
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 25, 1991                   TAG: 9102250144
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Southwest bureau
DATELINE: GALAX                                LENGTH: Medium

RALLY TOLD TO PLAN A WELCOME HOME

A U.S. Army officer told a Galax support rally for troops serving in Operation Desert Storm Sunday that the city could soon start planning another rally to welcome home the troops.

Capt. Gregory Hengel, with the 80th Army Division in Richmond, told about 1,000 people at the Felts Park gathering after a parade that the timing of his four trips to Galax has been coincidental.

His first visit with families of the Galax-based 424th Transportation Company came just before that 169-member unit was activated Nov. 17. The second coincided with its move from Fort Eustis to the Persian Gulf. The third came at the start of the air war in the Middle East.

"Now this weekend, here I am and guess what? The ground war has started," he said.

Hengel said his next scheduled trip to Galax is March 24. He predicted that, by then, they will be able to start planning a victory parade to welcome back the service people.

He took part in Sunday's parade which included area high school bands, Grover King VFW Post 1115, Scout groups and, most of all, family members and friends of service people waving flags and cardboard signs of support for specific people and the troops in general.

"As I was marching down the avenue," Hengel said, "I realized why I could not buy a flag in Richmond. You've got them all down here in Galax."

Galax is home base for the 424th Transportation Co. and the 107-member 343rd Medical Co., activated shortly after the 424th.

Mayor Van McCarter read a proclamation passed by City Council naming Sunday as the city's Support Our Troops and Families Day.

He spoke after retired Brigadier Gen. James A. White, now head of a regional Employee Support for the Guard and Reserve office in Roanoke. White noted that 57 percent of the nation's military personnel are from the National Guard and Reserve, and 20 percent of those now in the Persian Gulf had been activated for that crisis. Of that number, 11.4 percent are women.

White said 43 percent of all military people in the gulf are from the Southeast. That includes 950 from Southwest Virginia, aside from the regular full-time Army and Navy people, White said. He said Virginia is second only to California as the state with the highest amount of pay to military personnel.

by CNB