MWR employee works with pilots to remember missing Soldiers

Photo By Sgt. Maj. Chris Seaton | Gloria Vickers (left), the coordinator for Camp Taji's Morale, Welfare and Recreation Center, poses with Keith and Carolyn Maupin at a "Rolling Thunder" motorcycle rally, May 27. The Maupins are the parents of Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin, a Soldier who, until recently, was listed as missing in action. Each year on the anniversary of Maupin's capture, Vickers has coordinated with the aviation brigade on Camp Taji to fly a flag over Baghdad in Maupin's honor.  

TAJI, IRAQ

06.18.2008

Story by Sgt. 1st Class Chris Seaton 

Multi-National Division Baghdad

By Sgt. 1st Class Chris Seaton
Task Force XII

CAMP TAJI, Iraq – They are the mainstays of Soldiers who have served through multiple deployments to Iraq, and Afghanistan. They are civilian supporters ... some are moms and dads; others are just people who want to help. Despite the politics, they continue to wear yellow ribbons, write letters and collect items to put in care packages for troops overseas.

Gloria Vickers was one of those people. She grew up a "Navy brat," living at bases all over the United States during her formative years. She's been active in organizations designed to help service members since the Vietnam War, when she was in high school.

When the Global War on Terrorism started, she joined a group in Tulsa, Okla., called Blue Star Moms – a collection of kind-hearted women who diligently provided much needed care packages and correspondence to service members, like her own Air Force daughter, in the desert.

But it wasn't enough for Vickers. She decided that she needed to be there.

In August 2004, she packed up and traded Tulsa for Taji. She had accepted a job as a Morale Welfare and Recreation coordinator for Camp Taji – a position she's held for nearly four years.

Ironically, after she started the job, she decided that the people who needed her support the most were not even in Iraq.

"I had decided to apply for the position April 3, 2004," she said. "On April 9, I heard that a Soldier had gone missing."

The Soldier was Keith Matthew Maupin – a young man who had been captured while on a convoy, and who later became the face of the war's Prisoner Of War/Missing In Action issues.

"When I took the job, in the back of my mind I thought if I go over there, I want to do something to help Keith and Carolyn (Maupin's parents)," she said. "I had emailed them, but the first time I talked to them was when I talked to Keith on the phone from Iraq, and the first thing he said to me was 'Hi Gloria, how are the Soldiers and what do they need?'"

Gloria unofficially named the MWR center "Matt's Place." While working to help Soldiers in Iraq, she also stayed in contact with Maupin's parents.

"On the first anniversary of his capture, I had met some pilots, and I asked them to fly a flag over Baghdad for him," she said. "Every year since then, I fly a flag for Matt and his family."

Vickers and the Maupin family grew close. Over the years, she has gone to visit the family in Ohio and has seen the Yellow Ribbon Support Center, an organization set up by the Maupins to help support Soldiers in Iraq.

She decided that she'd stay in Iraq until Matt was found.

Then it happened ... March 20, members of the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, found Maupin's remains. On April 27, Staff Sgt. Maupin was finally laid to rest in Cincinnati.

"I had talked to Keith and Carolyn, who I knew pretty well by that time, and I said, 'I think I'm going to (fly a flag for him) anyway,'" Vickers said.

Though Maupin was found, there were now three others missing. Two of them, Pfc. Byron Fouty and Sgt. Alex Jimenez, had gone missing May 12, 2007. Vickers decided to reach out again and enlisted the help of the Maupins.

"I asked Keith if he could get the flags to their families," she said. "He said 'if you get them flown, I'll make sure their families get them.'"

On May 12, 2008, one year after the two were captured, AH-64 Apache pilots, Col. Timothy Edens, and Lt. Col. Scott Williams, the commander and deputy commander of Multi-National Division – Baghdad's Task Force XII, flew the flags at the same time and in the same place that Jimenez and Fouty went missing.

"I've flown a lot of flags, but those were the most special," said Williams.

Two weeks later, with a little help from the Maupins, Vickers personally presented the flags to the Families of the missing Soldiers at a "Rolling Thunder" motorcycle rally designed to bring visibility to POW/MIA issues.

"The families were very touched," said Vickers. "Sgt. Jimenez's mother, Maria, and his dad, Andy, were so touched that people in Iraq had remembered their son in that way."

Vickers sent an email back to the pilots reporting: "Mission Accomplished."

"Doing that and getting the note back from Gloria, knowing that we had helped put smiles on the faces of those families who had gone through such a hard time, was rewarding," said Williams, who hails from St. Cloud, Minn.

Despite her initial plan to stay in Iraq until Maupin was found, Vickers says she has no plans to leave anytime soon.

"Matt's home now, and that chapter in his family's life is over, but they're not closing up their doors ... now they're helping other Soldiers," she said. "In the meantime, I've met two more families who are waiting to hear about their sons.

"They need some support, and they need to know somebody's here helping keep their sons' names out there," she added.

In the mean time, Vickers continues to serve the Soldiers – just as she has for the past four years.

"I'll be here as long as they let me stay," she said. "I want to be one of the ones, who turns the lights out."

• Date Taken: 06.18.2008
• Date Posted: 06.18.2008 11:26
• Story ID: 20604
• Location: TAJI, IQ