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Old 03-01-2009, 04:35 AM
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Default Military survivors help each other heal

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More than 100 families who share a common, tragic bond gathered Saturday at Fort Lewis.

They came from around the country to help one another deal with the death of a loved one in the armed forces. For some families, the death might have occurred just weeks ago. For others, it’s been years.

“This is our family. We come together to help each other heal,” said Bonnie Carroll, founder and chairwoman of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS.

Carroll started the nonprofit organization in 1994, shortly after the death of her husband, Brig. Gen. Tom Carroll. He was one of eight soldiers killed in the 1992 crash of a C-12 airplane.

The organization holds about 30 seminars around the country each year. Participants at the Fort Lewis seminar came from as far away as Hawaii and South Carolina, and most had some connection to the post.

Adults attended a grief seminar in the post’s Cascade Community Center, while children participated in a “good grief” camp.

Norma Melo lost her husband, Staff Sgt. Julian Melo, in 2004. He was one of six soldiers from Fort Lewis killed in the December 2004 chow hall bombing in Mosul, Iraq.

Within two days of her husband’s death, people from the TAPS program came to Melo and the other widows from the attack. She said their support helped her through the stages of grief “in a healthier way.”

“I can look back on my grief now and remember when TAPS came to me,” said Melo, who now leads a monthly support group meeting. “I thought, ‘Look, they’ve been through that and they’re still breathing, still productive.’”

Melo tries to help others now.

“Personally, it’s about giving back, being there for someone else who is really new in their grieving,” she said.

Darla Reed of Phoenix has participated in TAPS events since 1997, a year after her husband, Capt. Joseph Oliver Reed III, was killed in a helicopter crash during a training exercise in Texas.

She was pregnant with the couple’s third child at the time of his death. Another widow invited her to an event, and she’s been going off and on ever since. Reed said her children, now ages 12, 14, and 16, have benefited.

“They don’t remember him,” she said. “It’s always helped them – there’s nothing like being surrounded by other people who have been through the same thing.”

Reed came to Fort Lewis this weekend to prepare for leading a support group back home.

Since its founding, TAPS says it’s worked with more than 25,000 surviving family members, casualty assistance officers, chaplains and other who support bereaved military families.

As of Feb. 6, 4,882 U.S. military personnel have died in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, according to TAPS.
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Old 03-01-2009, 11:40 AM
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Tradgedy Assistance Program For Survivors

http://www.taps.org/default.aspx
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