Neil Burt This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Tri-City Herald Online :: Local : Aging warriors

   www.tri-cityherald.com/tch/loc - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/7/2003   Last Visited: 4/7/2003

   Another seasoned warrior from the Tri-Cities going to the Iraqi front is 51-year-old Neil Burt, a career Army man with 27 years in active service to Uncle Sam.
   
   Burt was ordered to Fort Lewis 11 weeks ago and is on standby at the hospital unit for the 4th Infantry where he is 1st sergeant of the 396th Support Hospital Group. His wife of 10 months, Vicki, would love to be with him, but not because they are recently married.
   
   "I'd go, too, but I'm not deployable," said Vicki, a career Army nurse until she left the service in 1990. She can't re-enlist because she has multiple sclerosis and lupus. But she carries on as a nurse at Kadlec Medical Center in Richland, where she is a certified operating technician and licensed practical nurse.
   
   "I expect he'll be gone until it's over," she said, predicting that they won't celebrate their May 29th anniversary together until spring 2004 at the soonest.
   
   By then, it'll be two years together, with one apart.
   
   She said her husband believes he will ship out within the week when 118 boxcar loads of supplies for the support hospital head to Iraq.
   
   That portable hospital will be set up as a combat medical facility, and her husband will be in charge of the X-ray unit, she said.
   
   Vicki's own experience as an Army nurse in Korea and Honduras helps her deal with the current crisis, but that doesn't mean she is worry-free.
   
   "I'm sweating bullets in my own way," she said.
   
   Meanwhile, her husband, who is known around his unit as "the old man," has been training hard for more than two months, running daily and qualifying with his gun.
   
   "Everybody has been issued weapons and custom body armor," she said, adding that she's glad he's going to be in the hospital unit, not on the frontline. "Those guys are taking hot lead, really hot lead."
   
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