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Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Soldier thanks pupils for letters from home
By SCOTT WYLAND | News-Journal Staff Writer
PALM COAST — Dressed in desert fatigues, Spc. Keith Sugden told the 40 children who wrote to him in Iraq their letters gave him rays of light during a grim year.
Pen Pals |
Sugden’s young pen pals on Monday met the person who had been a faceless soldier in a faraway country, a mere name on a letter and envelope.
“I thank you for the letters – my buddies really appreciated it,” Sugden, 22, told the group of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders at Buddy Taylor Middle School. “So we thank you.”
In an interview, the Palm Coast resident said that while he was stationed with the Army’s 4th Infantry Division near Baghdad, he would sometimes receive 30 letters in one day, a great morale booster. He said he found it moving that children who didn’t know him cared so much.
“They were all praying for us, and they wanted us to come home safe,” he said.
Sugden attended the homecoming with family members, including his camouflage-clad 3-year-old son, Shane.
The pupils gave Sugden some commemorative items – a certificate, a U.S. flag and a plaque with an American eagle emblazoned above the World Trade Center.
All the children signed the back of the plaque.
After Sugden made a brief thank-you speech, the pupils flung a barrage of questions at him. He sidestepped ones he deemed too grisly.
Kyle Clutter, 14, pressed Sugden about how many Iraqi soldiers he had killed.
“Next question,” Sugden said.
Gene Andrew Capehart, 14, asked whether Sugden had seen any of his buddies die.
He watched a couple of comrades get injured, but they are OK now, Sugden said.
He said later he wasn’t offended by the questions, because children are curious.
“I know if I was that age, I’d ask a question like that,” Sugden said.
Sugden talked of going on 600 combat patrols and of thousands of Iraqis being arrested. He told how he fired an M-16 rifle, a 9mm gun and a 50-caliber machine gun, and that he often ate food packed in plastic pouches, known as Meals Ready to Eat.
When a young audience member asked whether he had been shot at, Sugden replied, “Yes.”
“It was scary because we’re always on call,” Sugden said. “Any time of the night we’d have to wake up and just run and chase people down.”
Don Apperson, a Flagler County deputy assigned to the school, asked how Sugden could tell friendly Iraqis from hostile ones, given that they looked and dressed alike.
Sugden said there was simply no way to know whom to trust.
With 60 days left before his three-year enlistment is up at Fort Hood in Texas, Sugden said he hopes to become a police officer in a large city.