DALLAS –When a Columbia, S.C., family reached out to the Fort Jackson Exchange to track down jewelry purchased by their son, a soldier who was killed in action in Iraq in 2007, several members of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service team came together to make sure the family would have a lasting memory.

Harry and Kum White’s son Pfc. Anthony James White, 20, served in Iraq with the 82^nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C. Pfc. White died in Iraq in March 2007, just days after placing a deposit on two engraved necklace gold charms from Camp Warhorse.

Harry White, a retired sergeant major who served in the Army for 30 years, had held off going through his son’s belongings for years and had recently found the receipt showing an unpaid balance for the charms. He turned to the Fort Jackson Exchange to help him get in touch with the vendor so he could recover one last memory of his son.

“I went to the Exchange at Fort Jackson and asked, ‘Can anyone help me?’” he said. “I was shocked the Exchange went out on a limb to do this for us.”

White was put in touch with Carol Lamb, a services operations assistant at the Fort Jackson Exchange, and her supervisor, Della Hannah. They immediately began tracking down the jewelry vendor in Iraq.

“He so desperately wanted that jewelry because of the connection to his son,” Lamb said. “I told him I’d do everything I could to help him.”

To try to find the jewelry vendor, Lamb and Hannah reached out to Hannah Kaetterhenry, an Exchange services business tech in Afghanistan. Kaetterhenry, in turn, contacted Camisha Smith, an Exchange services business manager in Kuwait to find the vendor, Lone Star.

“I made this one of my top priorities,” Smith said. “I was just doing my job, helping to make sure the family could have a piece of their son’s history—something their son wanted.”

Based on the receipt information, Smith contacted Lone Star’s headquarters in Fahaheel, Kuwait, and confirmed it sold jewelry in Iraq from 2003-11. Smith sent Lone Star a copy of the Soldier’s receipt, and the vendor offered to remake the charms for White for free.

The charms were sent to Smith, who mailed them to White. One charm bears the name “Alecia” on one side, with the Arabic equivalent on the other. The second charm reads “Cierra” in English and Arabic. Both charms were meant to be gifts for friends of Pfc. White. The charms are now on display in the Whites’ home, with other mementos of their son.

For White and his wife, receiving the mementoes of their son’s time in Iraq was bittersweet.

“We’re happy that the jewelry was re-created, but we’re sad he’s not here to spend time with us. My son was a joyful young man who left this world too soon.”

For the Exchange team, the ability to help a slain Soldier’s parents reinforces the Exchange’s mission to serving customers and treating them like family.

“I’m just really glad we were able to help Mr. White,” Lamb said. “Helping someone preserve the memories of a lost child is an awesome thing to be able to do.”

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The Army & Air Force Exchange Service is a joint nonappropriated fund instrumentality of the Department of Defense and is directed by a Board of Directors which is responsible to the Secretaries of the Army and the Air Force through the Service Chiefs of Staff.  The Exchange has the dual mission of providing authorized patrons with quality merchandise and services at competitively low prices and generating non-appropriated fund earnings as a supplemental source of funding for military morale, welfare and recreation programs. To find out more about the Exchange history and mission or to view recent press releases please visit our Web site at http://www.shopmyexchange.com.

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Media Notes:

For more information or to schedule an interview with an Exchange representative please contact Julie Mitchell, 214-312-3327 or [email protected].

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2014 at 12:31 and is filed under Press Release. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.