in spades - from an
organization called Operation First Response, founded by two women from different areas of the
country who were brought together by their desire to do something to help Soldiers and their families.
"It was amazing," McMaster said. "Not only did they get tickets from New York to San Antonio,
Texas, but provided his family and the other families with money to help with expenses. And they're
still doing more."
Peggy Baker, OFR's president and co-founder, had been on the board of directors with another
charitable organization. She visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., with
a friend whose son had lost a leg and realized there were wounded Soldiers with needs American
citizens could fulfill. So she left one organization in order to found another, and recently, OFR received
its official nonprofit status.
"It has changed our lives forever," Baker said. "We get involved at such a critical time in the Soldiers' lives
and we've worked with some of them for more than two years. We went to find a way to help and it has
turned into so much more than we ever could have seen."
Since its inception in 2003, OFR has sent more than 1,000 black backpacks filled with T-shirts, undergarments,
toiletries and a handmade lap quilt overseas to Landstuhl Army Medical Center in Germany. Wounded Soldiers
often arrive there with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, she said. OFR volunteer Carolyn Crossley,
a nurse and Army spouse, hands the backpacks out overseas. "The backpacks get information out to the guys
really quickly," she said. "So, if they have issues, they can contact us. Carolyn has the hardest job - she's faced
with the trauma there."
But beside the backpacks, OFR has been able to provide 300 families of wounded Soldiers with things like plane
tickets, cash, food and clothing, depending on their needs, she said. The OFR volunteers are "on call" from their
homes in Virginia and South Carolina all day, every day. "We stay in contact with the Soldiers and their families,
even the ones who go home, retire or return to their units overseas," Baker said. "You become very personally
attached to them at a time when it's so emotional. You're adding one more to your Christmas list."
And with McMaster's phone call, OFR added a few more families to the list. The group relies on donated frequent
flier miles in order to provide family members with airline tickets. "We desperately need frequent flier miles,"
Baker said. "Having to purchase the tickets really drains the funds ." Sometimes, she said, the funds run out, so
they contact other agencies to get help. The Coalition to Salute America's Heroes is stepping in to help pay some bills.
"What a relief," Baker said. "We want (the Soldiers) to be able to concentrate on getting better and we're thrilled to be
able to help take some burdens off the families." "This is our way of letting the Soldiers know that America supports
them and cares," she said. "It's an honor to be able to do this."
OFR's vice president and co-founder Liz Fuentes answered the phone at 10:30 p.m. when McMaster called her
home in Cheraw, S.C., a small town of around 5,000. "She was searching the Internet for help and by some miracle,
she found us," Fuentes said. But according to McMaster, the miracle is in what OFR is doing to help her friend's
family and the families of other Fort Benning Soldiers. "When an organization helps like that and in such a big way
it's wonderful," McMaster said. "It just kills me to see how much they care. These people are angels. "And what
really stuck in her mind was something Fuentes told her about why she became involved.
"She doesn't even have someone in the military," McMaster said.
In fact, Fuentes only connection to the military is the fact that her cousin's husband served in the Army for a few years.
She got started, she said, watching the war on TV. "I have two daughters, 22 and 24, and they're safely in college,"
she said. "I kept seeing these sons and daughters going off to war." She started sending packages and got more involved,
to the point where she met Baker and decided she, too, wanted to focus of the wounded Soldiers. "We feel fortunate we
get support from the American public to be able to do what we do, she said. "We're honored any time someone calls us
for assistance because they feel we can help."
Fuentes was on the phone with a wife on Wednesday hearing the latest news from BAMC. "If it's good news, it's
overwhelming. If it's bad news, it's really overwhelming," she said. And something one of the wives she helped said
something to her that stuck in her mind and made her want to work even harder. "This wife of an injured Soldier -
in the middle of a tough time - said 'Don't worry about (us), Just make sure you take care of the other Soldiers.
We know we can make it through,'" Fuentes said. "To see (her husband) burned - to see his battle buddies burned
and to still be so stalwart - amazes me. But it would be nice if we got put out of business," she said.
