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06/20/2008
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Staff photo by Joe Phelanfrom the Kennebec Journal
Rep. Pingree hears varied proposals for health-care solutions
HALLOWELL Fire that cut communications labeled arson
MONMOUTH Police defended after slim budget rejection
State's schools chief to parley
Wasser will lead newsrooms at KJ, Sentinel and in Portland
BRIEFS
Hockey still in picture for Harrington
Portland boxer to face legend's son
All of today's:
News | Sports
from the Kennebec Journal
from the Morning Sentinel
$1.3 MILLION FOR HEALTHREACH
Families Matter grows to meet special needs
Chellie Pingree listens to ideas on health care reform
FARMINGTON Rain alters plans for 4th of July
District regroups after budget failure
Vote on county budget hits snag
Burnham driver wins checkered flag at 2 tracks on same day
Maine boxer gets unique opportunity
All of today's:
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from the Morning Sentinel
WINTHROP -- The Phillips family travels together half a world apart toward a goal of 357 miles. Paula and Carol Phillips traipse the Carleton and Case roads of East Winthrop, and expect to top 100 miles this week.
Halfway around the world, Paula Phillips' son, Spc. Seth Phillips, runs the hills of Tallil, Iraq, and has racked up 200 miles. He is a combat flight medic with the Maine Army National Guard, 1/126th Aviation Regiment out of Bangor.
The goal is the distance between Kuwait and Baghdad.
The two Phillips women, who are sisters-in-law, started walking for health reasons a week or so before hearing about the exercise program under way in Iraq.
"I asked her if she wanted to join me on a trek to Baghdad here in Maine," Paula Phillips said. They joined forces and agreed to walk together between 12 and 16 miles a week.
"This is one way that I can show my son that I'm supporting him," Paula Phillips said. "If he can do it in 135-degree heat, I can do it here in Maine in 93-degree heat."
Seth Phillips -- at 19, the youngest soldier in his unit -- was ecstatic to hear they were joining him even though they are 6,000 miles away.
"For me it feels like I am going on a hike with my mom and my dog and my aunt," Seth Phillips said in an e-mail this week. "It's just that I am on the other side of the mountain and at the end of the long journey we will meet at the top and share our accomplishments.
"I think the whole run to Baghdad is a way for families to connect even though we are so far apart because we are all getting the sense of accomplishing something together as family and friends. It also gives us something to talk about and it promotes a healthy environment for our families to live in."
He said the run to Baghdad was initiated as a way to keep physically fit. "The idea has worked magnificently as the number of soldiers doing consistent exercise over here is 100 percent," Seth Phillips said.
The unit is known as the Black Bear Medevacs, and the Phillips women proudly wear T-shirts from the unit.
Carol Phillips works as a cardiac nurse in Waterville; Paula Phillips works with autistic children at Laura E. Richards School in Gardiner. They try to walk after work.
Paula Phillips said her three sisters, who live in Massachusetts and Vermont, are also going the distance, but they are combining their miles.
Seth Phillips was most recently in Maine in February at his father's funeral. Now, he carries the flag that draped his father's coffin.
"Knowing my husband, he would be very proud to have the flag over there," Paula Phillips said. "It will fly with my son. Every time he goes on a rescue mission, that flag will be in my son's helicopter."
In May, the unit's newsletter carried this invitation: "Join us in our virtual run from Kuwait to Baghdad."
The route is divided into several legs: the Kuwait border to Tallil (95 miles), then to Ad Diwaniya (99 miles), then to Al Kut (61 miles), and then on to Baghdad (102 miles).
Lt. Eric Cain, who is the stateside contact for families and their soldiers, said Tuesday that he has heard that about nine different families are doing the virtual run along with the soldiers.
The 134 soldiers are scheduled to return to the United States in January 2009.
Betty Adams -- 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com
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