Stryker Brigade News

In addition to those who are obvious on the Heart Lists of our lives, our children, and our parents, our spouses and members of extended family, some of us include those unsung heroes, the men and women of the U.S. military. They are the ones who serve proudly and mostly without recognition. They are the heroes we will probably never meet.

And here are two of those heroes who will likely never meet each other, but will always be connected whether they know it or not.

First Lieutenant, Brett M. Phillips, medic, is one such young man, hometown, Puyallup, Washington, home base, Ft. Wainwright.

First Lieutenant Phillips is stationed at Forward Operating Base Marez, somewhere near Mosul, Iraq. He is the Platoon Leader in charge of conducting medical screening missions for Iraqi citizens, young and old. Their missions are not easy. Sometimes they see well more than a hundred patients, men, women and children, in a couple of hours time…mostly with limited equipment and medications. They do what they can, make assessments, make referrals and give out limited medications.

Right now this battalion is carrying on the legacy of supplying much-needed wheelchairs whenever they can. This was a project “inherited” from their predecessors by the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment when they deployed to FOB Marez.

And, thanks to lst Lt. Phillips there is another legacy that his unit has adopted. That mission is unofficially called Winning the War, One Heart at a Time. This is a solo project started by one woman in Summerville, South Carolina in the Spring of 2005…pretty far removed from Brett’s home base of Ft. Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska and even farther removed from Mosul, Iraq.

The project is simple…one woman sending small dolls of color to one American soldier who will in turn hand them to a child in Iraq…creating a bond that might eventually change the hearts of two nations.

Until August of this year, the tiny dolls were sent to SSG William Verble, a medic with the 278th Regimental Combat Team, Tennessee National Guard, hometown Cookeville, Tennessee. He was stationed at Forward Operating Base Cobra, somewhere north of Baghdad. When he was unable to deliver the dolls himself he gave them to the military Civil Affairs people for safe and loving delivery. The good news is that the 278th RCT has done a reverse deployment and for the most part have returned to their various armories, mostly located in Tennessee.

The quest was on to find a new “delivery person” for the doll project and 1st Lt. Phillips was merely a few mouse-clicks away. God love soldiers and the Internet.

Jan Phillips, proud mother of Brett, is a first-grade teacher at Shaw Road Elementary school in Puyallup. As it turned out, the grandmother of one of her students was the anchor of the doll project in South Carolina. Mrs. Phillips was gracious enough to ask Brett if delivering the dolls was something his platoon would do on their medical screening missions. Brett was not only receptive to the idea, he was downright eager. In his words, “I look forward to brightening the lives of the Iraqi children.”

And so, as Brett’s name moves to the top of Heart Lists around the world, Winning the War, One Heart at a Time continues…Once again, it is pretty much a solo project…an Army of Two, First Lt. Brett M. Phillips in Mosul, Iraq and a grandma in Summerville, South Carolina.

The pictures that SSG Verble and 1st Lt. Phillips have sent home, Iraqi children holding tiny dolls have warmed hearts all over the cyber-waves, one soldier, one child, TWO hearts, all possibly changed forever.

Susan Preston Raybon

Summerville, South Carolina