Red Cross seeks volunteers to help military families

The phone calls can interrupt dinner, a visit with friends or a sound sleep.

"This is the American Red Cross answering service, we have a military call for you."

The next call is made by you to a sobbing voice trying to contact a loved one -- possibly thousands of miles away in a foreign desert or jungle -- and your task is to get the message out.

This is the job of an American Red Cross volunteer trained as a caseworker for the organization's Armed Forces Emergency Services. And there aren't enough of them to go around.

Right now, just four volunteers and one paid director handle these families in the 18-county region that makes up the Southeast Missouri American Red Cross Chapter. That's too few, says the director of the chapter's Armed Forces Emergency Services program, Ron McCubbin.

"There have been as many as 13 before but we dropped due to attrition -- after job changes, college graduation and family moves," he said.

"It takes a special kind of person to do this job," McCubbin said. "It takes a certain amount of tact and compassion to deal with families in crisis."

Caseworkers serve one week of on-call duty about every other month. This can change as the number of volunteers in the system changes.

On Dec. 11, caseworker Linda Blumenberg set up a Webcam for 4-year-old Aaron and his mother, Rebecca Brown, of Marble Hill, Mo., to record a message for his father, Sgt. Christopher Brown, who is stationed in Iraq with the Army National Guard's 1221st Transportation Company from Dexter, Mo.

"I don't think dad can smell the cologne," his mother told Aaron as he held up a small bottle to the camera.

Aaron told his father what he was going to do that day.

"We're going to see 'The Cat in the Hat,'" he said. "And it's going to be really funny, and I'll like it and I'll love it -- and I'll write you a letter," the boy said before sliding off his mother's lap.

That was about all he had patience to sit still for, so Rebecca then spoke to her husband alone.

"Happy anniversary," she said, both smiling and tightening her throat. "It's been 10 years. I'm still here and I wish you were here, too. I miss you -- big kiss."

Her husband first left for Operation Iraqi Freedom in June but was allowed to come for three weeks between October and November when she had eye surgery. Blumenberg helped Rebecca send the appropriate medical information to Christopher's commanders.

mwells@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160