Friday, February 06, 2009
The Oregonian
They were on night patrol along a lightly traveled road outside Kirkuk, Iraq.
The 49-year-old guy manning the 50-caliber gun atop the commander’s Humvee was an Oregon National Guardsman who lived in Beavercreek, worked in Beaverton, had a brother in West Linn.

You know exactly where this story is going. At least part of it. The blast from the roadside bomb ripped through the inch-thick bullet-proof glass, the largest piece of shrapnel blowing a fist-sized hole in Tim McCrary’s back.

The date was Aug. 31, 2005. McCrary was there because he chose to be, a former Navy guy who signed on with the Guard in 1996 and never flinched when 9/11 changed the job. “The mission is the mission, whatever it entails,” McCrary said. “I’m not one of those guys who joined thinking they were never going to be sent anywhere.”

Given his sense of duty, it’s not surprising he got to be buddies with a sergeant named Ken Henry. Henry is full-time Army. Back in 2005 when McCrary’s Guard unit was preparing to head to Iraq, they were short on medics. Henry volunteered to join the group.

The day of the blast, Henry was riding in the vehicle in front of McCrary’s Humvee. By the time Henry crawled into the wreckage, the vehicle’s floor was covered with his pal’s blood and spinal fluid. “I wondered if he’d ever walk again,” Henry said.
Three and a half years later, McCrary is disabled but walking. He’s back at his job with the city of Beaverton. After four tours in Iraq, Henry is stationed at Fort Carson, Colo.

As is often the case with war buddies, the two men have crossed paths only once since that day in Iraq. After McCrary was discharged, their lives parted. If not for Susannah Gardner, it might have ended that way — a fading memory from a never-ending war. Fourteen years ago Gardner and her husband, Dan, had started a conversation at a Blazers game with a guy named Bob Harding — Tim McCrary’s brother. Gardner describes herself as liberal opposed to the war. But when she learned Harding’s brother was in Iraq, it changed something for her. She started sending him care packages.

After the bomb blast, she started sending stuff to the medic who’d helped save McCrary. She even hooked him up with a doctor who shipped him some medical supplies. As Henry and his wife, Katherine, navigated the marital perils of one long deployment after another, Gardner tried to stay in touch with them both. Late last year Gardner was planning a California vacation when she learned Henry would soon be leaving for his fifth deployment, this time to Afghanistan.

“I thought, you know, I have a lot. We have a house at the coast. Our cars are paid off.” The Gardners decided to donate their air miles to the Henrys to bring them to Oregon for a five-day vacation before he redeployed.

Thursday morning, the couple landed in Portland for a day filled with free spa treatments, gifts and a dinner and dance at the VFW hall in Oregon City. Then they’ll head out in a donated rental car for a weekend at the Gardners’ beach house. “Susannah’s is just unbelievable,” Henry said. “We’re very lucky.” Gardner says she’s just trying to do her part in a war that for many Americans seems to be fading from view.

“These soldiers are still not getting a hero’s welcome when they come back. They’re out of the news, out of mind,” Gardner said. “I still believe in peace. I wish there wasn’t a war. I wish they didn’t have to deploy. “But this is the reality. This is what our troops are dealing with. We’re still at war.”

Andy Parker: 503-294-5945; daparker@news.oregonian.com
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