The Garden City Telegram
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A show of respect
Published 12/15/2008 in News
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
Look only on the surface, and you'll see a man who's lost his eye.
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Stephanie Farley/Telegram — Chase Sterling, a senior at Garden City High School, plays taps Saturday during a tree ceremony for the Heartland Heroes Pheasant Hunt. The event was organized by Tim Telinde and his daughter, Mackenzie Nix, who put on the weekend event as part of her senior Buff Project.
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Stephanie Farley/Telegram — Kim Kells, with Generations Salon, massages Melissa Allen's arm Saturday during the Heartland Heroes Pheasant Hunt weekend event. Soldiers' wives were treated to a manicure and massage.
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Stephanie Farley/Telegram — Kells also helped feed the families at the salon on Saturday. Nix said the weekend was aimed to give the soldiers and their families a chance to get away.
A deep scar that runs along the lower part of one leg.
Scars in the back of another man's head and neck.
Then there's the missing legs and arm.
"And I know they get a lot of people that look at them," Tim Telinde said Saturday as he sat in a room at the Comfort Inn, surrounded by wounded soldiers who have returned in the last several years from combat and who are now stationed and live at Fort Riley.
This weekend, though, Telinde and his daughter, Mackenzie Nix, tried to give the soldiers and their families the gift of looking beyond the scars and missing limbs -- treating them like people, he said.
The project
Nix, 18, a senior at Garden City High School, was looking for a Buff Project, which is a requirement to graduate at GCHS and involves a four-step process of producing a product, writing a research paper, giving a presentation and compiling a portfolio.
Nix actually has been working on The Heartland Heroes Pheasant Hunt since about July, and Telinde, who's a partner in Tallgrass Outfitters LLC, an upland bird hunting guide service in southwest Kansas, had been wanting to put on a hunt for soldiers since Garden City National Guardsman Travis Bachman died in August 2007. Telinde served in the military and said there's a connection with soldiers who've been lost in combat and action whether you know them or not.
After Telinde and Nix established contact with Fort Riley, they eventually came into contact with Patti Walker of the Wounded Warrior Project, which aims "to honor and empower wounded warriors."
Initially, Nix said, she and Telinde asked for about 10 soldiers and their families and planned for an event that allowed the soldiers to hunt with Telinde, with Nix doing something nice for the soldiers' wives and families. The event grew to about 21, Nix said, and a three-day event in which the families arrived Thursday night. On Friday, the soldiers hunted while the kids enjoyed crafts at Home Depot and the families took part in other activities during the day. A sponsors' banquet was held Friday night, with more activities Saturday, including a tree ceremony to honor local soldiers, including Bachman, who'd been killed.
Other than gas money to get to Garden City and back, the trip was free to the soldiers, and Nix said about 70 donors and sponsors contributed food, items for the families to take home and money to fund various parts of the weekend -- Comfort Inn donated the rooms for three nights for the hunt and weekend getaway.
The goal of the weekend, Nix said, was to allow the soldiers and families to get away, as well as to give the soldiers a place where they could come and be accepted with their injuries, she said, "and not to be stared at."
Nix said she learned a lot about herself while doing the project, including that life isn't just about working but also about enjoying yourself. As Nix sat Saturday night -- the last night for the soldiers and their families in town -- at the Comfort Inn, she looked around the room at the wounded soldiers who were having a good time talking with one another and said they've learned from their injuries, and she's learned from them too. They're able to joke about the bad things that have happened to them, she said.
"Life doesn't have to be so serious," Nix said.
Giving
Telinde said he traveled to Fort Riley to let the soldiers know he was serious about hosting an event to help them get away and hunt for a weekend.
In organizing the event with Nix, Telinde said, the whole thing swelled and grew, with the community matching the growth to support the weekend hunt and getaway.
"This whole community gave," he said, adding the community is one that takes care of those who need to be taken care of and that when it finds a cause, people turn out to do whatever needs to be done.
Telinde said Nix showed dignity and respect to the soldiers. Telinde served and said respecting soldiers is part of growing up in his household -- all of his children know how to recite the Pledge of Allegiance; they know all of the words to the "Star Spangled Banner"; and the family flies the flag when it should.
Nix and Telinde were looking to do something nice and relaxing for the Army wives, and that's how they came into contact with one of the event's donors, Kim Kells and Generations Salon, 111 E. Laurel St. Kells spent Saturday giving the women manicures and massages, plus a haircut for one. She also fed them breakfast and lunch and talked and listened to them about their lives.
Kells' son, Jerry Strickert, 19, left for boot camp Jan. 21 and graduated in April for the Marines. She said she'd known for awhile that Jerry would end up going into the military -- Kells' family has a history of serving in the military. She said Nix and Telinde contacted her about the project, and Kells thought, "How could you not help?"
She said that for her, helping is a matter of respect and recognition toward all soldiers and a responsibility, adding that if it weren't for the soldiers, we wouldn't have a lot of what we do today.
"I look at them, and it's real easy to see my son," she said, adding she helps now and hopes that if Jerry is ever in a similar situation, others will help him.
"Pay it forward," she said of helping. "Let your act of kindness keep going."
Jerry's a private first class (PFC) at Camp Pendleton in California. Kells said that regardless of whether people agree with the war, they need to support the troops because they're doing a job like everyone else.
Kells also is looking for anyone in the community who has a soldier to bring in a picture and short write-up on their soldier for the window she and the salon are decorating. Kells is looking for 4-by-6-inch or 5-by-7-inch photos of soldiers and a description of them.
"I miss my son," Kells said Saturday night after finishing up the manicures and massages for the women. She said she can see the camaraderie among the soldiers and their families and hopes for that for Jerry, adding she thought about him a lot during the day.
A breath
"How do you get back to normalcy?" Amanda Ryker asked Patti Walker, with the Wounded Warrior Project, as the two shopped Saturday in downtown Garden City.
"I don't think you do," they both said to one another.
Ryker's husband, Ronnie, was wounded in November 2003. Walker's husband, Kevin, also was wounded in the military. That's how Walker came to have her job -- she had vowed after Kevin was injured to help others and their families going through the same thing because no one had been there for her. She formed a nonprofit to help wounded soldiers and then went full-time for the military doing the same type of work.
She said both soldiers and their families go through a grieving process when the soldier is wounded because "what you had before is never the same."
Walker said the weekend event was the breath she'd needed and wanted to take for awhile but hadn't been able to.
"They'll never understand how grateful we are," Walker said of Nix and Telinde.
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