Kindness Comes Full Circle in Poland for Red Crosser Harold West

While working in Germany, I met Harold West, who simply goes by “West.” He came to volunteer with our organization by an act of kindness that occurred more than 40 years ago. West went into the Army right after high school. He was one of the last group of folks who had draft numbers and quickly found himself on the ground in Vietnam. West says that it was a good experience for him, but during that tour, he learned that his brother-in-law passed away. “That’s when the Red Cross contacted me. They helped me out quite a bit and offered support. I never forgot it,” he said. He recalled that this assistance was a defining moment in his life — a moment when kindness prevailed during the hardest of times. Many moons later, West’s story has come full circle. He recently deployed to Poland on behalf of the Red Cross as a member of Team 50 — a unit 21 of Red Cross Service to the Armed Forces (SAF) personnel. He and his colleagues are deployed for three to four months to 10 Army installations around the globe. Since the conflict in Ukraine escalated almost a year ago, nearly 70 trained staff have deployed to support troops. Fun fact — this is nothing new for the American Red Cross. We have supported troops in every major conflict for more than 100 years — including World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. West says that he never forgot about that event in Vietnam. Now that he’s retired, he wanted to see what he could do to help the next g...
Source: Red Cross Chat - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Military Support american red cross deployment Poland SAF service to the armed forces veteran volunteering Source Type: news