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Web site bridges gap between
soldiers, families
By KEVIN KOELLING
Managing
Editor |
TELL CITY — The wife of one of Tell City’s soldiers is
using her technological skills to close the gap between the
National Guardsmen overseas and the families and communities
waiting for their return.
Becky Hammack is a Web site
designer and a writer. In fact, one of her creations,
www.DreamersReality.com, is a Web site for writers. Poems
there, of her own and of other writers, offer glimpses into
the loneliness, longing, pain, and even the pride one endures
in being married to a soldier far from home.
She has
created another site, www.DreamersReality.net, where people
can go to send e-mail to soldiers. She created the electronic
pen-pals site because “it’s very important for our soldiers to
hear from home,” she said. Letters from school children, much
appreciated by the soldiers, stopped when school let out for
the summer, so notes from people in their community will fill
a void. “Let them know we ARE waiting for them back home,” she
urged.
Hammack, wife of Staff Sgt. Clint Hammack, said
combining her talents on the site fulfills several
needs.
“Soldiers overseas are looking for people to
write to them,” she said. “Writers like to write. Some
soldiers don’t have anyone at home. It helps boost their
morale, getting some mail.”
Part of the site is
protected from public view. There, family members who register
can seek or offer support. Hammack is a member of the
family-support group for the Tell City-based Guard unit, but
said her site is unofficial — it’s not controlled by anyone
other than her.
She will edit out any offensive
language, but while it has information from the family-support
group, “it’s not affiliated with them — we can say things they
can’t say. There’s nothing that would break any security
rules,” she stressed. “I don’t want to risk the safety of my
husband any more than anyone else does. I don’t want anyone to
go there and feel they’re risking anything.”
Hammack
said she works to enforce a no-real-names rule and wants to
ensure no one feels picked-on by anyone else. She also
discourages gossip. Rumors are bound to arise among family
members with soldiers overseas, but Hammack said she gets
verification of information posted to the site.
Besides
providing updates on what’s going on with the soldiers and
events back at home, her Web pages provide links to resources
such as the Red Cross and military legal and health-care
agencies. The family-support site is new, so she’s not sure
yet how well-received it will be.
“If it takes off, it
can be very helpful,” she said. “It can help relieve stress by
letting people know they’re not alone. Sometimes people feel
they’re the only ones who feel a certain way. When they find
out they’re not the only ones who have sad, lonely or hurt
feelings, it brings them up. The more people get involved, the
more it will grow and evolve into what they need.”
.jpg) She expressed her own feelings about her
husband being gone.
“It’s not bad at first,” she said,
“but as it goes on, it gets worse. We’re looking at November
(for the soldiers’ return), but that’s not guaranteed.”
The public-affairs officer for Company C of the 1st
Battalion, 152nd Infantry said earlier this month the Tell
City unit may be home by mid-November, but events in the
Middle East or elsewhere could change things.
The site
also allows people to view pictures of events expressing
community support, from the soldiers’ departure in January to
recent Fourth of July celebrations.
Hammack offered,
at the last family-support meeting, to edit videotape segments
from family members onto a compact disc she can send to the
troops. She hopes to get as many as possible, and will
intersperse the family pieces with still shots from the
events. She suggests people copy the segments they want to
send onto a separate tape if possible. If not, they should
call her to set up a time she can devote to going through
entire tapes.
How long it will take to complete a CD
depends on how many people respond, Hammack said. “The more
mothers who get involved, the better. Hopefully, we’ll get
enough variety the soldiers will each say, “There’s my kid!”
she said. “They’re missing their children growing
up.”
Her offer isn’t limited to members of the
family-support group, she said, and she’s also willing to help
anyone who needs help setting up a computer or learning to use
e-mail.
“I’m pretty much a computer geek,” she said. “I
can tear them apart and fix them.”
Her offers come from
a need for unity among people sharing a common
burden.
“We’re a dispersed group, but we’re all one
group,” she said. “A lot of these guys grew up and joined up
together to protect this area, but were called up to fight a
larger fight. They were sent where they never expected to
go.”
For some, she said, basic training might be the
only other time they’ve gone off somewhere, as opposed to the
regular Army, whose units are used to moving around all of the
time.
“I’d like to remind people the war isn’t over
until the boys are home,” she said. “There are still families
left behind, and their needs are just as important now as they
ever were. It’s hard to get by day-to-day when your whole
world is on the other side of the world.”
PICTURED:
With pictures of her husband, Staff Sgt. Clint Hammack, close
by, Becky Hammack updates her Web site from her home. A
self-described “computer geek,” she offers site-development
and other computer skills to help make connections between
soldiers in Kuwait and their families and community back
home.
PHOTO: Kevin Koelling
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