PITTSFIELD ROTARY CLUB District 6460 July 26, 2006

Visiting Rotarian: Tony Crane, Quincy.

Pike Press Picture: Besure to see the picture in this week’s Pike Press of Past President Walker Filbert presenting the Rotary International Award for involving many local factions in Humanitarian Improvement project to President Anna Revis. IT IS A GOOD ONE AND WE CAN BE PROUD AS ROTARY MEMBERS FOR ALL THE EXCELLENT WORK DONE BY ANNA, HER COMMITTEE AND ALL THE OTHER ROTARIANS WHO PARTICIPATED!!

Dan Mefford is now a grandfather, as reported by Dr. Ron Short....it’s a boy! Congratulations!

Program: Helen Wright introduced Steve Long, who has been a Army Reservist since 1981, and recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. Steve works for the Wright Place doing body work and is an excellent painter.

Ron stated that he enjoys being in the Army Reserves, was happy to be sent with his outfit to Iraq, although it was hard to be away from his family. Steve and his wife, Gena, have a home in Martinsburg Township .

Steve had taken many pictures while in Iraq, and had transferred them to his computer.

His pictures of the tents, mess halls, soldiers and Iraquie people were quite interesting. He drove a semi-truck on regular basis from Kuwait to northern Iraq cities.

It was nece3ssary for them to modify the trucks by putting on armor plate on the doors, reaching about half way up the side windows, to be safe while driving. The trucks were escorted by a 5 ton truck with a 50 calibur machine gun.

Still, he had pictures of many trucks that had been damaged by enemy explosive devices along the usual traveled routes.a trailer court, extablished by the military,and had air conditioning. They had to clean their weapons at least once a week due to the sand in the air, and the extreme heat. They were housed in trailers provided by the Army...air conditioned.

Many of his pictures included children along the road begging for food and water. Many villages have to drink out of the Euphrates River, which is extremely polluted.

His ‘Chow Hall’ served 7500 people, three times a day, and the cooking was done by Indian Nationals, under contract to the government.

Many pictures contained pictures of camels. If an army vehicle kills a camel, they have to pay $5000.00 for a colored camel, $15,000.00 for a White camel....so they do all they can to avoid hitting one.

There are many independent American truck drivers also driving trucks...They can make up to $120,000.00 per year, and it is tax free! However, they cannot carry weapons.....

He truly missed his wife and children during that year over seas. He had made good friends with some of the Iraq people, and found out there is a lot of good and a lot of bad in that country.

Most of the Iraq people feel trapped and scared of America, mostly because of years of miss information......

It was an interesting, informative program....Thanks to Steve, (and Helen) (and to Brenda Middendorff for getting us the ‘Power Point’ to use).