My daughter, 1LT Sarah E. Gilley, is an amazing young woman and Army officer.
A 2007 graduate of the US Military Academy, she has been in Afghanistan since the middle of December 2008.
She serves as a military intelligence officer with the 101st Airborne Division, 159th Aviation Brigade.
On September 3rd, she was on a mission to a remote area of Afghanistan when helicopter she was in was hit by a rocket propelled grenade. 13 of 21 onboard injured. She administered first aid to the most severly wounded - a soldier now at Walter Reed, and is credited with saving his life. I got the news on the Friday night of Labor Day weekend.
She will be among the last 12 in her Brigade to leave Afghanistan, hopefully on Dec 12. Should arrive in States around 15th and has a week of required redeployment debriefings. Would love to fly her home to be with us and to celebrate a year's worth of holidays that we missed this past year.
Thanks for this program and for considering Sarah. You are going to make one family VERY happy!
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My son Senior Airman Christopher J Pfeiffer has not been home for a holiday (including his 21st birthday) since 2004. Please bring my only son home for the holidays.
After high school graduation, my son wanted to enlist in the Air Force to serve his country. Granting his Grandparents wishes, he did not, instead grew his own wings and moved to Phoenix, AZ for a job working with his best friend for a computer company.
With one of his grandmothers in failing health he moved back to Fort Wayne. After her passing he decided life was too short not to live his dream and enlisted in the United States Air Force leaving for boot camp December 12, 2006. May 2007 we were able to get him home for two weeks before leaving for Turkey to walk his sister down the aisle and give her away. After being stationed in Turkey for 15 months he was granted a 4 week leave in the fall of 2008 before his 2 year tour in Japan.
He was set for leave in the summer of 2009 only to be requested by name to be deployed to Afghanistan to replace a fellow Airman. On a deployment from Japan to Afghanistan you travel over the United States. With a little less than a 24 hour layover in Baltimore Maryland; with his sister at my side we drove straight thru to be able to greet him coming off the plane. Sending our love and prayers we placed him on the plane headed for Bagram, Afghanistan.
After his deployment, back in Japan he has received word that the deployment and dwelling time changed to six months and three months respectively and would take affect before his next deployment to the war zone again without taking a leave
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