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thedrifter
05-25-09, 07:39 AM
Draped in gratitude: Quilters put on massive effort for wounded service members

By Dana M. Nichols
May 25, 2009
Record Staff Writer

VALLEY SPRINGS - When 1,200 Marines and sailors return to Camp Lejeune, N.C., in a few weeks - after a long combat tour in Afghanistan - a Valley Springs woman will be there to greet each of them with a lovingly made quilt.

Gail Belmont didn't make all 1,200 quilts. That wouldn't be possible; each coverlet represents about two months of labor.

But Belmont has come to play a key role in Quilts of Valor, a national movement that, over the past five years, has inspired thousands of U.S. volunteers to offer handmade tokens of love and appreciation to service members wounded and traumatized by wars current and long ago.

"It was a grass-roots thing," Belmont said. "It was never expected to do what it has done."

What it has done is deliver more than 22,000 quilts to troops returning from the war and recovering from wounds, said Catherine Roberts, the founder and director of Quilts of Valor.

Many of those quilts have been awarded to recently wounded military men and women, often while they are still being cared for in overseas hospitals.

Current and former service members say the quilts have a potent healing power.

"I have seen them where they had them and they were blood-soaked from the hospital, and they won't even let (hospital staff) clean the quilt. They won't let the quilt out of their sight," said Michael McDaniel, a Valley Springs resident and a member of Vietnam Veterans of Diablo Valley, an organization that also serves troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It means an awful, awful, awful lot."

What Belmont and others will do over the next few weeks, however, represents an increase in the pace and magnitude of the giving. Never before have so many quilts been given out at one time.

Belmont, 57, and her parents, Virginia and Robert Belmont, 77 and 79, will pull away from their Valley Springs home in a pickup towing a trailer that carries roughly 600 quilts collected from the western United States. They will drive across the nation, and over six days will collect an additional 600 or more.

Roberts will join them halfway through the journey to document it on video. They expect to be on hand to give each returning Marine or sailor a quilt when they arrive home next month.

The cross-country effort began months ago when Quilts of Valor got a telephone call from Lt. Col. David Odom, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines. Odom wanted to know if his Marines, who have seen heavy combat in recent years, could have quilts when they returned home.

Roberts, Belmont and a network of thousands began sending e-mails and making phone calls. Quilters in Valley Springs pieced together some of the quilts, as did members of Independence Hall Quilters in Arnold and The Guild of Quilters of Contra Costa County.

And dozens of quilts are arriving daily from more distant groups. "Right now, we are receiving quilts from Washington, Arizona," Belmont said.

Belmont, known for her skill with the long-arm sewing machine used to decoratively stitch a quilt together, is now operations director for Quilts of Valor.

The organization is vast - thousands of volunteers find time and material to make quilts - but it has no paid staff and no money to rent a van large enough to transport 1,200 quilts across the continent.

Belmont said a $1,000 donation from the Vietnam Veterans of Diablo Valley will help her to purchase gasoline during the cross-country drive.

Quilts of Valor has subsisted on such grass-roots support since the beginning.

Roberts, who is a nurse and midwife, was living on the East Coast in 2004 when she learned her son, Nathaniel Vinbury, an Army man assigned to a military police unit, would be deployed to Iraq.

She wanted to do something. And she decided not to duplicate efforts already under way.

"I decided to focus on the wounded," Roberts said.

She said her vision was one of a wounded warrior awake at 2 a.m., alone with his injuries and his war demons. "And wrapped in a quilt," Roberts said. "And that quilt would then convey healing and love and comfort."

Roberts says she prays for healing as she crafts her quilts, and she believes that force resides between the threads, and it arrives when needed to aid the man or woman possessing the quilt.

The quilts are intended as psychological, social and spiritual gifts of gratitude.

While Quilts of Valor was launched to honor troops fighting in the current conflicts, many quilts are now also being given to veterans from earlier wars, including those who served in Vietnam.

"I cried when I got mine," said McDaniel, a Marine who served in Vietnam and is a Purple Heart recipient. "It was very emotional for me. It symbolizes a society caring about the effort that I made during my time serving in Vietnam. It sort of brings you home. It makes you realize there are people out there who really care about what you did."

McDaniel keeps the quilt on the chair he uses each day at work.

Belmont, too, is a veteran. She served in the Army during Vietnam. One of her assignments was to play taps on her trumpet over the bodies of comrades about to be shipped home. Now, she finds joy in bringing comfort to those who still live.

"I will keep giving as long as I can stand and quilt," Belmont said. "I know what it means for them."

Contact reporter Dana M. Nichols at (209) 607-1361 or dnichols@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/blogs.
How to help

If you'd like to support the Quilts of Valor effort, contact operations director Gail Belmont at (209) 772-2686. For information on Quilts of Valor, go to www.qovf.org

Ellie