*Families and volunteers help Knoxville Marines in Iraq
KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- As if the war in Iraq wasn't hard enough, now local reservists are serving during the holiday season.
So Tuesday night at the Naval and Marine Reserve Center on Alcoa Highway, family members came out to make that distance a little shorter.
http://www.wate.com/global/story.asp?s=5742130
November 28, 2006
By TIM MILLER
6 News Anchor/Reporter
"It's been awful. I just can't explain it. I can't describe it. If I try to, I'm going to cry," said April Gordon, whose husband Kevin is with Delta Company in Iraq.
April had to spend Thanksgiving without her husband and knows she has to be strong for their 20 month-old daughter, Shalee.
"It's just so hard to be without him, especially with the holidays coming up and I don't feel real Christmasy but I want to do stuff for my daughter."
The Gordons joined dozens of other families and volunteers to stuff stockings for the local Marines and a hundred more from Lynchburg, Virginia.
Karen Potter's brother, Jason Russell, is also in Iraq. The event was a break from the empty feeling felt on Thanksgiving.
"It was very sad. Mom took it hard. It was hard for her to participate and everything. But Christmas is going to be even harder," Potter said.
The Marines should get the stockings within a couple of weeks. The families hope their Marines will be home in March.