|
|
||
|
Keeping cool in the heat of battle Stafford parents of soldier in Iraq raising money to buy cool and safe shirts for his unit Date published: 6/19/2007 By Rob Hedelt LIKE SO many other parents of soldiers in Iraq, Jay and Valerie Chamberlain yearn for the day their son returns. The Stafford County couple, who live in Woodlawn, nervously follow news reports. In between infrequent phone calls and e-mails, they do all that they can: sending care packages, checking on their son's wife in Anchorage and praying every day for 1st Lt. Sam Chamberlain's safe return near the end of the year. "You never can quite relax and feel like everything is okay," said Valerie. But recently, the couple came up with a practical way to make a huge difference for their son and the 75 or so other soldiers in his company. "We'd hear from him about how terribly hot and humid it is there," said Jay, a retired FBI agent who now works as a consultant in the Washington area. "It's even worse because he and his men constantly have to be in full gear and body armor, with temperatures in the daytime at 115 degrees or more." The Chamberlains decided to get 24-year-old Sam, commander of an engineering unit in the Army's 25th Infantry Division, a few new-age moisture-management T-shirts to help him cope with the heat. They originally planned to send him a handful of Under Armour shirts. But they learned that's not a good idea because the polyester shirts can complicate injuries in combat situations, melting onto the skin. They were steered toward shirts made for combat and law enforcement, trademarked as driFIRE. The company that sells them says the shirts are "designed to deliver the ultimate in moisture management, comfort and flame-resistant safety." Initially, the Chamberlains were thinking small, just trying to get a few shirts for Sam, who knew from the time he was a student at Stafford High School that he wanted to go into the military. But when they shared their idea with him, the young officer, who attended West Virginia University on an ROTC scholarship, gave the idea thumbs-down. "He told us he wouldn't wear anything all of his men didn't have," said Valerie. "So we just decided to work at getting a shirt or two for all of the soldiers in this company."
Date published: 6/19/2007
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
|
|
|||||||||||
