131st Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

Story by Spc. John Higgins

By Spc. John Higgins
131st Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

TAMPA, Fla.- There are many realities of war: deployments, time away from family, danger and injury.

When a service member is injured, their rehabilitation process is both a team effort and a family affair.

Operation Helping Hand, a Tampa-based volunteer organization and a donation-funded program, was created to assist that process, be part of that team and help those families. Helping Hand hosts monthly dinners, catered by a local restaurant, for the wounded service members and their families.

During these dinners, basic kits are distributed to families, which include dinner coupons, gas coupons and many other things needed to make their stay easier while their loved one is being treated at the James A. Haley Veterans Administration Medical Center in Tampa, Fla., where Helping Hand is primarily based.


Created in 2004, Helping Hand is the brainchild of retired Navy Capt. Bob Silah, who is also the committee chairman for the organization.

Silah, along with other members of the Helping Hand, found that a lot of the families coming in from all over the country to be with their wounded family members struggled to make ends meet, financially, said Silah.

"So I took the whole project to the Military Officers Association [of America]," said Silah. "I was the president at the time for the [MOAA] chapter for Tampa, and the board approved it, so we started project Operation Helping Hand at that time."

Silah went on to describe the circumstances of many families who come to visit and the many problems they can face.

"You can imagine a young family coming in here with hardly any money, still maintaining a home back where they came from and paying for everything." Silah said. "We found one couple that was living in their car, and, when we found out they were there, we gave them money [for lodging]."

"Wherever there is a need, we will help. That's our job, that's our mission and we've given out a lot of money and we're going to give out more money. The more these people need the help the more we'll be there to help them and we're going to continue until there's no more wounded." Silah said firmly.

Helping Hands isn't merely community outreach; it is also treatment by medical personnel, such as Dr. Steven Scott, director of the medical center's poly-trauma rehabilitation center, who sees the project as an essential part of rehabilitation.

""It's a way the community can reach out to these individuals that come back," Scott said of the Helping Hands. "It's something the community gives back to this country, gives back to them [the troops] and their families. And the community is really what rehabilitation is all about, we're trying to get these people back home, back to their lives and it really takes a community to do that."

Army Capt. Raymond O'Donnell, who was injured in a Humvee rollover said "Dr. Scott and all the therapists here at the hospital are doing an incredible job. In four months, I'm a different man."

"I still have a long way to go, the farther I go the more I realize how much I still have to do to get back where I need to be to stand before troops again." O'Donnell said. "God willing I'll continue to get better."

Anyone who wants to be a part of Operation Helping Hand should visit the organization's website at http://www.moaatampa.com.

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